On the morning of September 25, 2015, Prof. Yang Lijun, Vice President of the Institute of Public Policy (IPP) at South China University of Technology (SCUT), led a delegation to visit Shanghai Academy, where they were hosted by academy First Vice President Li Youmei and academy Executive Vice President Wen Xueguo. Both parties held a meeting to discuss think tank construction and cooperation matters.

At the meeting, Wen Xueguo and Yang Lijun introduced the positioning, operation modes, research fields and recent academic meetings of their two sides, and discussed and exchanged ideas around matters concerning how to build think tanks with Chinese characteristics, especially their internal mechanism, external relations and evaluation system. Finally, their two parties reached a preliminary consensus and expressed they would build a long-term cooperation and exchange mechanism, exchange experts to make lectures, make studies together with scholars from various areas, and jointly hold meetings to discuss issues on think tank construction.

IPP at SCUT is considered to be among the top 20 national think tanks. Prof. Zheng Yongnian serves as the director of the academic committee of IPP. Funded and built by Mr. Mo Daoming, an alumnus of SCUT, IPP is an independent and non-profit platform focusing on knowledge innovation and public policy studies.

The meeting was also attended by IPP associate research fellow Lin Huihuang, IPP research assistants Liu Wanqun and Wang Weinan, Ji Weimin, Director of Secretariat, Shanghai Academy, Yang Huijun, Director of Research Division, Shanghai Academy, Chen Yao, Director of Administration Division, Shanghai Academy, Nie Wei, Executive Deputy Director of Research Office for Humanities and Social Sciences of Shanghai University, Wang Jian, Deputy Director of Research Office for Humanities and Social Sciences of Shanghai University and other related personnel.

By Zhao Xueyan