Since it was established in January 2007, the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies (SCCS) has become one of the largest and most influential centres of Chinese Studies in the world. In the UK’s 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, it was ranked number four among all the UK universities in terms of research power in Asian Studies. Since then, the number of faculty members and students has tripled. External research income rocketed from almost nothing in 2007 to over £4 million in early 2011.
Over the last four years, SCCS has created a comprehensive array of degree programmes at every academic level, from undergraduate to PhD studies. Some of the new programmes are now recruiting tens of students each year. Total enrollment of undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2010/11 was well over 200. The rapid expansion of our teaching programmes has been supported by an aggressive drive to recruit world-class teachers from all over the world, a series of cutting-edge research and publications on contemporary China and our external research projects and funding.
SCCS is well on its way to achieve its stated mission of becoming the best centre of research, education and policy analysis in the UK and Europe on contemporary China. Its ambition has been supported by its two institutes: the China Policy Institute (CPI) and the Nottingham Confucius Institute (NCI).
CPI is the only China policy think tank in the UK supported by an academic school within a university. Its publications include high-quality original academic research papers, policy papers and blogs, which have a powerful impact on the business and policy circles in the UK, China and the rest of the world.
NCI is financially supported by the Chinese government and jointly managed by Fudan University in China and the University of Nottingham. It supports the Mandarin teaching programme run by SCCS; the annual intake of students studying Mandarin has risen from some 200 in 2007 to nearly 900 in 2011. This is probably the largest Mandarin programme in the UK.
In overtaking Japan, China became the second largest economy in the world in 2010. It will surpass the US to become the world’s largest economy by 2020 if its current growth momentum continues. Along with India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, China’s continuous economic success and expansion will fundamentally change the geopolitical and geo-economic balances of the world, greatly shifting the world’s centre of economic-political gravity from west to east.
SCCS will continue to use this potential for enormous change as an opportunity to educate a new generation of China experts and business leaders, and to publish research results and policy analyses to help people understand China’s resurgence and its implications on the world economy, politics and society. I am excited by this opportunity and trust that the school will go from strength to strength, with a clear goal of becoming the leading centre of Contemporary Chinese Studies outside China.
Shujie Yao
姚树洁
Professor of Economics and Chinese Sustainable Development
Head of School of Contemporary Chinese Studies
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