Recently, the project review results of the National Social Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China have been officially announced. The School of Economics has gained substantial achievement in the review. The gains from this year's fund projects not only reflect the progress of the scientific research work of the School of Economics and the optimization of the scientific research environment, but also lay a solid foundation for the discipline construction in the next stage.

　　Professor Zhou Jianbo from the Department of Economic History of the School of Economics at Peking University received funding from National Social Science Project under the title of "Collation and Research of the Economic Survey Data of the East Asia Common Culture College".

　　Project introduction The East Asian Common Culture College was an overseas university established by the Japanese East Asian Common Culture Association in Shanghai from 1900 to 1945. Its predecessor was the Shanghai Nissin Trade Research Institute. After the Meiji Restoration, to confront European and American forces in China and to turn China into a Japanese product sales market and raw material origin, Japan conducted an in-depth investigation on China’s transportation, trade, business habits, commercial power, financial institutions, weights and measures, and people’s living standards etc. The survey lasted for 45 years (1901-1945), covering all provinces and regions in China except Tibet, and was known as the world's largest travel survey. 

　　For the moment, the bottleneck in the study of the East Asian Common Culture College lies mainly in language barriers and insufficient exploration of materials. There are also few related books and papers published in China, and most of them focus on the introduction of the college’s history. In terms of selecting translation materials, Professor Feng Tianyu of Wuhan University and his team have made important contributions and are pioneers in this field. Aichi University (formerly known as the East Asian Common Culture College) still retains a large amount of original materials. The research team has maintained long-term academic communication with Aichi University. 

　　The main research goal of this project is to use others’ point of view documented in the East Asia Common Culture College’s economic survey to explore the process of China’s modernization development centered on industrialization in the first half of the 20th century, and to accumulate experience, which is not yet common in the research field. 

　　The overall idea of this project research is to closely follow the theme of China's industrialization in the first half of the 20th century, to sort out, classify, translate and research the economic survey data of the East Asian Common Culture College in China. Based on the research objectives, five sub-projects (sub-project leaders) are set up: "Survey on the scale and structural transformation of domestic and foreign trade" (Associate Professor Li Jun of Ludong University), "Survey on changes and regional economic development" (Professor Li Chunli from Aichi University, Japan), "Survey on the Distribution of Mineral Resources and Mining Development in China " (Professor Zhu Yingui of Fudan University), "Survey on China’s Financial and Currency " (Associate Professor Zhang Yaguang, School of Economics, Peking University) and "Survey on the changes of Chinese business ethics and the development of human resources " (Researcher Zhao Xiaoyang, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). The heads of the five sub-projects are all experts in their respective fields, with rich previous scientific research results and research experience.

　　Profile of Professor Zhou Jianbo

　　Dean of the Department of Economic History, School of Economics, Peking University, professor, doctoral supervisor, and Chair Professor of ISSC (International Research Center for Chinese Studies), Aichi University, Japan. He is also the Vice President of the Chinese Society for the History of Economic Thought, the Vice President of the Chinese Society for Business History, the Director of the Institute of Social and Economic History of Peking University, and the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Hebei University of Economics and Business. His research field is the history of Chinese economic thought and the history of management thought.