Source: Department of History
Written by: Prof. Cheng Meibao
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

Jointly collaborated by Sun Yat-sen University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, “The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society” project funded under the Area of Excellence Scheme (AoE) of Hong Kong has recently been reviewed and is highly regarded by the assessment panel.

Composed of internationally renowned history and sociology scholars, the Monitoring and Assessment Panel has reviewed the first stage of the project carefully and is in full agreement about its excellent progress. The panel members find the work so far “first-rate and promises to make a major contribution to international scholarship on Chinese history and to interdisciplinary social science history”. They say that “it is rare for humanistic research to work in a large and well-coordinated team like this”; and that “the project is clearly on track to attain world-class Area of Excellence.” They expect the findings from this project to be “a real landmark in the fields of Chinese history and anthropology”.

The panel members are astonished to find that “the project gives every evidence of rapid progress on all fronts” – in the data collections and management of disparate field sites, in the communication and supervision among the researchers, in the continual processing and evaluation of the results, and in the steady flow of publications. In particular they find the CUHK-SYSU Centre for Historical Anthropology an effective platform for enhancing collaboration among a wide range of institutions in China, and for involving young scholars from across China to go to Hong Kong for a variety of academic exchange activities. Scholars invited are able to learn from one another their technical expertise and local knowledge of other parts of China, and are introduced to scholarly norms in the global academic community.

Funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong, the AoE Scheme is launched to support the UGC-funded institutions to build upon their existing strengths and develop them into Area of Excellence with international recognition. Six rounds of funding have been awarded so far and the majority of the projects are in natural science. Funded under the fifth round of the AoE Scheme, “The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society” project started in 2010 and is hitherto the only humanities project supported by the Scheme. Its progress receives much attention from the international academic community of humanities and social sciences.

To facilitate the project, SYSU and CUHK jointly founded the CUHK-SYSU Centre for Historical Anthropology in November 2010 as an overseas extension of the Centre for Historical Anthropology, one of the “Key Research Institutes in University” at SYSU.

The UGC of Hong Kong has approved the continuation of the project to phase two, and agreed to release the next tranche of funding to the project.