在中国学材料科学与化学

The leading departments

In chemistry: Peking University (ranked in the ARWU global top ten), Tsinghua, USTC, Nankai (one of the largest chemistry faculties in the world), Xiamen, Jilin (superhard materials) and Fudan are the strongest.

In materials science: Tsinghua, Beihang, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong, Central South University (metallurgy), Northwestern Polytechnical and Southern University of Science and Technology. Sichuan University leads in polymer materials.

What the research environment is like

Laboratories are typically larger than European equivalents, with more students per supervisor and more equipment per capital yuan. Daily operations are group-based with regular group meetings, and publication output is the primary measure of progress. Expect to publish.

The culture is intense but the resources are real: Chinese materials and chemistry groups routinely have access to national synchrotron facilities (Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing), supercomputing centres and well-funded instrument pools.

Getting funded

The great majority of international doctoral students in these fields in China are funded through CSC, a university fellowship or a supervisor's grant. Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes, which are not universities but admit students, offer particularly well-funded positions through the ANSO and PIFI schemes.

Because funding is tied to a supervisor's project, the deciding factor is again the supervisor conversation: write with a specific proposal that fits their current work.