Beijing conference on interdisciplinary economics draws 230 scholars

The Chinese Economic Association UK/Europe held its 2025 China Annual Conference

in Beijing from 18 to 20 April 2025, on the theme "Frontiers of Economics:

Interdisciplinarity, Innovation and Sustainability under a New Development

Pattern."

More than 230 established and early-career scholars attended from around the

world. The programme comprised plenary reports, parallel sessions, a working

meeting of the association journal's editorial board, an academic journal forum,

and an exhibition of economics books and databases.

The conference was organised jointly by the association and the Centre for Energy

and Environmental Policy Research at the Beijing Institute of Technology. Liao

Hua, director of the centre, and Mi Zhifu, then chair of the association and

deputy director of the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University

College London, spoke at the opening, which was chaired by Wang Ke, deputy

director of the centre. Wei Yiming, director of the Beijing Laboratory for

Carbon Neutrality Systems Engineering, met delegates during the conference.

Nine association members took part: the chair Mi Zhifu; the secretary-general Wang

Liming; Dong Yizhe, editor-in-chief of the association's journal, the Journal of

Chinese Economic and Business Studies; Wu Zhongmin and Gao Yuning of the

supervisory committee; and the council members Xia Senmao, Luo Dan, Rong Ke and

Yin Chao.

Ten plenary reports covered a range of topics in economics and neighbouring

disciplines. The speakers were D'Maris Coffman of University College London, vice

dean of the Bartlett faculty and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; Wang

Liming, director of the Irish Institute for Chinese Studies at University College

Dublin; Wim Vanhaverbeke of the University of Antwerp; Tian Xuan, dean of the

National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University; Chen Binkai, vice

president of the Central University of Finance and Economics; Zhang Yongsheng,

director of the Institute of Ecological Civilisation at the Chinese Academy of

Social Sciences; Yu Ning, executive director of the Institute of Social and

Economic Research at Nanjing Audit University; Liu Gang of the College of Urban

and Environmental Sciences at Peking University; Duan Hongbo of the School of

Economics and Management at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; and

Zhang Qunzi, vice dean of the School of Economics at Shandong University.

The plenary sessions were chaired by Zhang Yuejun of Hunan University, Dong Yizhe

of the University of Edinburgh, and Liang Qiaomei and Cong Ronggang of the Beijing

Institute of Technology.

Based on the association's original WeChat report of 3 June 2025.