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Professor Stephen Cummings from Victoria University of Wellington has just completed his visit to Beijing as a Peking University New Zealand Centre Fellow. Whilst at PKU, Stephen was affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Industries (ICI), working with Professor Hardy Xiang and based in the Institute’s house at no. 55 in the historic Yan Nan Garden area of PKU. During his stay, Stephen taught on the Institute’s Creative Management Summer School, which brings together leading students from across China to work on projects relating to the development of innovation in the cultural industries. Stephen and his former colleague Chris Bilton’s book, Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation, has recently been translated into Chinese by the ICI, and is used as a text at the summer school.
(Left) The Chinese translation of Professor Cummings' book. (Right) Professor Cummings. Stephen also gave a lecture on PKU’s New Zealand Studies course on Entrepreneurs Rewi Alley and Peter Jackson; gave a series of lectures for masters and PhD students at Tsinghua’s School of Management; and was invited to be an international keynote speaker, with Edgar Schein (Emeritus Professor at of MIT) at a Management & Innovation conference at Tsinghua University. He was interviewed about his talk for a feature in a forthcoming issue of the Tsinghua Business Review. He also met with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise staff in Beijing to gain a greater appreciation of the opportunities and challenges that New Zealand business face in developing their operations in China.
Professor Cummings delivers his lecture to Peking University students. “The time at PKU was a fantastic opportunity to develop my research on different cultural approaches to creativity. It also enabled me to gain new insights into China’s growing interest and investment in innovation and entrepreneurship and what New Zealand can learn from this”, says Professor Cummings. “Having the support of NZC staff and the ICI helped me to achieve a great deal during my stay and I would encourage all NZ-based scholars with an interest in China to apply for a NZC fellowship, for the benefit of their own research, and help further the NZC’s unique position and our growing relationship with PKU.”
New Zealand Centre staff with Professor Cummings at Weiming Lake. Professor Cummings prepared his visit to Beijing as part of a Visiting Fellowship with the New Zealand Centre. If you are a member of the academic staff from any of our eight partner institutions and you are interested in attending a fellowship at Peking University, get in touch with our liaison officers to learn more about the application process. Visiting fellowships for New Zealand academics are held year-round at Peking University, across a broad range of departments, forming a significant contribution to the advancement of academic exchange between China and New Zealand. |
