Berlin, Berlin!
I’m so thrilled to have visited Berlin TWICE this autumn. The first trip was in late September. Thanks to Prof. Yasemin Soysal’s invitation, I attended the ‘Cultural Mobilities and their Transnational Entanglements in East Asia’ workshop and shared my findings on how transnational influences shaped grassroots and government’s understanding on ‘Modernity’ in different ways. Given the fact … Continue reading
Fellowship, Ministry Lecture, iGEM
Phew What an October! Three updates: Visiting Fellowship at Beijing University of Technology My October started in Beijing, where I was awarded a competitive ‘Foreign Expert Visiting Fellowship’ by Beijing University of Technology. This fellowship provided financial and administrative support for me to establish exchange with staff and students on the topic of ‘What’s the … Continue reading
UK-China Dialogue on Governing Trust in the Biosciences
On 22 and 23 February, my ESRC project held its concluding conference at the British Academy. 30 delegates who are leading figures in their respective fields in China and the UK joined the discussion. The event featured two keynote presentations and six sessions. Baroness Onora O’Neill’s thought-provoking opening keynote reflected on ways of conceptualising trust, … Continue reading
Invited RS talk on public engagement
I was invited by the Royal Society’s Science Policy section to give a presentation at the UK-China policy dialogue on genetic technologies on 27 March 2018. In her talk, ‘Opening Up the ‘Black Box’ of the Life Sciences’, I argued that while scientific research and its impacts are becoming increasingly transnational, public engagement is still … Continue reading
Getting ready for my project’s final conference!
My ESRC project’s concluding conference, Governing Trust in the Biosciences, is now open for registration. The conference will be held on 22-23 February 2018 at the British Academy in London. It aims to promote cross-cultural dialogues on good governance and effective accountability between China and the UK. The discussion may be of particular interest to people … Continue reading
‘Small World’ Gets More Publicity
My Chinese new book ‘Small World: Footnotes to Academic Observations’ was listed as one of the top 20 ‘Impactful Books’ in the non-fiction/popular science category (above pic). And that was BEFORE the book promotion event in September. It was also a nice surprise to learn that Tongji University‘s library recommended this non-academic book on their … Continue reading
People’s Daily on ‘Small World’
On 5 June, China’s official newspaper, People’s Daily (Overseas Edition) dedicated a special section of four articles to Dr Joy Zhang’s recent book, Small World: Footnotes to Academic Observations (小世界:在欧洲做学术的注脚). The section features an invited commentary from SSPSSR’s former MA graduate Qing Yang. Intended to ‘extend the Cosmopolitan debate to the Chinese public’, Dr Zhang … Continue reading
China’s central science newspaper reports on Joy Zhang’s work
On 27 March 2017 China’s official science newspaper, Science and Technology Daily, reported on Dr Joy Zhang’s ESRC workshop in Wuhan. The workshop stems from Dr Zhang’s ESRC funded project, ‘Governing Scientific Accountability in China‘. Extensive fieldwork from the study has found that although there is good will from both scientific practitioners and civil society … Continue reading
‘Nobody knows how bright your future will be!’
Before graduating from medical school and switching to sociology, I have worked as a part-time journalist and later an editor for a few Chinese media outlets. It all started with an essay I wrote on commercial branding and society at the age of 16. Editors at the Beijing Youth Daily spotted me and invited me to … Continue reading
Blog Entry @ CNN
image source: Southern Weekly (China) Recent LPGA tournament in Beijing has once again raised questions about air quality in China. CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS show invited Michael and I to authored a blog entry relating to this . The full content can be found here: China’s … Continue reading









