Wang Zhenyao, Ph.D., is the founding dean of the Beijing Normal University China Philanthropy Research Institute. He holds a Master's of Public Administration from Harvard University and a doctorate from Peking University. He was awarded the 14th "Compassion Award" in 2019.
Dr. Wang also helms the Beijing Normal University China Philanthropy Research Institute (CPRI), which he helped found in June 2010. Under Dr. Wang’s leadership, CPRI has become a leading philanthropy think tank, which drives national discourse on China’s social services and charitable sector. In addition to its research, CPRI also provides professional philanthropy consulting services and has completed a number of influential projects related to charity law and policy reform, child welfare, and senior citizen service systems reform.
Dr. Wang previously worked for over 22 years at China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA), where he was instrumental in launching several renowned national policies, including direct village elections and the country’s urban/rural minimum welfare social safety net system. Following the devastating Wenchuan earthquake, he established the National Natural Disaster Response System, a four-tiered mechanism for coordinated emergency response. While at MOCA, Dr. Wang also focused on expanding social security benefits to the country’s most vulnerable, reforming the national welfare system to provide allowances and greater support to groups such as orphans and senior citizens.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, CPRI has played an active role as China's leading think tank. Dr. Wang organised a group of experts to establish a COVID-19 research group and drafted and reported a 17-policy-recommendation papers to China’s central government and relevant departments. Furthermore, CPRI not only established the daily monitor system of the epidemic situation but also organised three online CPRI expert discussion seminars to analyse the central and local anti-epidemic policies and measures, the dynamics of social forces, and the prevention of special populations and to release research suggestions and information products in a timely manner. A number of experts have been interviewed by The People's Daily, CCTV, China News Agency, Beijing News, Global Times, and other influential media dozens of times, responding to the hot issues of COVID-19 prevention and control. All the interviews have generated very good social responses.
The Social Emergency Assistance Research Center of Beijing Normal University, which is led by Dr. Wang will keep close contact with specialists of social emergencies extensively, establish a steering committee of social emergency assistance rapidly, and organise a cooperation network of the specialists, with the aim of discussing the possibility of founding the China Social Emergency Assistance Circle and facilitating an applicable and practical research system.
