About the Alliance
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Mission
The contemporary era of economic globalisation, as another phase of the longue durée of modern world history, has been changing and will continue to change the human geographies of the world across all nations and regions, involving no less than a reproduction of humanity and social life itself on an unprecedented scale in human history. It has often been remarked that we live in a time of superfast, hyper-transformative technological innovation and economic growth, when lived histories and intellectual legacy of human beings have been rendered insignificant. Meanwhile, the deepening sense of uncertainty in social belonging and the ground-gaining of cultural parochialism in various forms have become a world-wide phenomenon, raising questions about the meaning of the economic achievement that have brought dramatic growth of wealth and opportunities to the world. Amidst such sea change, humanities education centred on cross-cultural knowledge production and cultural exchange and fusion has taken on ever greater historical significance. However new the globalised technology becomes, however huge the wealth accumulates, it is the ways in which they are articulated with the formation of the individual human beings, communities, nations and countries of all kinds that ultimately matter, bringing tremendous and long-lasting consequence to the present and future, as it did in world history.
In the spirit of such a recognition, Tsinghua University proposed the initiative of establishing an Association for the Humanities in Higher Education (China-UK), as a cross-institutional mechanism for cross-cultural, transnational, and global dialogues, conversations and collaborations in the humanities and humanities education.
UK-China Humanities Alliance is an international organization for humanities in higher education initiated by Tsinghua University, and co-founded by 12 other top-ranking institutions in China and the UK. Founding members share the common recognition that humanities exchange in international relations has ever-increasing importance in enhancing mutual understanding and trust and in promoting the progress of human civilization, and that universities have the ability to provide high-quality education, lead the humanities exchange, and prepare future leaders with a comprehensive understanding of the complex issues that define this age. In acknowledgment of this, the institutions in China and the UK established the UK-China Humanities Alliance.
UKCHA projects have previously been supported by British Council funding. In 2021, the Alliance was successful in a new application for British Council funding, an Enabling Grant to strengthen UK-China institutional partnerships through academic collaboration. The project, (Re-)connecting Research in China, promotes shared understanding, joint research, and networking opportunities for scholars of UK and Chinese institutions, including through supporting Fellowships for Chinese humanities scholars to undertake research activity with UKCHA partners in the UK, and other forms of research collaboration.
Organisation
The Alliance has established an Executive Council and Secretariat. Prof YANG Bin, Vice President of Tsinghua University, serves as the Chair of the Alliance. The Executive Council is composed of delegates from UKCHA member institutions. The Secretariat is housed at the Institute for World Literatures and Cultures (IWLC), Tsinghua University; the Dean of IWLC, Prof YAN Haiping, serves as the Director of the Executive Council and the Secretary-General. The Secretariat acts on the recommendations of the Executive Council and the Alliance and manages UKCHA affairs.
Since December 2020, the University of Exeter serves as the UK-based coordinator of UKCHA, facilitating the delivery of activities among UKCHA member institutions in the UK and the communication and coordination with the Secretariat. Prof Li Li, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, sits on the UKCHA Secretariat as Deputy Secretary-General and coordinates the work for the Alliance among the member universities in the UK.
Members
There are 12 founding members of the Humanities Alliance, with 7 institutions in the UK and 5 institutions in China. The first group of members of UKCHA include Tsinghua University; Peking University; Fudan University; Wuhan University; Chinese University of Hong Kong; University of Oxford China Centre; the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge; SOAS University of London; King’s College London; Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures, University of Reading; Manchester University Peace Studies Institute; Humanities Research Centre University of Warwick.
Up to 2017, participating members expanded to 17. Shanghai International Studies University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, University of Exeter and Loughborough University. The British Academy also participated in the Executive Council Meeting of the 2017 Forum as an observer.
In 2018, University College London joined the UK-China Humanities Alliance.
Annual Activities
UK-China Humanities Alliance Annual Conference
To encourage cross-cultural conversations and collaborations in humanities education, UKCHA decides to hold UK-China Humanities Alliance Annual Conference. This conference is a high-end academic conference attended by established scholars of humanities in universities and research institutions in the UK and China, and it usually takes place in alternative years in China and the UK.
The Alliance has established an Executive Council and the Executive Council meeting takes place during the annual conference. Each member institution of the Alliance shall elect one delegate to attend the Executive Council and to participate in making decisions on important principles, plans, and programs of the Alliance.
UK-China Higher Education Young Talent Alliance (HEYTA)
In order to expand academic discussion and cooperation in the student community, the China-UK Higher Education Young Talent Alliance (HEYTA) was launched in 2018 as part of the Alliance’s plan for student communication and collaboration, complementing the Alliance’s current structure. HEYTA is operated by a Working Committee formed of students from institutions affiliated with the Alliance. In the past years, it has successfully been organised four times by students from Tsinghua University and the University of Exeter.
HEYTA aims include:
- To promote and attract more students to participate in global conversations surrounding the humanities.
- To explore new and continuous ways for students to engage in humanities-related conversations in China and the UK.
- To offer students a cross-cultural platform where they can exchange ideas, broaden their cultural understanding and cultivate their global competence.
