Peking University awards degrees through a 学位评定委员会 (xuéwèi píngdìng wěiyuánhuì, degree evaluation committee) chaired by the President, with 学位分会 (sub-committees) doing most of the work by discipline. Your school or department runs the process; the sub-committee recommends; the university committee decides.
The rules that govern all of this were rewritten in March 2025. If you are working from a PKU document dated 2018 or earlier, some of it is now wrong.
What changed in 2025
China's 学位法 (Academic Degrees Law) took effect on 1 January 2025, repealing the 1980 学位条例. PKU responded with a new 《北京大学学位授予工作实施办法》, approved in March 2025 and issued on 9 April, which superseded the 2018 《北京大学学位授予工作细则》 outright.
Three provisions are worth knowing before anything else:
- Article 19 and Article 27: your supervisor is not a member of the defence committee, and the committee's membership is not disclosed before the defence.
- Article 34: if you dispute an academic evaluation from review, the defence or outcome assessment, you may apply in writing for 学术复核 (xuéshù fùhé, academic re-review). PKU must reconvene experts and decide within 30 days, in writing. That decision is final.
- Article 38: if you received a disciplinary sanction for academic misconduct during your studies, you cannot apply for the degree until the sanction period has ended and the sanction has been lifted.
Article 48 also bars you from submitting the same thesis, or two theses with the same core content, to two degree-awarding institutions. If you are on a joint programme, check the agreement covers you.
Expert review comes before the defence
Under the 学位法 Article 25, review happens first and the defence only follows if review passes. PKU's implementation is specific about the numbers.
| Master's | Doctoral | |
|---|---|---|
| Reviewers | At least 2 | At least 5, of whom at least 2 external |
| Method | Normally anonymous | Normally anonymous |
| One negative report | One extra reviewer appointed | One extra reviewer appointed |
| Two or more negative | Blocked from the defence | Blocked from the defence |
| Supervisor's role | May propose a recusal list | May propose a recusal list |
All review forms sent out must be recovered by the department. A department that wants to use a different review method has to justify it, write rules for it, get sub-committee approval and file it with the Degree Office.
The operational detail sits in an older document that PKU's Graduate School still lists among its current regulations, the 匿名评阅和导师在答辩中回避评议制度的实施原则. It distinguishes 单盲制 (single-blind: reviewers' names hidden from you, your supervision group and the defence committee) from 双盲制 (double-blind: that, plus your name and your supervisor's hidden from the reviewers), and lets each school choose. It also sets out the timetable that most schools still run on:
- The review application must be made 45 days before the scheduled defence. Late applications are not accepted.
- You provide 7 copies bound to the anonymous-review format. The Graduate School's downloads page carries a 2024 anonymous-review cover template.
- Reviewers are drawn at random from an expert pool, with at least two external. Your supervisor takes no part in drawing them and is not told who they are, though they may name experts who should be recused.
- The thesis must reach reviewers 30 days before the defence, sent by the department. Neither the supervisor nor the author may deliver it.
That document dates from 2002 and its account of the supervisor's role in the defence has been overtaken. Where it says the supervisor may be a committee member who withdraws during deliberation, the 2025 regulations say the supervisor is not a member at all. Treat the 2025 text as controlling.
The 答辩
| Master's | Doctoral | |
|---|---|---|
| Committee size | At least 3 | At least 5, of whom at least 2 external |
| Chair | Senior professional title or equivalent | 正高级 (full senior) title or equivalent |
| Supervisor | Not a member | Not a member |
| Membership | Not disclosed before the defence | Not disclosed before the defence |
| Vote | Secret ballot, two-thirds of all members | Secret ballot, two-thirds of all members |
The thesis goes to committee members before the defence, the result is announced on the spot, a detailed written record is kept, and the resolution is signed by every member before going to the sub-committee. Defences are held publicly unless the content involves state secrets.
If things go wrong, PKU has an unusual ladder. A doctoral candidate who fails at expert review, at the defence or at the sub-committee may, with their own consent, be moved into the master's award procedure, provided they do not already hold a PKU master's in that discipline. Take that route and you cannot reapply for the doctorate. Otherwise you may revise and reapply within two years for a doctorate, or one year for a master's, counted from the day after the relevant university committee meeting.
Format: the ten parts
The Degree Office's 写作指南 sets a fixed structure of ten parts, each starting on a new page: cover, copyright statement, Chinese abstract, English abstract, contents, main text including introduction and conclusion, references, appendices, acknowledgements, and the originality declaration with usage authorisation.
| Element | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Title | Normally no more than 20 Chinese characters, 一号黑体, centred |
| Chinese abstract | Doctoral 800-1,000 characters; master's around 600 |
| Keywords | 3-5, comma-separated, at the foot of the abstract page |
| English abstract | Must match the Chinese, and carry the English title, your name, specialty in brackets, supervisor's name, ABSTRACT and KEY WORDS |
| Margins | Top 3.0 cm, bottom 2.5 cm, left and right 2.6 cm, gutter 0 on the left |
| Headers | From the abstract onward, different odd and even; even pages read 北京大学博士学位论文 or 北京大学硕士学位论文, underlined with a 0.75pt rule |
| Page numbers | Roman numerals from the abstract to the contents, Arabic restarting at Chapter 1 |
Cover colour is set by degree type: blue-green for doctoral theses, yellow-green for master's by equivalent qualification, yellow for other master's.
For international students the important line is in the writing guide's page setup section: an English-language thesis approved by the Degree Office follows the same format requirements, and must use a Chinese cover page. Article 47 of the 2025 regulations adds the substantive condition. Chinese is the default, another language needs your training plan to say so, and a Chinese summary of at least the length the training plan specifies comes with it.
Similarity checking
PKU does not publish a university-wide 查重 (chá chóng) percentage for graduate theses. The threshold is set at school level and the published figures differ. The Law School's undergraduate rules require a final draft at 15% or below, and a student above that must revise with their supervisor and resubmit before going further. Other schools publish different numbers.
Do not plan around a figure you found in a forum post or on another school's page. Ask your own department's teaching office what threshold applies to your degree level and get it in writing.
Sampling, before and after
PKU runs two layers of sampling on top of the national one.
Its own 学位论文抽查制度 uses double-blind review by 5-7 randomly drawn experts and covers both theses entering review and theses passed within the previous year. It names priority targets, including theses from newly approved degree programmes, theses supervised by someone supervising more than four in a year, part-time and equivalent-qualification candidates, and anything suspected of plagiarism or improper citation. Article 6 is blunt: an already-awarded thesis that sampling reviewers confirm is plagiarised, or that is shown on sufficient evidence to have been ghostwritten, results in the author's degree qualification being cancelled.
The 处理办法 splits this into 事前抽检 (a proportion of theses randomly pulled for review before the defence) and 事后抽检 (quality sampling after the award). Two or more "unqualified" verdicts in any sampling round, national, municipal or internal, makes it a 存在问题学位论文 (problem thesis). The supervisor's admissions quota for the following year is suspended and their unit's allocation is cut.
Above all of that sits the national 博士硕士学位论文抽检办法: around 10% of doctoral theses and 5% of master's theses each year, drawn from the previous academic year's awards, three reviewers each.
Submission and deposit
After the defence you upload a PDF to the library's thesis system, containing the cover, copyright statement, abstract, contents, full text and references, with a scanned copy of the signed 原创性声明和使用授权说明 (originality declaration and usage authorisation). It must match the printed copies, which go to your department rather than the library. Each term has a hard cut-off date; for the June 2025 cohort it was 2 July 2025.
Classified theses do not go through electronic submission at all; they are collected by cleared staff and handled separately.
Doctoral theses are also deposited with the National Library of China and relevant specialist libraries, under Article 51 of the 2025 regulations and Article 30 of the 学位法. From there they reach CNKI (中国知网) and Wanfang.
The authorisation form includes a choice of release date, but PKU does not publish a maximum embargo period for a non-classified thesis. Ask the library and your department before you sign it, rather than after.
Pre-submission checklist
- Working from the March 2025 award regulations, not the 2018 rules
- Review application filed 45 days before my intended defence date
- Anonymised copies bound to the current template, names removed as my school requires
- Title within 20 Chinese characters
- Chinese abstract at the right length for my degree level, keywords 3-5
- English abstract matching the Chinese, with title, name, specialty, supervisor
- Margins 3.0 / 2.5 / 2.6 / 2.6 cm, odd and even headers correct
- Chinese cover page used even if the thesis is in English
- My department's similarity threshold confirmed in writing, and met
- Originality declaration and usage authorisation signed by me and my supervisor
- Release-date choice on the authorisation form decided deliberately
- PDF uploaded before the term's library cut-off
Where to get help
Your department's teaching office (教务办公室) owns the dates, the similarity threshold and the anonymisation format. The Graduate School and the 学位办公室 own the award regulations, the writing guide and the templates. The library owns submission and deposit.
If the problem is the writing rather than the procedure, our thesis writing support works chapter by chapter, and research paper support covers the publications many PKU programmes expect alongside the thesis.
