Breaking News: China Institute for Socio-Legal Studies of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Selected as an “AMI Think Tank” in the “Comprehensive Evaluation of Chinese Think Tanks 2025”
On September 19, the “8th China Think Tank Construction and Evaluation Summit Forum” was held at the Chinese Academy of History in Beijing. The event was hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Evaluation Studies and organized by its Institution and Think Tank Evaluation Research Office. At the forum, the review results of the China Think Tank Comprehensive Evaluation Research Project (2025) were released, and the China Institute for Socio-Legal Studies (CISLS) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University was included in the list of “AMI Think Tanks for the Comprehensive Evaluation of Chinese Think Tanks 2025.”
The China Think Tank Comprehensive Evaluation (AMI) Research Project was launched by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Evaluation Studies in 2016. It conducts a nationwide comprehensive evaluation every four years and has become a highly authoritative and influential mechanism for assessing think tanks in China. Using indicators such as attractiveness, management capacity, and influence, the project aims to build a scientific and objective evaluation system, identify and promote outstanding think tanks with strong overall performance, distinctive academic profiles, and notable policy impact, and showcase representative best practices in China’s think tank community, thereby advancing the high-quality development of new-type think tanks with Chinese characteristics. The current evaluation round began in January 2025 and attracted applications from nearly 1,000 think tanks across the country, of which 558 were selected into the 2025 AMI Think Tank list.
The China Institute for Socio-Legal Studies of Shanghai Jiao Tong University traces its origins to the Law and Society Center at the KoGuan School of Law. In April 2019, with the approval of the university, the center was upgraded into an independent, university-level institute and was officially inaugurated in June of the same year. Guided by the goal of building a world-class social science institution and oriented toward major issues in national and social development, CISLS functions both as a cross-disciplinary research platform and as a non-governmental think tank. Drawing on empirical social science, cognitive science, and intelligent science and technology, the institute studies modes of governance in super-large, networked, risk-oriented, and data-driven societies, with the aim of providing robust and reliable evidence for accurately understanding, interpreting, and explaining Chinese phenomena and addressing broader questions of global significance.
Since its establishment, CISLS has gradually developed a comprehensive mechanism that links research projects, high-end forums, academic journals, book series, academic salons and workshops, and the Annual Conference on Law and Society in China. It has successfully secured more than 50 research projects, including major projects of the National Social Science Fund, projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and major projects of the Supreme People’s Court. The institute has launched a range of influential book series, such as “Law and Risk Society,” “Rule of Law in China,” “Law and Society,” the “CCF Computational Law Branch Research Series,” the “AI Governance and Law Studies” series, the “Socio-Legal Studies Library: Frontiers of Research” translation series, and the “Law and Society Translation Series – Digital Rule of Law.” CISLS researchers have published over 100 papers in leading journals including China Legal Science, Exploration and Free Views, Oriental Law, and China Law Review, while more than 20 of its policy reports have received positive written instructions or comments from leaders at provincial or ministerial level and above.
The institute’s English-language international journal, the Asian Journal of Law and Society, has, in the decade since its launch, been indexed in SCOPUS and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI). In the 2023 Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) rankings, it was placed in the Q2 quartile. In terms of academic exchange, CISLS has organized or co-organized more than 60 conferences and lectures, including eight international symposia, attracting scholars from over a dozen countries. Looking ahead, the institute plans to make full use of platforms such as the UNDP Green Digital Innovation Legal Safeguard Project and the United Nations University’s Global Artificial Intelligence Network as key vehicles for providing intellectual support to global cooperation on artificial intelligence and for innovating interdisciplinary research paradigms that bridge the humanities, social sciences, and technology, thereby further enhancing its role as a high-end think tank. In the future, CISLS will continue to uphold and develop the core mission of socio-legal studies and to write new chapters in the “law and society” movement in twenty-first-century China.
In this evaluation, the sister institution of CISLS—the Center for Japanese Studies of Shanghai Jiao Tong University—was likewise selected into the list of “AMI Think Tanks for the Comprehensive Evaluation of Chinese Think Tanks 2025.”