Professor of China Studies, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (TORS), Copenhagen University
Former Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) at Fudan University, Shanghai
Professor Dr. Jørgen Delman has been working with China for more than 35 years, and he joins the China Studies group after more than 7 years as Director at NIAS Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. His research has concentrated on development dynamics in modern China. His primary focus has been on the relationship between China’s party-state and the organization of civil society, for many years the relationship between party-state and peasants/farmers and in recent years the interaction between the party-state and private business. He has worked with different sectors as cases, primarily agriculture and food and recently renewable energy. His work has been driven by a strong interest in innovation in China. Jørgen Delman has arranged a series of international conferences and he is an experienced public speaker on Chinese issues and often appears in the media.
Jørgen Delman has lived and worked in China for 10 years, first as a student from 1977-1978 at the end of the Cultural Revolution when China’s reforms were about to start. Along his carrier, he worked in over a dozen countries in Asia and Africa for UN and EU development programs as well as private companies. Throughout most of his career, Jørgen Delman has worked as project Director and/or team leader on a considerable number of international development projects as well as on research projects and policy studies. He also holds a number of positions of trust in the academic world. He took his PhD degree in Chinese at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Aarhus University, in 1991 and his Masters degree at the same place in 1979. He is a regular Political Analyst on Danish TV, China advisor to the Danish government, Senior Advisor to joint EU-China development programs. He currently works with partners at Zhejiang University on a new project in Hangzhou that looks into the consequences of climate change politics for city governance.
His recent publications focus on state-business and state-society interaction in China, with topics such as: The role of Dragon Head enterprises in China’s rural organization: from worn to green China-model; China’s energy security; the architecture of the biofuels market in China; green city making in Hangzhou.