HKUST Annual Report 2018-19

28 ANNUAL REPORT 2018-19 Lab to Market ANIMATED ENCOUNTERS Prof. Daisy DU Yan (Humanities) published Animated Encounters: Transnational Movements of Chinese Animation, 1940s-1970s (University of Hawaii Press, 2019). In this book, she investigates China’s often-overlooked role in the history of world animation and engagement with international forces during its formative period. Prof. Du introduces readers to transnational movements in early Chinese animation, tracing the involvement of Japanese, Soviet, American, Taiwanese, and China’s ethnic minorities in animated filmmaking in China. She also questions the long-held belief that this era was a time of cultural isolationism for China due to wars and revolutions. FOSTERING INNOVATION, ENHANCING SUSTAINABILITY Prof. Kira MATUS (Public Policy, Social Science, Environment and Sustainability) is investigating the types of policies used by OECD countries to support innovation activities that advance sustainability goals. The project is cataloguing policies in 28 countries to capture different approaches to innovation that support sustainable development. This one-of-a-kind dataset will be supplemented with fieldwork in four different countries to better understand how governments can use innovation to support a wide variety of social goods. The project is being run in cooperation with academics from Harvard University and Utrecht University. PHILOSOPHICAL QUEST In Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays (Cambridge University Press, 2018), edited by Prof. Eric S. NELSON (Humanities), leading scholars engage with the philosophy and writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, a crucial thinker for the development of modern Continental European philosophy. Dilthey also had an influence on 20th-century Chinese, East Asian, and global philosophy. Chapters cover his innovative philosophical strategies and explore how they can be understood in relation to their historical situation. The collection of essays is the only contemporary anthology in English on Dilthey. QING CIVIL SERVICE WHO’S WHO Prof. Cameron CAMPBELL (Social Science) and his collaborators at HKUST and Renmin University released an extract of 638,152 personnel records of 50,049 Qing dynasty (1644-1912) civil service officials who served between 1900 and 1912. This public release, downloaded nearly 1,000 times in its first five months online, forms part of the China Government Employee Database-Qing (CGED-Q), being constructed and analyzed by the research team. Prof. Campbell and his collaborators are using the CGED-Q to examine the structure and composition of the Qing civil service as well as family background and other influences on the careers of officials. The complete CGED-Q now contains a total of 3.5 million records. The publicly released data will serve as a major resource to explore an important period in Chinese history. Research Highlights