The founding ceremony of China Data Center (CDC) took place at Tsinghua SEM on November 22. JIANG Xiaojuan, Vice Director of the Research Office of the State Council; CHEN Xi, Deputy Minister of Education; HU Heping, Chairmen of Tsinghua University Council, CHEN Jining, Executive Vice President of Tsinghua University attended the ceremony. XIE Weihe, Vice President of Tsinghua University presided over the ceremony.

CDC is a university-level research center, co-directed by QIAN Yingyi, Dean of Tsinghua SEM, and LI Qiang, Dean ofSchool of Humanities and Social Sciences. QIAN Yingyi said the establishment and further building of CDC could boost the collaborative development across disciplines, and the Center would serve for both social scientific studies and governmental decision-making.

CDC aims to provide top-grade data, data analysis service and studies for Chinese government, domestic and international institutes, as well as other social researchers. It also intends to promote the cross-discipline development of social and natural sciences.

The collection and proper studies of social data are of great significance for both social researches and academic assistance in governmental decisions. As for Tsinghua, the record of social researches could well date back to the establishment of the Department of Sociology in 1926. Examining into the grand data collection from all sources could help reveal trends and modes in social developments and facilitate further studies.

In the future, CDC’s responsibilities will include: collecting, filing and exploring economic and social data accumulated in practices and researches from a variety of sources; conducting focused surveys and policy studies, tackling key problems in China’s socio-economic practices; conducting long-term researches in critical areas, such as education and labor market studies; strengthening academic collaboration across universities home and abroad; carrying out in-depth researches into cutting-edge social theories and study methodologies.

Present at the ceremony were also national and municipal governmental officials, guests from research institutes in Beijing, academic scholars, social researchers and reporters, as did representatives from different sections of Tsinghua University.