Vision

The initiative of the Center for Global Economy and Sustainable Development (GESD) is based on the implementation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on “Accelerating the Construction of First-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines, Realizing the Connotative Development of Higher Education” and the strategic goal of the CUFE to build a“China's distinctive, world-class” international elite school. As a research institution equivalent to the school level, GESD was formally established in September 2017. It aims not only at conducting targeted research to respond to the challenges and realities of China's sustainable development, but also orienting efforts toward theoretical and practical research of frontier issues in the area of development and sustainability studies to establish a stable collaborative research network with scholars and academic institutions around the world. Relying on the international cooperative research team, high-level visiting professor mechanism and the research institute set in the Center, GESD will publish research achievements regularly, hold academic symposiums and cooperate with other research institutes, so as to promote the policy transformation of sustainable development and its related areas. GESD is firmly committed to being the main node of the global sustainable development research collaboration network.

Research Networks

So far, GESD has held an International Workshop on Smart Cities, Human Behavior and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Infrastructure Development, which jointly sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and National Science Foundation of United States. In addition, GESD also successfully held the 2018 International Conference on Economics, Finance and Management: Opportunities and Challenges of the 21st Century in Global Economy and Sustainable Development. Recently, GESD undertook the China-Ghana/Zambia South-South Cooperation on Renewable Energy Technology Transfer Project funded by the UNDP and ACCA 21, and was commissioned by ACCA 21 to participate in the OECD Workshop on International Research and Innovation Partnerships. As the major initiator, GESD has established the Alliance for Environmental and Development Think Tanks along with many universities and research institutes in China. Until now, GESD has launched the joint international research projects with University of Manchester, Wageningen University, New York Institute of Technology, Louisiana State University, and Texas A&M University. At the same time, GESD maintains the contacts with some other economic and sustainable development research institutions from Stockholm Environment Institute U.S. Center, Télécom Paris Tech, Université d'Evry-Val d'Essonne, Louisiana State University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Zambia, the University of Adelaide and Victoria University in Australia, etc.

Research Projects

GESD also set up the research funding program to conduct collaborative research by funding some part-time researchers in CUFE. This program currently is under implementation, including the special research funding program of industrial transformation and upgrading, the basic theory of digital economy, RMB internationalization, national strategic security and mobilization capability.

GESD Chronicle

In July 2017, GESD took the secretariat of the Urban Transformation and Innovation Research Committee of Chinese Society for Urban Studies，CSUS. Professor Guijun Li, the director of the Center, served as the chairman of this committee.

In October 2017, GESD completed the annual International Cooperation Research Network Conference jointly supported by the China-US Science Foundation: International Conference on Smart Cities, Human Behavior and Sustainable Development. This conference covered many important topics such as smart cities, building sustainable management, food-energy-water nexus and human behavior.

In February 2018, the Energy and Climate Change Research Group of GESD conducted a nationwide carbon footprint survey about dinner of Chinese New Year's Eve.

In May 2018, Liguang Liu, one of the deputy directors of GESD, went to Moscow to participate in the OECD International Research and Innovation Partnerships Workshop. He also made a keynote speech entitled Encouraging International Cooperation in STI: The ACCA 21 and its RETT Project.

In May 2018, GESD successfully applied for the China-Zambia Renewable Energy Technology Transfer (RETT) Cooperation Project funded by UNDP and ACCA 21.

In June 2018, GESD declared a joint research project cooperated with the University of Manchester and Wageningen University funded by between the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the European Urbanization Joint Research Project.

In June 2018, Yulong Li, one of the deputy directors of GESD, selected as a member of Beijing National Governance Talents Training Program (Phase III) with the research title of “Evaluation of Modernization and Improvement of Community Governance Capability for Megacities”.

In July 2018, GESD started the Alliance for Environmental and Development Think Tanks together with some universities and research institutes. Director Guijun Li and Deputy Director Yulong Li participated in the launched ceremony of the Alliance.

In August 2018, Liguang Liu and Dr. Yongsheng Wang went to Zambia for some research works last for a week and established the cooperative relationship with the University of Zambia.

In August 2018, members in the Center Research Group, like Yanqiu Song, Tao Wang, Huijia Li and Fan Meng applied for the projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China respectively. Li Yulong successfully applied for a project of Beijing Social Science Fund.

In September 2018, Yulong Li was invited by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade to participate in the High-Level Dialogue Between Chinese and African Leaders and Business Representatives. Yulong Li was interviewed by the China Trade News during the conference.

In September 2018, Professor Stephen Gray from Victoria University, Australia visited the Center. The two sides held talks about the research interests and reached a future cooperation intention in energy policy and water resources management.

In September 2018, GESD has published a series of research achievements in the journal of Science of The Total Environment, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Sustainability, Chinese Management Science, System Engineering Theory and Practice and other mainstream academic journals.