Cover Story：Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences was among the first group of scientific research institutions which were approved by the state for conferring doctor’s degree and master’s degree, and is now the only unit in Ministry of Land and Resources which has been authorized to confer doctor’s degree and has postdoctoral scientific research mobile station. It has the right to confer doctor’s degree for eight disciplines and master’s degree for eleven disciplines. With more than thirty years’ postgraduate student education and training experience, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences has formed fairly perfect postgraduate student education and training system and conveyed a large number of excellent talented people to the country. It has become an important base for training high level geological technical personnel and the cradle for training high-end geological skilled personnel. This special issue includes 21 abstracts from a part of doctor candidates’ graduation theses and from some postdoctoral leaving station reports during the period 2016—2017.