The opening ceremony for the fifth round of Areas of Excellent Research Projects “Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society” & the forum of “Historical Anthropology----Its Target and Path” was held in The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from May 5th to 8th. The leaders of the project Professor David FAURE of CUHK, Professor Liu Zhiwei of the Historical Anthropology Center of SYSU and co-researchers Professor Chen Chunsheng of SYSU, Professor Liang Yuansheng of CUHK as well as the main researchers of the project attended the opening ceremony and the forum. Professor Zhang Donggang, Deputy Secretary of Department of Social Science of the Ministry of Education was also invited.

The Areas of Excellence (AoE) scheme was launched by the University Grants Committee (UGC) in 1996 to provide a platform to nurture areas of international excellence through high-quality research and inter-institutional collaboration. Such Areas would be recognized internationally as of equal status to their peers in the same subject areas, and justify the additional investment in state-of-the-art facilities and activities which would maintain them among the world leaders. Five rounds of more than 15 AoE projects had hitherto been undertaken.

In 2009, the project “Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society” co-applied by the Historical Anthropology Center of SYSU, CUHK and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology was approved by the Fifth Round of AoE Scheme. This is the first social science project funded by AoE and it’s also the highest level cooperation in social science between mainland universities and Hong Kong universities. Professor Liu Zhiwei of the Historical Anthropology Center of SYSU is one of the three leaders of the project and Professor Chen Chunsheng is a co-researcher.