The Forum on the Construction of an Independent Knowledge System for Health Policy and Management and the Development of Graduate Planning Textbooks was successfully held at Tongji Medical College. Hosted by the School of Medicine and Health Management and guided by the Health Policy and Management Discipline Construction Working Group of the State Council’s Public Management Discipline Evaluation Committee, the event brought together more than 100 experts and scholars from 34 universities and research institutions across China, alongside representatives from leading academic journals.

Prof. SHU Xiaogang, Vice Dean of Tongji Medical College, and Mr. ZHANG Xianfeng, Deputy Director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, attended the opening ceremony. Both speakers emphasized the critical role of the health policy and management discipline in advancing the Healthy China initiative and modernizing national governance, expressing strong expectations for interdisciplinary integration, theoretical innovation, and high-level talent development in the field.

The forum featured keynote speeches, roundtable discussions, and four specialized parallel sessions that zeroed in on health management, digital and intelligent health, health and society, and health economics. Scholars from top universities and experts from authoritative journals engaged in extensive academic exchanges focusing on grounding research in China’s specific context, responding to contemporary demands, and advancing knowledge system development from multidisciplinary perspectives.

A broad consensus was achieved among participants that building an independent knowledge system with Chinese characteristics in health policy and management must adhere to a people-centered value orientation while upholding foundational principles and pursuing innovation. The forum also laid important groundwork for optimizing graduate education resources and pushing forward the preparation of graduate planning textbooks, aiming to translate high-quality academic achievements into a knowledge system that reflects both Chinese characteristics and global relevance.

As a major academic event at the outset of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the forum yielded fruitful results and established a solid foundation for the sustained development of an independent knowledge system and graduate textbook series in the field, marking another practical step in the university’s commitment to serving the national strategies of building up a "Leading Country in Education" and a "Healthy China".