China Awards PhDs for Products, Not Papers

Opening

Dear subscribers, last January an engineer defended his doctoral degree at Southeast University in Nanjing, China. There was no conference paper. No journal publication. Instead, he explained to the examiners the “reinforced steel Lego blocks” he had developed. The technology was actually used in the construction of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge, the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge¹.

When the science journal Nature reported the case in February, academia around the world took notice. A PhD without papers—can that really happen? And why now?

Today I want to unpack China’s emerging “Practical PhD” system and consider what it says about the meaning of degrees in the age of AI.

What happened: the birth of the paperless PhD

The protagonist is a civil engineer named Zheng Hehui. The pylon² he developed is a steel structure assembled like Lego blocks to form bridge piers. It is credited with shortening construction time and improving quality compared with conventional concrete pouring methods.

In fact, Zheng was not the first practical PhD. That distinction had already gone to Wei Lianfeng, a researcher at the China Nuclear Power Design Institute, who received his degree from Harbin Institute of Technology in September 2025 for developing a vacuum laser welding process and equipment. According to Nature, at least 11 engineers have earned doctorates through this route since September 2025. Their achievements include developing firefighting systems for large seaplanes and advanced welding technologies.

The important point is that this is not an experiment by one or two universities. It is a state-level reform. In 2022, the Chinese government instructed major universities to establish engineering graduate schools. In 2024, it revised the law to allow master’s and doctoral students to graduate on the basis of practical outputs. Today, 50 engineering graduate schools have been newly established, with 60 universities and more than 100 companies participating. Roughly 20,000 students are enrolled in the programs.