On June 6, the 2026 Seminar on the High-Quality Development of Museology and Heritage Journals & Editorial Board Meeting of Research on the Conservation of Cave Temples and Earthen Sites was held at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. The event was hosted by the Dunhuang Academy and organized by its Editorial Department. More than 60 attendees participated, including renowned experts and scholars from the domestic museology and cultural heritage sectors, editorial board members of Research on the Conservation of Cave Temples and Earthen Sites, and representatives from national academic journals in the field.

The opening ceremony was chaired by Zhang Xiaogang, Deputy Director of the Dunhuang Academy. Guo Qinglin, Director of the Dunhuang Academy, attended and delivered an opening address. Su Bomin, Editor-in-Chief of Research on the Conservation of Cave Temples and Earthen Sites, chaired the seminar and delivered the concluding remarks.

In his address, Director Guo Qinglin reviewed the important instruction given by General Secretary Xi Jinping during his inspection of the Dunhuang Academy in 2019, which urged "efforts to build the Dunhuang Academy into a model for world cultural heritage conservation and a high ground for Dunhuang studies." As a concrete measure to implement this instruction, the Dunhuang Academy actively applied for and established Research on Cultural Relics Conservation of Cave Temples and Earthen Sites. Since its inception in 2022, the journal has consistently focused on the conservation of caves and earth sites, gradually carving out its own unique positioning. Over the past four years, the quality of manuscripts has risen further, the author and reader bases have steadily expanded, and its academic influence has grown significantly. According to the latest data released in 2025, the journal's composite impact factor reached 1.081, its comprehensive impact factor stood at 0.986, and its Climax Index (CI) hit 314.292—ranking it 10th out of 35 journals in its discipline, reflecting a continuously improving academic impact. Moving forward, the journal will firmly adhere to the correct direction, fortify the baseline of academic integrity, keep a close eye on the frontiers of science and technology, serve national strategies, run specialized columns effectively, and strive to build a high-level academic journal.

Ding Detian, Deputy Director of the Editorial Department of the Dunhuang Academy, presented a work report on behalf of the journal’s editorial team covering its first four years. Subsequently, centering on the theme of "High-Quality Development of Academic Journals," attendees engaged in deep and enthusiastic discussions on core topics such as upgrading the publication quality of Research on the Conservation of Cave Temples and Earthen Sites, the journal's medium-to-long-term construction and developmental direction, and editing and publishing standards.

A succession of experts, scholars, and editorial board members spoke and offered precise, constructive feedback on the initial development phase of the journal, including:

? Shi Yucheng, Professor and Director of the Gansu Earthquake Agency;

? Dai Shibing, Professor and Director of the Historical Architecture Conservation Laboratory at Tongji University;

? Hao Yunhong, Professor and Executive Vice President of the Inner Mongolia University of Technology;

? Professor Guo Hong from the University of Science and Technology Beijing;

? Lyu Gongxuan, Research Fellow from the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences;

? Professor Huang Jizhong from Shanghai University;

? Professor Chen Wenwu from Lanzhou University;

? Professor Wang Jinhua from Fudan University;

? Professor Sun Manli from Northwest University;

? Professor Feng Huyuan from Lanzhou University;

? Liang Tao, Research Fellow from the China Cultural Relics Information Consulting Center;

? Zhu Zhehao, Associate Professor from Shanghai Normal University;

? Xu Fei, Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Yangzhou Grand Canal Museum of China;

? Wang Fengrui, Research Fellow and Dean of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Research Institute of China Railway Academy;

? Professor Wen Rui, Dean of the Graduate School of Northwest University;

? Alongside Vice Presidents Zhang Yuanlin and Yu Tianxu, Research Librarian Wang Wanfu, Director Yu Zongren, and Director Dang Yanni from the Dunhuang Academy.

Concurrently, representatives from prominent museology and heritage journals also shared their thoughts. These included representatives from Cultural Relics (Wenwu), Archaeology (Kaogu), China Cultural Relics Scientific Research, China Cultural Heritage, Archaeology and Cultural Relics, Journal of Palace Museum, Huaxia Archaeology, Southeast Culture, Cultural Relics World (Wenbo), Cultural Relics of Central China, Jianghan Archaeology, Sciences of Conservation and Archaeology, Built Heritage, and the Journal of Architecture Heritage. They shared mature practical experiences from their respective operations, covering aspects such as column curation, expanding submission sources, AI-driven submission and review systems, and cross-journal exchanges and cooperation, proposing many concrete operational measures and forward-looking suggestions.

In his final concluding speech, Su Bomin, Editor-in-Chief and Research Librarian, stated that the success of this seminar serves not only as a retrospective and summary of the four years since the journal's founding, but also as a blueprint and deployment for its future development. In response to the valuable suggestions put forward by the experts, scholars, and journal peers during the meeting, the editorial department will be organized to review and absorb them item by item, converting them into tangible measures to enhance the journal's quality. "We will take this meeting as an opportunity to remain true to our academic aspirations, refine our editing and proofreading operations, live up to the expectations of all sectors, and work hard toward the high-quality development of the journal and the joint promotion of China's cultural relics conservation cause."

Editorial Department