On the morning of June 9, 2018, the second environmental law postgraduate student forum was held at 446 classroom of the law school. This forum was initiated, organized by the postgraduate students themselves. The main issues are PhD students’ learning experience, thesis writing and academic career planning.
In the opening ceremony, Prof. Qin Tianbao pointed out that this kind of academic exchange activities organized by postgraduate students are quite mature abroad and becoming more and more popular in China. He was very pleased to see postgraduate students from RIEL could catch up with the trend and hold this forum. He wished the forum a complete success and hoped that every student could take full advantage of this forum. Later, Prof. Alexander Zahar introduced how to enrich arguments by the example of 6th mass extinction and looked forward that would be helpful to students.
This forum was divided into three parts: research method, academic study and writing. The presenters include Charlotter Kabaseke, Mevono Mvogo Dieudonne, He Yingying, Guo Lei, Peng Zhongyao, Jiao Yan and Dr Zhou Di. And it was presided by second-year postgraduate Lan Ying. Postgraduate and PhD students from RIEL attended this lecture.
The topic of the first part is “research method”. Charlotte Kabaseke presented a report entitled “CDM governance and environmental protection in China and India: Comparative lessons and perspectives”. Charlotte compared the legislation of China and India on the basis of the background of clean development mechanism. She thought the clean development mechanism plays an important role in environmental protection and both China and India are making corresponding efforts. Mevono Mvogo Dieudonne’s report is “The Legal Aspects of Environment under the Forum on on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC)”. Mevono gave a brief introduction to FOCAC and its environment-related aspects. Based on the introduction, he analyzed the environmental protection contents of FOCAC from a legal perspective. PhD student He Yingying introduced how to identify a research topic inspired by your own practical experience. Based on the comparison of the differences between Chinese and western research plans, she pointed out that we need to identify problems in practice, examine the basic concept through facts and eventually determine the research plan with personal characteristics.
The second part is “academic study”. Dr Zhou Di shared her experience of studying abroad. From three times of studying abroad, she thought the overseas experience enables us to appreciate the diversity of life and to accept ourselves honestly. As for the academic viewpoints of western scholars, we should appreciate them with a learning attitude but also think critically on their influences to China. PhD student Guo Lei shared his understanding on how to balance academic study and life. In his opinion, academic research is a way of making a living, but also a way of life. He pointed out that we should be curious about the world, explore problems actively and live a healthy, meaningful, interesting and rewarding life. The ultimate aim of academic research is to use and to minimize the complexity of the world. Therefore, he tends to choose a research topic from practice and try to explain and improve practice with theories.
The final part is “writing”. PhD student Peng Zhongyao shared his experience on paper writing and contributions. He introduced the whole process of essay writing, including topic selection, literature selection, writing and modification. In addition, he recommended some tools available for contributing papers and gave some practical suggestions. Another PhD student Jiao Yan presented a report on how to find an academic topic in research life. From his participation experience in four legislative projects, Jiao Yan introduced how to refine the academic topic in detail. He emphasized that a good relationship can be established between research projects and academic topics.
At the end of the forum, the present students put forward some questions which those presenters answered respectively. Those participants all benefited a lot from this forum.
The objectives of this environmental law postgraduate student forum are to reinforce academic exchange and contact among all RIEL students, to encourage interaction between PhD students and postgraduate students, to create a motivation mechanism for academic research and to boost the intellectual vitality of RIEL.
