I. The discipline of Food Science and Engineering originated from the first “Food Engineering” specialty in Henan Province in 1980, and began to recruit master’s students in 2002. In 2010, it got the authorization point of master’s degree of “Food Science and Engineering”, in 2021, it got the authorization point of doctoral degree of “Food Science and Engineering”, and in 2023, it got the post-doctoral research station. The discipline is now the advantageous and characteristic disciplines (group) of Henan Province, the characteristic backbone disciplines (group) of Henan Province and the ninth batch of key disciplines of Henan Province, with the result of the fifth round of national discipline evaluation as B-, and the ESI global ranking of agricultural science in the top 5 ‰. The discipline focuses on the major needs of the development of the food industry in Henan Province, and mainly conducts research on basic theories and key technologies in the fields of meat, frozenfoods, fruit and vegetable processing and food safety, etc. It now has four stable disciplines, namely, agricultural product processing and storage technology, food safety, food science and food biotechnology.

II. Cultivation Objectives

To establish moral character as the foundation, adhere to the policy of comprehensive development of morality, intellectuality, physicality and aesthetics, to cultivate the students with noble ideological character, friendly political attitude to our country, rigorous attitude tostudy, realistic and innovative spirit, good professional ethics.To be highly innovative talents with solid basic theories and broad professional knowledge, strong ability to solve practical problems, and capable of independently engaging in the cutting-edge scientific research and technological development of food science and technology.

Specific requirements:

1. Adhere to the political position of friendship with China, support China’s foreign policy, abide by China’s laws and regulations and national policies, respect Chinese customs and habits, understand the mainstream values of Chinese society and public morality, form a good concept of the rule of law and moral consciousness, abide by the rules and regulations of the university, be friendly to China, and be of good character.

2. To adapt to the requirements of scientific and technological progress and social development, to have a sound and broad basic theory and systematic and in-depth specialized knowledge, and to have aprofound understanding of the direction of the development of the discipline and the frontiers of international academic research; to have good scientific and cultural literacy and the ability to independently carry out innovative scientific research and practical work, and be able to make innovative achievements in the food disciplines or professionaltechnologies.

3. The doctoral dissertation should be of highscientific value and have a certain social significance, be innovative in a certain research direction in the field of this discipline, and make innovative achievements in theory or engineering.

4. To have a good command ofthe Chinese language, be proficient in reading Chinese literature and materials, and have a certain level of listening and writing in Chinese, and be able to carry out normal international academic exchanges; be able to independently carryout the scientific research, teaching, business and technical management in the field of food science and engineering studied.

5. Be physically and mentally healthy and able to fulfill the requirements of study and work.

III. Introduction of major research directions

1. Agricultural product processing and storage technology: mainly to carry out livestock and poultry meat, frozen food, agriculturalspeciality and by-products and other processing and storage process related theories, new methods and new technologies.

2. Food safety: mainly to carry out food raw materials and processing, storage, circulation of safety hazards in the process of rapid identification, detection, control and traceability technology research.

3. Food science: mainly to carry out food components and functional polysaccharide in the processing of structural and functional properties of the law of change research.

4. Food biotechnology: mainly to carry out food ingredients biological manufacturing theory and technology research.

IV. Cultivation Period and Credits

Full-time doctoral students studying in China follow a flexible academic system, with a basic study period of 4-6 years and a maximum study period of no more than 6 years.

V. Curriculum, Compulsory Courses and Allocation of Credit Hours and Credits

The University implements the credit system for doctoral courses. Doctoral students shouldselect courses according to therelevantrequirements under the guidance of their supervisor before defending their doctoral dissertations. The requirements for the credits to be taken by doctoral students in this programme are as follows: the minimum total number of credits is 19, of which not less than 10 credits are for degree courses, not less than 4 credits are for non-degree courses, and 5 credits are required for compulsory courses. The specific curriculum is as follows:

Curriculum, Compulsory Courses, and Distribution ofHours and Credits

VI. Cultivation Model and Sessions

1. Cultivation Model

The cultivation of doctoral students is carried out by combining the responsibility of the supervisors and the collective cultivation of the supervision team. The supervisor and the supervision group are responsible for the cultivation of the doctoral students, including ideological education, academic style education, the formulation of the cultivation plan, and supervision of the dissertation. The supervisor or the supervision group is responsible for formulating and adjusting the individual cultivation plan of the doctoral students, organizing the topic opening report, guiding the scientific research and the dissertation, and so on. The supervisor should alsobeconcerned with the growth and development of the doctoral students in a comprehensive way.

2. Cultivation Structure

(1) Formulation of Individual Cultivation Plan

According to the cultivation program of the discipline, the supervisor shall guide the doctoral students to formulatean individual cultivation plan, including the course study plan and the dissertation research plan. The course study plan should be submitted within one month after admission; the dissertation research plan is usually submitted at the end of the 2nd semester.

(2) Literature Review and Dissertation Proposal

Before starting the dissertation topic, doctoral studentsmust read extensively relatedscientific papers in the discipline of food science and engineering, with at least 150 pieces of papers, including at least 100 pieces of SCI papers, and write a literature review of at least 5000 words. Doctoral students are required to complete the dissertation report at the beginning of the 3rd semester of admission, and the topic of the dissertation must be closely related to the research field of the discipline, and the dissertation report must be examined and approved before entering into the study stage mainly based on the dissertation research.

(3) Mid-term Examination

Doctoral students have a mid-term examination in the 5th semester, which focuses on checking whether the course credits meet the requirements, the progress of the dissertation research and the results of the stages, and on discussing the existing problems.

(4) AcademicExchange

A system of academic exchange and academic reports is implemented for doctoral students. During the study period, doctoral students should attend at least 10 academic seminars, symposiums, domestic andinternational conferencesrelated to their research topics, and make at least 3 presentations at the faculty level or above, inclusing 1 presentationat a domestic and international conference.

(5) Teaching Practice

Doctoral students are required to undertakea certain amount of teaching practice during their studies, of which the teaching workload should not be less than 16 hours. Teaching practice should generally be carries out as a teaching assistant, assisting the supervisor or the teachers of the discipline in teaching, experiments,supervisingthesis writing of undergraduates, etc. The supervisor or the lectures of the discipline are responsible for the final assessment.

VII. Dissertation

1. The doctoral dissertationsgenerally reflect thecandidates’ innovationabilities and their ability to discover, analyze and solve problems by comprehensively applying the knowledge they have learned. The dissertationsare requiredtobe written independently by the doctoral students under the guidance of the supervisors, and the writing requirements must refer to the “Handbook of Dissertation Writing for Postgraduates of Zhengzhou University of Light Industry”.

2. The dissertation of foreign doctoral students studyingin China, should be a systematic and complete academic paper, which makes innovative academic achievements in science or technology, and encourages the students to carry out interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary research work, and the dissertation should be able to reflect that the doctoral students have grasped solid and broad basic theories and systematic and in-depth professional knowledge, with clear viewpoints, sensible theories, clear ideas, and outstanding innovation and advancement. The dissertation should be innovative and advanced.

3. Before formally writing the doctoral dissertation, the doctoral candidate should have achieved some innovative scientific research results and published a certain number of high-level academic papers. The doctoral dissertation should be summarized, generalized, deepened and improved on the basis of the relevant dissertations published or to be published by the doctoral candidates or other scientific research achievements they have achieved.

VIII. Requirements for Graduation and Degree Conferment

The work of doctoral dissertation defense and degree application includes pre-defense qualification application, pre-defense, defense qualification application, dissertation (double-blind) evaluation, defense, degree conferral and degree public announcement. The specific requirements are implemented accordingto the Implementing Rules for the Conferment of Master’s Degree and Doctoral Degree of Zhengzhou University of Light Industry.

IX. Participants in the preparation

Hua Zhang, Qisen Xiang, Tao Wei, Wei Zong, Yanqi Liu, Jilin Dong, Ke Li, Junguang Li, Yizhe Yan, Qiangang Zheng, Junjie Zhang, Elena Vittadin.