On 23 April 2024, YCAR launched a new research cluster, the China Studies Group (CSG). Around 15 York researchers gathered that day on Keele campus to launch this research cluster. Also present at this event were Vinitha Gengatharan, Assistant Vice-President, Global Engagement & Partnerships, and Helen Balderama, Director of Global Engagement Programs & Partnerships at York University, and Susan Hough, representative of the Centre for China Policy Research, Global Affairs Canada.
The China Studies Group is meant to provide a platform for colleagues with a broad interest in China Studies to share their research interests and outcomes, exchange funding information, and create and develop synergies.
Specifically, this research group is launched against the background whereby the research topics related to China have been dramatically shifting in recent years on one hand, and the research environment becomes increasingly complicated and data access gets restricted on the other. Hence, this research group aims to evolve into a network that fosters research support and professional development.
“With this addition, YCAR now has the research clusters focusing on China, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaya, Philippines, and South Asia,” said Qiang Zha, YCAR Interim Director. “Such a structural arrangement renders YCAR to be a good fit for Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy (which stresses engagement with China, India, the North Pacific, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the region), and thus in a competitive position for the funding envelops in the Indo-Pacific Engagement Initiative.”