The first-level disciplinary doctoral program of Marxist theory, with ecological civilization as its research feature, takes the four second-level discipline directions of basic principles of Marxism, history of the development of Marxism, research on the Sinicization of Marxism, and ideological and political education as its foundation, and strives to build a high-standard, distinctive, strong and influential degree program.

（1）The research direction on Marxism's basic principles focuses on integrating “the basic principles of Marxism and the excellent traditional Chinese culture,” highlighting Marxism’s ecological civilization characteristics. It is committed to conducting academic research on the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture from Marxism’s basic positions, viewpoints, and methods.

（2）The direction of the study on the history of the development of Marxism focuses on the historical process, basic experiences, and objective laws of the development and dissemination of Marxism. It mainly studies the historical process and essential events of the development and dissemination of Marxism. It reveals the general laws of its development and dissemination, and the special laws of its development at different historical stages. In particular, it delves into the rules governing the formation and development of Marxist ecological civilization.

（3）The direction of Sinicization of Marxism, based on the overall study of the theory and practice of Sinicized Marxism, focuses on the research on the development process and laws of Sinicized Marxism, Sinicized Marxist classics and documents, especially the frontier issues such as the theory of ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics and the latest achievements of Sinicized Marxism in the 21st century.

（4）The direction of Ideological and Political Education focuses on promoting both ideological and political education theory and practice, and features research on ecological civilization education. It pays attention to applying fundamental laws and principles to guide ideological and political education practice, and grasping the cutting-edge issues of theoretical innovation in ideological and political education. This discipline's teachers have been researching ecological moral education-related theories since 1981. They were the first to systematically propose ecological civilization education theory's basic concepts and categories. The research on ecological civilization education has always been at the forefront of the country.

The discipline regards high-quality platforms as a significant support for its construction. In 2023, the discipline established an academic exchange base for ecological civilization research in Heilongjiang Province, further enhancing the scientific and systematic layout of the platforms. By the end of 2024, the discipline had one postdoctoral research station under the discipline of Marxist theory, three provincial-level scientific research bases, four platforms at the departmental and university levels, one national-level ideological and political course top teacher studio for university teachers，and four ideological and political course top teacher studios in Heilongjiang Province.