Conference: 2025 North America China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) Meeting & Expedition in China
Arnold Arboretum
$50,000
The Arnold Arboretum will use the support received from Harvard China Fund to organize the 2025 North America China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) annual conference and study tour, which will be held in China for the first time in its 33-year history. NACPEC, a consortium of eleven North American and Chinese botanic gardens, has led twenty-one plant expeditions in China since 1991, fostering international collaboration to study and conserve China’s threatened flora. The 2025 meeting, hosted by the National Botanic Garden Beijing, will combine workshops, lectures, business meetings, and field excursions in Zhejiang, Hubei, Shaanxi, and other provinces, enabling participants to strengthen scientific partnerships and draft a new strategic plan for NACPEC’s next decade. This conference will build on the Arboretum’s China Conservation Collaboration initiative launched in 2024, enhance ties institutions from overseas, and potentially produce a white paper on NACPEC’s collaborative model.
Conference: Environmental Health and Multi-Omics Approaches: Integrating Environmental Exposure, Genomics, and Precision Health
Peng Gao, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Exposomics
$28,000
The rapid advancement of multi-omics technologies and computational methods has revolutionized our understanding of environmental health. However, the application of these approaches requires global collaboration to maximize their scientific and public health potential. To facilitate such collaboration, Professor Gao Peng proposes a conference, Frontiers in Multi-Omics and Big Data Research in Environmental Health, in Chengdu, China. This conference will elevate Harvard’s role as a global leader in environmental health, exposomics, and multi-omics research. It will promote impactful research collaborations between Harvard faculty and international scholars, particularly in China, where environmental health concerns are a major public health priority. Additionally, it will support the next generation of scientists by providing early-career Harvard researchers and students with opportunities for mentorship, networking, and skill development. Finally, it will catalyze future funding and research partnerships by strengthening academic ties between Harvard and other leading institutions.
Conference: A Social Technology Approach to Bridging Care Gaps for Disadvantaged Elderly in China
Arthur Kleinman, Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology
$50,000
As China confronts the challenges of caring for its rapidly aging population, disparities in eldercare—particularly in disadvantaged settings—remain pressing. Building on the success of last year’s international conference at the Harvard Center Shanghai, which convened leading American and Chinese scholars and policymakers to examine rural eldercare policies, mental health, and technology for aging-friendly societies, Professor Arthur Kleinman propose two conferences in China this year using our Social Technology Approach. The first, in Beijing, will focus on care disparities among disadvantaged elders—those with chronic conditions, social isolation, financial hardship, low literacy, or minority backgrounds—through multidisciplinary analyses of challenges and solutions. The second, in Shanghai, will address doctor-patient relationships in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), examining interactions with disadvantaged elders, best practices in TCM care, and the potential of artificial intelligence to analyze practices and improve training. Together, these conferences will foster interdisciplinary collaboration to identify strategies that improve care for vulnerable older adults, with outcomes of significant clinical, social, and economic relevance. By advancing innovative approaches within China’s aging policy context, the initiatives aim to generate insights relevant to aging societies worldwide.
Conference: China and the Conflict over Palestine: History and Policy
Erez Manela, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History
$50,000
On July 23, 2024, representatives of 14 Palestinian factions met in Beijing at China’s invitation and agreed to form an interim government of “national reconciliation,” a move hailed by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi as a “historic moment” and viewed by observers as part of China’s growing role in a region long dominated by U.S. influence. Despite the deep divisions between Hamas and Fatah, the agreement highlights China’s rising international profile and its longstanding, complex ties to the Palestinian conflict. Historically, China’s anti-imperial struggle paralleled that of Arabs and Jews under British rule, with both China and Palestine experiencing partition and civil conflict in the mid-20th century. Since its founding, the PRC has supported anti-imperial movements, including Palestinian struggles, while also cultivating pragmatic relations with Israel, balancing its UN Security Council role, oil interests, and broader engagement with the Arab and Islamic worlds. Yet scholarly work on China’s role in the Palestinian conflict remains limited. To address this gap, Professor Erez Manela and his team propose a 2026 interdisciplinary conference at Tsinghua University (or Harvard Center Shanghai), bringing together about 20 historians and international relations scholars from China, Harvard, the Middle East, and beyond. The goal is to generate a collaborative publication offering new global historical perspectives on China’s evolving involvement in Palestine.
Conference: Science and Technology in the History of China’s Revolutionary Century
Victor Seow, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences
$41,500
Over the past two decades, scholarship on the history of science and technology in China’s long twentieth century has grown rapidly, reflecting both global interest in moving beyond Euro-American contexts and China’s own scientific advances. Earlier work, exemplified by Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, focused on the imperial era, while the modern period was long dismissed as lacking real science—portrayed instead as “scientism” or as politically stifled during high socialism. Recent studies, however, have demonstrated the richness of modern Chinese science and technology, examining the rise of disciplines such as chemistry and geology, their role in everyday life, and the impact of shifting political regimes on their development. To take stock of this flourishing field, Professor Victor Seow and his team propose a one-and-a-half-day conference in December 2025 at Harvard Center Shanghai, bringing together historians from the U.S. and China. Through short presentations of pre-circulated papers and discussions, participants will explore how this body of research reshapes not only the narrative of science and technology in modern China but also broader understandings of China’s twentieth-century experience. The conference aims to culminate in a joint publication, either a journal special issue or an edited volume.
Special Support:
Jennifer Liu, Professor of the Practice in Language Pedagogy
$2,177
Harvard Taipei Academy is an annual program that provides students the opportunity to complete a full academic year’s worth of Chinese language study in the course of an eight-week summer session. For the FY 2025 cycle, Harvard China Fund awards a faculty grant of $2,177 to Professor Jennifer Liu to support the Harvard Taipei Academy instructors.