SIS’s Research Center for European Studies Approved as High-level Center for International and Regional Studies

           On December 24, 2020, the Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges (DICE) of the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that the Research Center for European Studies of School of International Studies (SIS) was approved as High-level Center for International and Regional Studies, the only school in Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) to receive this title.

        In 2019, the DICE launched an internal evaluation of international and regional studies in colleges and universities. In early July 2020, the Research Center submitted the materials from 2017 to 2019 for evaluation. A total of 420 institutes nationwide participated in the evaluation, including 42 cultivation bases and 378 research centers (approved) and 17 research centers (approved) did not. The overall results showed an olive-shaped distribution structure, with 48 high-level institutes, 355 middle-level institutes, and 34 low-level institutes (including institutes that did not participate in the evaluation).

           Established in January 2017, the Center has become a research center (approved) of the MOE since July 2017. With the multidisciplinary support of SYSU and the regional advantages of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Center integrates resources and deepens cooperation to conduct comprehensive research on the politics, economy, culture and society of European countries, which is in accordance with academic frontiers and major national strategic needs. The Center pays particular attention to how Europe views and responds to China’s issues, and learns about Europe’s cultural perspectives and value judgments in an interactive cross-cultural perspective, thus providing academic reference for China's position and strategies in its interaction with Europe. The director of the Center is Professor Stephen Rowley (French), a leading scholar of 100 Top Talents Program, and the Center coordinator in China is Associate Professor Huang Yu, a young scholar of 100 Top Talents Program. The members of the Center are mainly from School of International Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Department of History, and School of International Relations. Twenty-one of the 45 full-time researchers in the Center hold senior titles, accounting for 46.7%. The working languages of the Center include English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and other major European languages. With distinctive international characteristics and interdisciplinary research background, the Center advocates an integration of humanities, establishes a comprehensive international cooperation platform, and makes great efforts to cultivate interdisciplinary foreign language professionals. Its members have made outstanding achievements in scientific research, including eight national research projects and eight provincial research projects, over 60 academic papers, 84 policy reports, five monographs and three books of translations. They also actively organize and participate in academic conferences at home and abroad. All of these show their wide range of academic and social influence.