Think tank report: CASS ranks first in online influence

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the premier brain trust of the central government, ranks first in terms of online influence, according to the Evaluation Report on Online Influence of Chinese Think Tanks released on July 12.

Co-sponsored by the Think Tank Research and Release Center at Guangming Daily and the China Think Tank Research and Evaluation Center at Nanjing University, the report used the “RSC Snowball Evaluation Model” to assess 68 major Chinese think tanks, with “R” referring to resources, S meaning “spread” and “C” denoting communication.

The three indicators represent three dimensions of a snowball in space. When a think tank snowballs in the three dimensions constantly, its clout will continue to rise in cyberspace. When it develops in merely one or two dimensions, the snowball tends to be a strip or become flattened, resulting in a loss of influence. When it stops snowballing, its influence will gradually diminish.

The research data are from open information sources, involving link analysis, social network analysis, academic citation and social media.

According to the report, the Party School of the CPC Central Committee takes the second spot in the rankings following CASS, and the Development Research Center of the State Council is in the third place. Other think tanks on the top ten list include the China Finance 40 Forum, the Chinese Academy of Governance and the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University.