According to official data, in-service doctoral programs in Sun Yat-sen University include: business administration, public administration, philosophy, law, psychology, national economics, technical economy and management.

Sun Yat-sen University, referred to as Zhong Da for short, is located in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, directly under the Ministry of Education of People's Republic of China (PRC), and is a comprehensive national key university jointly established by the Ministry of Education, the State Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and Guangdong Province. It ranks among the national "double-class", "985 Project" and "2 1 1 Project", and is selected as the national "Everest Plan" and "665+0 Project".