new School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA) was founded this July at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), committed to promoting education and scholarship on world politics and global affairs.

The School, merging from SISU’s former Institute of International and Diplomatic Affairs (IIDA), the Department of International Politics at the School of Law and the pilot undergraduate program of International Civil Servants at the School of English Studies, is one of the major results of SISU’s newly launched educational reform.

Dr. Guo Shuyong, former professor of international relations at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), was named dean of SISU’s SIRPA. Guo is a renowned scholar of political sociology and an active promoter of the constructivist theories of international relations.

SISU’s education in political science started in 1980s with the establishment of the former Institute of Soviet Union studies. The Institute had later grown into the Institute of International Relations in 1992 as one of China’s earliest academic institutions committed to the studies of international affairs.

In 1987, the first national conference in international relations theories was held in SISU, co-organized with Shanghai Institute for International Studies and the Center for American Studies of Fudan University, which marked the beginning of the theoretical exploration in international relations in Chinese academia. This event was later regarded as a milestone in the development of political science in China.

In recent years, SISU has developed a focused field of research in regional and state studies. Fund by the Ministry of Education, its distinguished Middle East Studies Institute (MESI), Center for European Union Studies, Center for Russian Studies and Center for British Studies are playing an important role in China’s diplomatic decision-making.

SISU is now the only university of foreign studies that operates the doctorial and post-doctoral programs in political science. Drawing on its strengths in multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary resources, while responding to national and regional strategies, SISU has emerged as one of the country’s leading academic think tanks in diplomacy and international relations.