The 34th Xi Xian Forum on Income Distribution and Public Finance, jointly organised by the Institute of Public Finance and Taxation and IIDPF, was successfully held on 4 April 2023 in Conference Room 119, Wenqin Building. The theme of the forum is "Changing Times and Survey Research" series of roundtable discussions. The conference invited four distinguished guests, Dr Cai Bo, former Level-2 Inspector and Director of High Technology Division of Hubei Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Prof Sun Yutao, Secretary of Party Committee of Dalian University of Technology School of Economics and Management, Prof Zeng Fanhua, School of Economics of ZUEL, and Prof Zeng Jingjing, School of Public Administration of ZUEL. The forum was chaired by Professor Lu Yuanping, Executive Director of the IIDPF, and was attended by Professor Sun Qunli, Deputy Director, Professor Wu Lei, Research Fellow, and over thirty other faculty and students.
At the beginning of the forum, Professor Lu Yuanping expressed his warm welcome and heartfelt thanks to all the experts and scholars for coming. Professor Lu noted that since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has attached great importance to investigation and research, taking it as the basis for planning and success. Themed "Changes of the Times and Survey Research", the conference hopes that the experts and scholars could fully discuss and pool their wisdom to promote the in-depth development of survey research activities of universities and think tanks.
Dr. Cai noted that the world is currently undergoing an unprecedented change in a century, with more uncertainties and unpredictable factors, and there is an urgent need for domestic reform and development to come up with new ideas, new thoughts and new solutions through research. Taking the research project on the current situation of the display panel industry in Hubei Province in 2022 as an example, Dr. Cai considers that the process of research should not be a "walk in the park" but rather "research for use", "problem-oriented" and "learning by comparison”. Research reports that are indeed feasible can only be produced through in-depth root-level practice.
Professor Sun Yutao classified university research activities into academic research and project-based research, and analysed the differences and connections between the two types of research activities. He shared the process and steps in field research, taking the research experience of the 14th Five-Year Plan of Science and Technology Innovation Development in Dalian as an example, and stressed the necessity of communication between the commissioning unit and the competent department in the research process, suggesting to speed up the establishment of research information interconnection and dialogue mechanism.
Professor Zeng Fanhua shared a series of research experiences such as the research project on the 14th Five-Year Development Plan of Jingmen Industry and Informatization and the research project on the information industry in East Lake High-tech Zone. He noted that the difficulty of research activities for university teachers lies in "going out", and the lack of research resources will affect the depth and breadth of research activities, so research activities should not be rushed, but should be well planned to improve the efficiency of research and to form research reports with new ideas and new perspectives.
Professor Zeng considers that current scholarly research can be broadly divided into third-party policy evaluation research and government planning research, each of which has its own characteristics and difficulties. She analyses her experience of researching the implementation of the economic stabilisation policy package in Hubei Province as an example, and argues that third-party evaluation research should be prepared in advance, using a variety of forms and means to carry out research; government planning research should do the following key steps: "find out the family background", "understand the needs" and "determine the programme". "He also pointed out that research reports should reflect the four characteristics of topicality, relevance, operability and standardisation.
The roundtable provided a wonderful showcase for the faculty and students in the audience as well as stimulating in-depth thinking on the research topic.