A symposium on the theme of academic evaluation, organized by the Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, was held in Beijing on the 5th of March. The theme of the symposium was “constructing an academic evaluation system with Chinese characteristics”. Zhang Jiang, vice president and member of the leading Party members’ group of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), attended the symposium and delivered a speech. Gao Xiang, secretary-general of CASS and also a member of the leading Party members’ group of CASS, chaired the symposium.

In his address, Zhang claimed that establishing an independent evaluation center for the humanities and social sciences will be a decisive task for CASS.

Zhang also listed a few issues which in his opinion deserve some serious consideration: the question of how to understand the relationship between Chinese theory and international standards; the need to recognize the authority of academics when they evaluate peers who work in the same field, while not failing to take the response of general academic circles and of society overall into account; the need for the evaluation criteria to balance academic and practical needs; the urgent need to innovate the methods of evaluation, based on the state of current resources; and lastly, the fact that effectiveness and quality should take precedence over speed when constructing the evaluation system.

As the chair of the symposium, Gao Xiang briefly introduced the organizational situation and the work focus of the Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences for the coming year, as well as giving some detailed requirements for the work to be carried out after the symposium.

Gao pointed out that academic evaluation is a significant component of scientific research activities, and it can lead academic development. The Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences is CASS’s first third-party evaluation center. He added that in order to strengthen China’s discourse power, an evaluation system based on China conditions and suited to the current state of China’s academia should be constructed.

Gao emphasized that the focus for the coming year’s work will be on how to construct a scientific evaluation system. The most important tasks will be the establishment of a project department for the evaluation of core global think tanks and the issuing of an evaluation report on core think tanks by the end of the year, the issuing of a report on an evaluation system for Chinese Social Sciences Journals, and the organizing of the first forum of Chinese social sciences evaluation.

Wang Limin (deputy editor-in-chief of the Social Sciences in China Press, CASS) and Ren Quan’e (director assistant of the Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences) also reported at the symposium.

All the attending experts expressed their opinions on the establishment of an evaluation system and on the work of the Chinese Evaluation Center for Humanities and Social Sciences putting forward many useful suggestions.

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today (CASS Issue), No. 237, 7th of March, 2014.

Chinese link: http://cass.cssn.cn/yaowen/201403/t20140307_1021736.html

　　Translated by Chen Meina

　　Revised by Gabriele Corsetti