The second Chinese National Summit on Humanities and Social Sciences Evaluation was held on Nov. 10 in Beijing.

The Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (CECHSS) under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) released a list ranking the top 100 global think tanks at the second Chinese National Summit on Humanities and Social Sciences Evaluation on Nov. 10 in Beijing.

The rankings include think tanks from 31 countries and international organizations. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the United States, Belgium’s Bruegel and the US-based Heritage Foundation took the top three spots. They were followed by Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) in the United Kingdom, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden and the Brookings Institution in the US. The Development Research Center of the State Council in China ranked ninth.

Because the CECHSS is affiliated with CASS, a top think tank in China, the latter was excluded from the rankings to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the evaluation.

Responsible for the first global think tank report to ever be released by a Chinese research institution, the research group has invented a distinct system for comprehensive evaluation of global think tanks that relies on three indicators—attraction power, management power and impact.

The three primary indicators were subdivided into 15 secondary indicators and as many as 35 tertiary ones, CECHSS Director Jing Linbo said.

The indicator system values the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis, while previous think tank evaluation standards and methodologies mostly focused on qualitative analysis. Meanwhile, more attention has been paid to tailoring the design of the indicator system to the working procedures of think tanks, Jing said.

CASS founded the CECHSS in late 2013, and the global think tank evaluation project was launched in February 2014. Over the past year or so, the project team handed out more than 20,000 questionnaires and carried out field investigations into more than 100 think tanks at home and abroad. Well versed in nine languages, members of the team gathered data from across the world, screening out 1,786 source think tanks and focusing on 360 ones that were targeted for analysis. Eventually, they produced a clear-cut global think tank map.

Through global think tank evaluation, China’s voice is heard, said Gao Xiang, secretary-general of CASS and editor-in-chief of the Social Sciences in China Press under CASS. The process shows Chinese academia is taking the initiative in the construction of a fairer and more reasonable global think tank evaluation system and strengthening China’s international discourse power, he said.

Moreover, he also said he hopes the move can further integrate think tank evaluation and construction. The rankings imbue Chinese think tanks with a global vision and enhance their capacities while serving as a useful reference for the construction of a new model of think tanks with Chinese characteristics.

Thomas Awe, head of the Beijing Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Germany, which also ranked among the top ten, praised the rankings indicator system for its extraordinarily extensive coverage, saying it will be illuminating to the construction of global think tank evaluation system.

He said he hopes the indicator system can be made more precise based on the operational mechanism of think tanks in different regions around the world.

Zhong Zhe is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.