CUHK
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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) held a summit today (18 November) on Assessment and Development of Academic Chinese as one of the initiating universities including Peking University (PKU), Nanjing University (NJU), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and Taiwan University (NTU).  A total of 32 cross-strait universities from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau signed a collaboration agreement to promote Chinese as an internationally recognized research language during this remarkable historic event across the four regions. 

The Summit brought together around 100 speakers and participants from more than 30 universities as well as Scopus and Web of Science, the two authoritative international citation databases.  Representatives took the opportunity to share views and exchange ideas on joint efforts towards the goal of enhancing the status of Chinese in the global academia.  Prof. Joseph J.Y. Sung, Vice-Chancellor of CUHK; Prof. Pan-Chyr Yang, President of NTU; Prof. Guo Xin-Li, Vice Party Secretary of SJTU; Prof. Lee Qiang, Vice Party Secretary of PKU and Prof. Fan Cong-Lai, Assistant President of NJU, together with representatives of 27 attending institutions, signed the Promotion of Academic Chinese Agreement to show their unity and dedication in the worthwhile initiative. 

Prof. Joseph J.Y. Sung, Vice-Chancellor of CUHK said, ‘Currently most authoritative citation databases index English journals.  Non-English publications often do not enjoy the recognition and attention that they well deserve.  If we are not able to recognize Chinese publications, we are not able to recognize the research achievements in the community at large, especially in the fields of arts and humanities and social sciences.  Our language carries not only our identity and history, but also our cultural heritage.  Chinese has become a language to be reckoned with at the forefront of the international stage.  I am so glad that the Presidents of PKU, NJU, NTU and SJTU share the same vision to support publications in Chinese so that the research outcome shall be measured by its own worth, rather than the language in which it is written.  After all, this is our University’s mandate of bringing together China and the West.’ 

Higher education institutions in today’s world increasingly rely on indicators and citation counts to gauge research impact and performance.  The majority of the cross-strait Chinese journals do not find their way to the citation index and the impact factor, greatly hindering the development of humanities and social science research in the context of Chinese societies.  Cross-strait University Presidents have begun discussion in recent years on joint endeavors to promote Chinese as an internationally recognized research language for academic publication.  CUHK, NTU, PKU, NJU and SJTU initiated a movement on Academic Chinese to get together cross-strait universities, including Hong Kong and Macau in support of the recognition of Chinese publications across the regions with the aim of enhancing the status of Chinese journals in the global research arena.  One of the key missions of the collaboration is to compile a list of recommended quality Chinese journals as an important reference for cross-strait and international academia, so as to raise the impact of Chinese in various research fields.  It is hoped that a stronger momentum will be gathered with the participation of more institutions from the region to bring Chinese research outputs to the world.