Science, Power and the Power of Science in China (1978 to nowadays)

Speaker: Professor Stéphanie Balme, SciencesPo

China's scientific ecosystem which has been forming for 40 years asserts itself today in an unprecedented way. This situation has (or will soon have) a major impact on the global scientific ecosystem, regardless of China's level of technological power. What are the interactions between science and political power in China and how can these relations be qualified? Does China's socio-political system favour or act as a constraint on China's ambitions to become a great power of innovation by 2050? 

Stéphanie Balme is the Dean of Sciences Po College (Bachelor), a permanent research fellow at CERI, and professor at PSIA/Sciences Po. She heads the research program "Law, Justice and Society in China." Her research now focuses on the concept of "scientific diplomacy " as well as on the practice of new technologies and science in current Chinese society and politics. Former Visiting Professor and represent of Sciences Po at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2003 to 2006 then at Tsinghua University Law School (from 2006 to 2012), Stéphanie Balme has also taught in New Delhi (Ashoka University), Montréal (UQAM), Vancouver (UBC) and at Columbia University Law School under the Alliance Program Fellowship. From January 2017 to the summer 2018, she has been appointed at the French Embassy in Beijing as the Attachée responsible of the university cooperation at the bilateral level.