Notes de terrain : choisir un directeur de thèse en Chine — et se faire choisir

What to look at

Recent publications, not total publications. Look at the last three years: are they still publishing in good venues, are their students appearing as first authors, and do the topics look like work you would want to do? A professor with an impressive CV but no recent student first-author papers is a warning sign.

Group size and funding. A very large group can mean less individual attention; a group with no visible external funding may mean no stipend top-up and restricted travel to conferences. Look for national key laboratory affiliations, which signal resources.

How to make contact

Write 8–12 months before the application deadline. The email should be short: who you are, your degree and institution, a sentence on your most relevant experience, two or three sentences on what you would like to work on that reference their specific recent work, and a question about whether they have funded places. Attach a one-page CV and your transcript.

Expect a low response rate. Sending fifteen well-tailored emails and getting three replies is a normal outcome. Follow up once after two weeks, and do not send the same email to multiple professors in the same department.

What they are assessing

Supervisors in China are assessing three things: whether you can finish, whether you will fit the group, and whether you will produce output. Evidence of independent work — a thesis, a project, a publication, a working code repository — matters more than grades, and a clear, specific research idea matters more than either.

If you get a positive reply, ask directly about funding, publication expectations, typical time to graduation and whether they accept international students into the specific laboratory you are interested in. Their answer to the last question tells you whether the project is open to foreign nationals.