Founded in 1958, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) is the earliest academy of social sciences established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. SASS was formed by the merger of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of Economics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of History, Shanghai Institute of Finance and Economics, East China Academy of Political Science and Law, and Fudan University Law School.
Currently, Mr. Xu Wei serves as the secretary of the Party Committee of SASS, and Mr. Wang Dezhong serves as the dean of SASS.
SASS is the only comprehensive humanities and social sciences research institution in Shanghai and the largest local academy of social sciences in China.
At present, there are about 760 staff, of which more than 50% have a doctorate, 133 with senior title and 194 with vice-senior title.
SASS is among the first batch of degree-granting institutions approved by the Office of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee.
Now, it has 8 doctoral degree authorization units, 62 master degree authorization units, and 2 post-doctoral research mobile stations. Besides, it enrolls foreign students from all over the world and has more than 650 graduate students in total.
Over the past years, SASS has undertaken a large amount of national and local projects. Many consultation suggestions regarding decision-making have been praised by the Central Committee of CPC, municipal leaders and relevant departments. Moreover, a great number of research results have won national and local awards.
SASS has established extensive academic connections with many overseas universities and think tank research institutions. More than 30 researchers, including Lawrence Klein and Douglass North, winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, have been hired by SASS as honorary researchers and distinguished researchers.
The “World Forum on China Studies” has become an important channel for China’s overseas academic publicity and an exchange platform with a global influence for China studies.
Having been actively responding to the Central Committee’s call for strengthening the development of a new-type think tank with Chinese characteristics, with the goal of building a first-class domestic and internationally renowned new-type socialist think tank, SASS has been vigorously advancing the think tank development and discipline development in parallel as the two-wheel-driving development strategy and striving to become a crucial base for the innovation of philosophy and social sciences studies and a solid front for the sinicization of Marxism, a major platform for academic exchanges at home and abroad and a nationally high-end think tank with vital impact domestically and internationally.