Ms. Johanna Karanko, Consul-General of Finland to Hong Kong and Macau, was invited to visit GIS and shared Finland’s experience in providing a strong policy environment for sustainable development and technological innovation. September-October 2021.

GIS participated in the international conference "Narrating Cold Wars" at HKBU from 11-13 November 2021. The Department of GIS was a co-organiser of the event with the School of Communication and Film and the Academy of Visual Arts. Prof. Alistair Cole chaired the session "Panel 9: Twitter Diplomacy". Dr. Emilie Tran, Assistant Professor of GIS, presented the paper "‘For They Have Sown The Wind, and They Shall Reap the Whirlwind’ - China’s Twiplomacy and its Repercussion in France".

GIS participated in the international conference "Narrating Cold Wars" at HKBU from 11-13 November 2021. The Department of GIS was a co-organiser of the event with the School of Communication and Film and the Academy of Visual Arts. Prof. Jean-Pierre Cabestan chaired the session "Keynote 3: Galaxy Empire", featuring keynotes by John Keane, University of Sydney and He Baogang, Deakin University.

Prof. Alistair Cole, Head of Department of GIS, participates at the RTHK Radio 3 current affairs programme "Backchat" on 23 November 2021 to talk about the large-scale and often violent protests across Europe over new COVID-19 restrictions. (Listen to the episode, time slot between 9:15 am and 9:30 am)

Dr. C. K. Martin Chung, Assistant Professor of GIS and member of the organising committee and instructor of the GE course "Sustainable Peace: Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation of Divided Communities", engaged in online discussion with John Paul Lederach (author of Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding, University of Notre Dame) in the seminar "Peacebuilding: A Way Out for Societies in Conflict", jointly organised by CEDAR Fund and the Centre for Sino-Christian Studies, Department of Religion and Philosophy on 6 November 2021, on strategic peacebuilding in the context of Hong Kong.

政治及國際關係學系講座『回望「九．一三」：林彪事件五十週年 』"'13 September' Revisited: 50th Anniversary of the Lin Biao Incident"，2021 年 11 月 4 日，講者：余汝信 YU Ruxin。（普通話講述 In Putonghua）

Meeting with the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Hong Kong

(Right to Left)
1) Mr. Manuel Grösch, Attaché, Culture and Press Affair, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany
2) Ms. Kathrin Bode, Visiting Scholar & DAAD Representative, Dept. of GIS
3) Mr. Sebastian Pahs, Lecturer (German), Dept. of GIS
4) Mr. Fabian Raetzer, Programme Coordinator, European Studies (German), Dept. of GIS
5) Mrs Stefanie SEEDIG, Consul General, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany
6) Prof. Alistair COLE, Head, Dept. of GIS
7) Dr. Emilie TRAN, Programme Director, European Studies, Dept. of GIS

HKU-HKBU Joint Seminar Series on European Politics "Germany's Election - What explains the outcome of the election? What is next for Europe's leading industrial economy? What implications are there for Europe and China?", 7 October 2021. 

HKBU News : Trust matters in the fight against the pandemic

GIS Online Workshop "Reporting back on the Trust and the Smart City Survey", 23 September 2021. Speakers: Prof Alistair Cole (Head, Department of Government & International Studies (HKBU)), Dr Darren Man-wei Cheung (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Geography, HKBU), Mr Calvin Lai Ming Tsun (Senior Research Assistant, Department of Government & International Studies (HKBU)) 

Prof. Alistair Cole, Head of the Department of GIS, was interviewed on the Ming Pao Newspaper (23 September 2021) commenting on Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.

Article on Ming Pao Newspaper

New European Studies Programme promotional video

New GIS Programme promotional video

Innovative Service-Learning Projects carried out by our students have made their presence felt on - and off - campus. Drawing on their respective expertise, GIS faculty have designed and implemented innovative service and experiential learning programs since 2018. Well done and Congrats!

Report of Tricycle - Service-learning Courses with CISL's Mini-grants AY2020-21 (extracted version)

International Symposium "Transnational and Transdisciplinary Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic", organised by GIS in association with the Department of Sport, Physical Education and Health and David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI), 20-21 May 2021. The symposium brought together over 30 speakers from Australia, France, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, as well as a range of stakeholders from outside of academia. 

More than 60 students who attended POLS 2015 Government & Politics of Hong Kong with Dr Kenneth Chan during Semester 2 (2021) presented their findings about Electoral Integrity in selected jurisdictions and Hong Kong at a poster session on 19 April 2021. The students were grouped into 7 teams to carry out a series of timely research on a wide range of subjects, including but not limited to Election Observation Methodologies, Code of Conduct, Elections amid Covid-19, Auditing Campaign Expenses, and Special Voting Arrangements. Several of them have developed action plans at the community level to promote informed deliberation and to engage the electoral authorities in Hong Kong. The projects and the poster session at TriAngle were generously supported by the Centre for Innovative Service-Learning.

Dr Emilie Tran, Assistant Professor & the programme Director of European Studies, received the President's Award for Outstanding Performance in Teaching 2020-2021 in the regular category. Dr Tran joined HKBU and our GIS Department in 2016. She has been providing students with deep, meaningful, and socially relevant European studies, accompanied by innovative transnational service-learning experiences. Her focus on developing global citizens with inter-cultural sensitivity is more important than ever, and speaks to HKBU's core missions but also enhances the future employability of our students. 

GIS mixed-mode conference "Celebrating 25 Years of GIS - Public Policy, Governance and Internationalisation in the Era of Digitalisation", 8 May 2021.  

Words from the Head of Department about GIS 25th Anniversary

In this joint event Doha Forum X Peking University Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), moderated by Prof Wang Jisi, and attended by 200+ participants from all over the world, Dr Emilie Tran reviewed the perceptions of China in Europe, and discussed the future of China's foreign policy, along with prominent Chinese and American scholars from Peking University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Clinton Group. The Doha Forum is a platform for global dialogue on critical challenges facing our world, bringing together leaders in policy to build innovative and action driven networks. Watch the replay on and the Doha Forum’s website

More than forty enrolled students participated in the first-ever mixed-mode simulation exercise for the GE course "Sustainable Peace" offered by GIS on 16-17 April. Using a multi-Zoom "avatar-pairing" method, online and offline students teamed up to negotiate the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea and outstanding issues related to apologies and compensation for WWII crimes within the ASEAN Plus Three framework. Supported by the GE Office, the two-day "Asian Peace and Reconciliation Conference" ended with a mock press conference held in collaboration with the International Journalism programme of HKBU.