This study investigates the alignment between China's Engineering Doctorate (EngD) education system and the workforce demands of strategic emerging industries, with the purpose of identifying actionable reform pathways to enhance national innovation capacity. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory and triple helix innovation frameworks, we employed a mixed-methods approach combining document analysis of national policies (2018-2024), quantitative assessment of doctoral enrollment data (2020-2023), and semi-structured interviews with 28 stakeholders across academia and industry. While China's engineering doctoral training system has gradually improved,our investigation reveals five significant challenges: (1) insufficient talent pool with structural imbalances, evidenced by only 4,500 annual graduates on average during 2020-2023—representing merely 8% of China's total doctoral graduates and significantly below the estimated national demand of 12,000 annually based on industry growth projections; (2) uneven distribution across strategic emerging industries, with over 60% concentrated in traditional sectors while emerging fields like quantum information and synthetic biology remain underserved; (3) inadequate depth in professional practice with training processes still overly reliant on traditional academic doctoral models; (4) limited innovation in university-industry collaborative training models lacking effective interdisciplinary curriculum systems; and (5) low enterprise participation due to insufficient policy incentives. The significance of this research lies in its contribution to both educational policy reform and institutional practice, offering higher education institutions a comprehensive framework for redesigning engineering doctoral programs that effectively bridge the academic-industry divide while advancing theoretical understanding of professional doctoral education in technology-driven economies.

Authors:
Xinyu Lu, University of Zhejiang, China
Lin Chenghua, University of Zhejiang, China

About the Presenter(s)
Xinyu Lu is a Ph.D. student with the School of Public Affairs and the Institute of China's Science, Technology and Education Policy, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.

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