Research Grants and Honours
AWARDS
Zhiwu Chen
Chair Professor
(2022) Awarded HK$67.32 million (over US$8.5 million) under the Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme for the Quantitative History of China project in 2022, marking a new record high for government funding raised for the HKU Business School since its establishment
(2019) Conferred the title of Chair Professor of Finance in recognition of his contribution to finance
(2013) Top Graham and Dodd Award for the Best Paper in Financial Analyst Journal
(1999) Pacesetter Research Award
(1994) Merton Miller Prize
(1994) Chicago Board Options Exchange Competitive Research Award
(1997) Listed with one of the top 50 “Most Cited Articles of All Time” of the Journal of Finance (ranked #42, Empirical Performance Of Alternative Option Pricing Models, with Gurdip Bakshi and Charles Cao, published in December 1997)
(2012) Listed “G20 Influencers” report by Burson-Marsteller as one of the top ten political influencers in China
(2010) Named one of the “10 Public Intellectuals” who influenced China in 2010, by Times Weekly, a national newspaper based in Guangzhou, China
(2009) Received 23 “Best Books of the Year” awards in various categories and for 2009 in China for his book, The Logic of Finance 《金融的邏輯》
(2008) Received the First Prize, Hexun Best Books of 2008, for his book, Why Are Chinese Hard-Working and yet Poor?《中國人為什麽勤勞而不富有》.
(2006) Named one of the 20 People of the Year in defending “Public Interest”, by Nang Feng Cuan magazine in China.
(2006) Professor Chen’s Chinese blog was named one of the Top 10 Blogs in China in the topic area of “Public Interest”
David A. Palmer
Professor
(2021-2025) Principal Investigator. Chinese Modernity and Soft Power on the Belt and Road. RGC Fellowship (RGCF): HKD 5,155.380.00
(2019-2023) Project Coordinator. Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road. RGC Collaborative Research Fund (CRF): HKD 6,252,078.00
(2018-2019) Principal Investigator. Daoist Ritual, Local Society and the State: Ethnography, Text and Theory. Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS): HKD 547,270.00
(2025-2028) Principal Investigator. Questioning the ‘S’ in ESG: The Social Construction of Social Investment Indicators in China. General Research Fund (GRF): HKD 978,741.00
(2022-2024) Principal Investigator. Rituals and Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao (Yao Mun). (Project website: www.yaodao.hku.hk) General Research Fund: HKD 776,709.00
(2021-2023) Principal Investigator. Religious Cosmopolitanism in China, 1895-1927. General Research Fund: HKD 638,642.00
(2019-2022) Principal Investigator. Daoism, Ethnic Identity and State Socialism: The Lanten Yao on the China-Vietnam-Laos Borderland. General Research Fund: HKD 849, 572.00
(2011-2013) Principal Investigator. Volunteerism in Contemporary China: Moral Discourse and Social Spaces. General Research Fund: HKD 527,500.00
(2007-2009) Principal Investigator. French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. Contested Orthodoxies: Religious Movements in Modern China. General Research Fund: HKD 250,000.00
John D. Wong
Professor
Henry Luce Foundation Grant
HKU Research Output Prize
Joseph Fletcher Memorial Award, Harvard University
Ji Li
Associate Professor
(2024) Research Output Prize, The University of Hong Kong
(2024) IBMR Top Ten Books of 2023, International Bulletin of Mission Research, for At the Frontier of God’s
(2023) Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China (Oxford University Press)
(2024) Harvard-Yenching Institute and Ricci Institute Joint Visiting Fellowship, Boston, USA
(2017) University of Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship, University of Hong Kong
(2013) Research Incentive Award, University of Hong Kong
(2008) Chiang Ching-kuo Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (USA)
(2007) Bourse Chateaubriand, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, France
(2005) Barbour Scholarship, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Ghassan Moazzin Assistant Professor
(2025) Faculty Research Award for Junior Tenure-track Professoriate Staff (for cumulative research activity over a 3-year period; Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong)
(2024) Co-Winner, First Monograph Prize in Economic and/or Social History (Economic History Society)
(2024) Honorable Mention, Ralph Gomory Prize (Business History Conference)
(2023) Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
(2023) Finalist, Hagley Prize in Business History
(2019) Winner, Hermann E. Krooss Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in business history (Business History Conference)
(2018) Finalist, Dissertation Prize (Category: The Long 19th Century), World Economic History Congress 2018
(2018) Winner, Coleman Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in business history (Association of Business Historians)
Sijie Hu
Assistant Professor
(2023) Sir Timothy Coghlan Prize for the best paper published in the Asia-Pacific Economic History Review
Xin SuAssistant Professor
(2018-2024) GSAS Graduate Student Fellowship, Harvard University
(2018-2022) Harvard-China Fellowship, Harvard University
(2016-2017) China National Fellowship
(2016) Distinguished Young Person in History, The Chinese Ministry of Education
Grants
Zhiwu Chen
Chair Professor
David A. Palmer
Professor
(2021-2025) Principal Investigator. Chinese Modernity and Soft Power on the Belt and Road. RGC Fellowship (RGCF).
(2019-2023) Project Coordinator. Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road. RGC Collaborative Research Fund (CRF).
(2018-2019) Principal Investigator. Daoist Ritual, Local Society and the State: Ethnography, Text and Theory. Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS).
(2025-2028) Principal Investigator. Questioning the ‘S’ in ESG: The Social Construction of Social Investment Indicators in China. General Research Fund (GRF).
(2022-2024) Principal Investigator. Rituals and Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao (Yao Mun). (Project website: www.yaodao.hku.hk) General Research Fund.
(2021-2023) Principal Investigator. Religious Cosmopolitanism in China, 1895-1927. General Research Fund.
(2019-2022) Principal Investigator. Daoism, Ethnic Identity and State Socialism: The Lanten Yao on the China-Vietnam-Laos Borderland. General Research Fund.
(2011-2013) Principal Investigator. Volunteerism in Contemporary China: Moral Discourse and Social Spaces. General Research Fund.
(2007-2009) Principal Investigator. French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. Contested Orthodoxies: Religious Movements in Modern China. General Research Fund.
John D. Wong
Professor
Henry Luce Foundation Grant
Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS), “Making Hong Kong Home: Economic Take-off, Private-Sector Homeownership, and Accommodating Middle Class Aspirations since the 1970s 此身安處買吾家:上世紀七十年代以降中產置業夢與香港的經濟起飛
General Research Fund (GRF), Hong Kong, “Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of Hong Kong, 1930s – 1998
Fulbright Institute of International Education (IIE)
Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Prize Research Grant in History and Economics in connection with the Mellon research program on Exchanges of Economic and Political Ideas since 1760, Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge University
Ji Li
Associate Professor
(2025-2028) Principal Investigator. Gender, Religion, and Literacy in Rural China, 1870s-1940s. General Research Fund Research (GRF), Research Grant Council, Hong Kong
(2024-2026) Principal Investigator. Gender, Religion, and Epistolary Writing in Rural China, 1870s-1940s. Internal Research Grants. University of Hong Kong
(2020-2024) Principal Investigator. Christianity on the Move: Routes and Religious Mobility in Late Imperial and Modern China from the 1750s to 1950s. General Research Fund (GRF), Hong Kong
(2019-2022) Co-Principal Investigator. Collective Research Fund: Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road. (CRF), Research Grant Council, Hong Kong
(2018-2020) Principal Investigator. Negotiating Spiritual and Urban Space in Jiangbeicheng: Local History, Religion and the Making of Modern China. Early Career Scheme Research Fund (ECS), Hong Kong
(2017 – 2019) Principal Investigator. Rethinking indigenization and Christianity in China: Alfred Marie Caubrière (1876 – 1948) and his private writings in early twentieth-century Manchuria. Sin Wai-Kin Junior Fellowship, University of Hong Kong
(2015-2017) Principal Investigator. Making Religion, Making Local Society: A Social History of a Catholic Village in Northeast China. General Research Fund (GRF), Hong Kong
Ghassan Moazzin Assistant Professor
(2025) Research Grants Council of Hong Kong General Research Fund grant (17600125) for the project “Electric War, Electric Revolution: The Electrical and Electronics Industries in China between the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Eve of the Reform Era, 1937-1978
(2024) National Humanities Center (North Carolina) Fellowship
(2024) Universitas21 Fellowship
(2023) Faculty Conference Support Scheme grant, Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong
(2020) Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Early Career Scheme grant (27601920) for the project “Electric China: A History of the Electrical and Electronics Industries, 1870–1937
(2020) Sin Wai-Kin Junior Fellowship, IHSS, The University of Hong Kong
(2021) Hang Seng Bank Golden Jubilee Education Fund for Research, IHSS, The University of Hong Kong
(2019) Hang Seng Bank Golden Jubilee Education Fund for Research, IHSS, The University of Hong Kong
(2017) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Kakenhi Grant (Co-I with PI Prof. Tetsuji Okazaki)
(2016) Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Doctoral Fellowship
(2013) German Academic Exchange Service Doctoral Fellowship (September 2013)
(2012) Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Studentship (October 2012)
Sijie Hu
Assistant Professor
(2025-2026) Seed Fund for Basic Research for New Staff, HKU
Young Scholar Funding, National Natural Science Foundation of China
Xin Su
Assistant Professor
(2025-2028) Early Career Scheme Research Fund (ECS), UGC RGC, $806,000
(2025-2027) Seed Fund for Basic Research for New Staff, HKU Faculty of Social Sciences, $150,000
(2025-2026) The Sin Wai-Kin Junior Fellowship, HKU HKIHSS, $100,000
Chun Fung Tong
Assistant Professor
(2026-2028) Writing, Remembering and Identity Formation in Early Imperial China, 221 BCE–220 CE. Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council
(2025–2026) Excavated Manuscripts and Local Administration in the Qin Dynasty. Seed Fund for Basic Research for New Staff, Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong
Doudou Cao
Research Assistant Professor
(2021-2025) Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Programme
(2023) St Catharine’s College Fieldwork Bursary
(2022) International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Research Scholarship (Investigation of Missing Persons and Unidentified Human Remains)
(2022) Cambridge Department of Archaeology Fieldwork Bursary
