In July 2020,Higher Education (SSCI Q1 categories) (Vol. 80, Issue 1), a leading international journal on higher education studies, published a article “What affects PhD student creativity in China? A case study from the Joint Training Pilot Project”. The research was conducted by Institute of Higher Education under Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Capital Engineering Education Development & Research Base.

This research extended the scientific and technical human capital (STHC) theory,which was first proposed by Barry Bozeman, a well-known American scholar in technology policy. It clearly stated the concept and model of scientific and technical human capital (STHC) of PhD students by defining them as the sum of social capital, psychological capital, cultural capital, and human capital. It also used the model to explain the development mechanism of PhD students' creativity in the context of industry-university-research collaboration. Based on the survey data of joint training pilot project of PhD students by universities and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the researchers conductedan empirical test on the extended model, illustrated the research results, and discussed the theoretical significance, practical contributions, and future research focus.

The research was supported by the Youth Program of Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education, the Research Base Program of Beijing Municipal Social Science Foundation, and the Innovative Talent Program of Beijing University of Technology. Liu Xianwei, an associate researcher from Institute of Higher Education under the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, BJUT is the first author/corresponding author. Dr. Liu’s research results and related materials have been submitted to the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Chinese Academy of Engineering as important materials for conferences held to promote and improve the joint training pilot project in the field of engineering in China,which also provide crucial references for the theoretical research and practice of the joint talent training by the industry, university and research institute.