China

This chapter provides an overview of the current status of co-supervision in mainland China’s doctoral education, examines its benefits and challenges, and explores its future development. The research findings are based on a wide range of sources, including English and Chinese literature, government and institutional documents, surveys, and interviews. Co-supervision is mandated at the policy level, particularly in professional doctorate programmes that emphasize collaborative research. In practice, team supervision is more prevalent in the sciences and engineering fields than in the humanities and social sciences fields. The dual-supervisor model is dominant and the existing doctoral supervision training programmes do not sufficiently cover joint supervision topics. Due to the limited availability of empirical data in this area, this chapter concludes by calling for empirical research to address important questions and challenges regarding co-supervision in China.