Duke Kunshan University is set to join forces with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection to conduct sophisticated quantitative analyses to inform the development of future environmental policies. Nov. 1, representatives from the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, Ministry of Environmental Protection, P. R. China (‘PRCEE’) and Duke Kunshan University signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the ‘PRCEE-Duke Kunshan Joint Laboratory on Quantitative Environmental Policy Analysis’ (‘the Lab’).
January 13, 2016, Jining Chen, China’s Minister of Environmental Protection, met with Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University in Beijing and proposed to establish research cooperation on environmental economics. To enforce the intent, PRCEE and Duke Kunshan University established the Lab to conduct cost-benefit analysis of environmental policy and other feasible research activities.
The signing ceremony was hosted by Dr. Junjie Zhang, the director of the iMEP program and Environment Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. As he pointed out, policy evaluation and experiment in economic policy research has become ever more reliant on empirical research approaches over the last 30 years, and the principle of policy-making in China is usually based on expanding successful pilot programs; therefore, there is a need to establish an environmental policy ‘lab’.
Prof. Junjie Zhang
Guang Xia, director general of PRCEE noted that China is now in dire need of sophisticated quantitative analysis in the area of environmental policy to inform and support policy making. Developed countries have more experiences in quantitative analysis. Therefore, environmental policy researchers need to learn from these experiences, to identify the most urgent, feasible and typical topics of research in view of the environmental reality in China, and to provide effective research tools to help the government solve the environmental policy challenges we currently face.
Guang Xia
Chang Xiaolin, vice chancellor for government relations at Duke Kunshan, said that Duke Kunshan University will give full support to the Lab, given that serving the society is one of the basic functions of universities. Duke Kunshan University has already launched the Environment Research Center and the Master of Environmental Policy program. Duke Kunshan hopes to conduct targeted research based on the current developmental state of Kunshan and the Suzhou Area by combining the intellectual resources of PRCEE and Duke Kunshan University.
Xiaolin Chang
The signing ceremony was also well attended by honored guests including Yu Hai, director of Department of Strategy, PRCEE, Wang Yong, member of Department of Strategy, PRCEE,Gao Jianqiang, director of Kunshan Environmental Protection Bureau, Shen Jun, deputy director of Kunshan Yangcheng Lake Science Park, Haiyan Gao, vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke Kunshan, Hui Li, senior advisor to chancellors, Dr. Junjie Zhang, director Environment Research Center, and Dr. Shuyi Wang, director of Government Training and Professional Education Programs from Duke Kunshan University.
The signing ceremony marks the official start of the collaboration between PRCEE and Duke Kunshan University, which was followed by the first meeting between the two research teams. The two parties shared their own research interests, and had an in-depth discussion about the feasibility and complementarity of their plans. The two parties also developed the next step work plan at the meeting.
