About halfway through her career as an Indiana University professor, Joyce Yanyun Man founded and successfully led a “think tank” in Beijing.
From 2007 to 2013, while on leave from IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Man was founding director of the Peking
An expert in public finance and policy analysis, Man frequently consulted with Chinese high-level officials, including one who wanted to know more about the
At the beginning of the year, Man, who originally is from Nanjing, China, succeeded Scott Kennedy as director of IU’s Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business, based in IU’s School of Global and International Studies.
Kennedy, who directed the
Need for a non-partisan research perspectives on China
In looking at the future of the Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business, Man is looking to reestablish it as a “university-based” think tank on China.
While many China experts are based in Washington, at places such as the World Bank and the Brookings Institution, she said many Chinese
“Based on my experience, if a group of scholars gets together and does the research and talks about policy issues, it’s more objective. It’s easier for them to engage with them in conversation … There is no hidden agenda in university-based research,” said Man, who continues to be a professor of economics
“There’s a space in China for the non-partisan, non-identified academic to have a say on policy issues as long as they can establish themselves as objective,” added Roy Hooper, assistant director of the
That was the pattern for Man’s previous project