An international seminar on Tibetan studies started in Beijing on Thursday, attracting 246 academics from 21 countries and regions including Mongolia, India, Japan, France, Australia and the United States.

The 5th Beijing International Seminar on Tibetan Studies is aimed at "preserving culture and serving society". The topics of discussion focus on social development in Tibet.

Tibetan studies are expanding in China, with the government investing heavily in the protection of traditional heritage, printing of historic texts in the Tibetan language and the cultivation of young researchers, Lhagpa Phuntshoks, director-general of the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, said at the opening ceremony.

Sitar, vice-president of the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture, said China has been steadily endeavoring to preserve the Tibetan language, cultural relics, folk arts such as the Epic of King Gesar, and the religious practice.

Tibet has more than 1,700 places of worship, and China has invested massively in the renovation of major monasteries, such as Labrang Monastery, a 303-year-old school of Tibetan Lamaism in Gansu province, Sitar said.

Eleven topics - including religion, sustainable development and people's livelihoods, culture, and Tibetan medicine - will be discussed at the seminar.

The three-day conference has been held in Beijing every four years since the 1990s.

Nancy Levine, from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, shared findings on the experiences of nomads who settled in new towns, compared with those who rely on the traditional herding economy, from a recent pilot study in the Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Gansu province.

She warned that regional exceptionalism should be avoided because urban migration and nomadic resettlement are phenomena throughout the world. She called for other panelists to foster research networks, share information and not isolate their findings.

Losang Dradul, a researcher at the China Tibetology Research Center, said Tibetan people have benefited greatly from government subsidies and preferential policies in access to healthcare, education and job opportunities.

The annual per capita income in an average Tibetan household has seen double-digit growth in successive recent years. Last year, it grew by 17 percent to reach 5,000 yuan ($785), Losang Dradul said.

Tibetan students have access to free education before university. Pre-school and first, second and third grades are community-based and help parents take care of their young children, and graduates of vocational schools often land good jobs, he said.

Rigzin and Degyi, a couple from Gepel village in Lhasa, said they are grateful for government subsidies. With the farming machinery the subsidies enabled them to buy, their second son, Tashi, and his wife can take care of the household's 1.3-hectare farmland.

Tashi and his brother, Punthsogs, missed proper education, because when they were school age, the family needed help with the work.

The two other sons, Pasang and Galsang, and the youngest daughter, Tsamgyi, all landed good jobs after university study.

Rigzin, the 62-year-old patriarch, said he is proud that his oldest grandson, Losangchoipel, went to Changzhou Tibet Middle School in Jiangsu province in 2009.

"Because tuition fees and room and board at schools are all covered by the government, we experience no economic stress from sending children to school", Rigzin said.

Editor: Liu Xiongfei