On the morning of December 3, 2024, the School of Marxism held a mobilization meeting for the 2025 National-level Project Application and a guidance session for the National Social Science Fund and Ministry of Education Social Science Project Applications at the Huiwen Building, Yuehai Campus. Professor Xiang Jiuyu, a distinguished professor from Wuhan University, delivered a guidance session titled “Topic Selection and Propagation—A Discussion on Project Applications” for the young faculty members planning to apply for the 2025 national-level projects. The session was hosted by Professor Zhang Shoukui, Vice Dean of the School of Marxism at Shenzhen University, and was attended by many young teachers.
During the session, Professor Xiang Jiuyu began with a vivid analogy to highlight the importance of project applications for teachers: without their own projects, a university teacher is like a soldier going into battle without armor. Successfully applying for projects at all levels is not only a practical necessity for accelerating the construction of Chinese characteristics in philosophy and social sciences but also a process for scholars to pursue truth and enhance academic competence.
Professor Xiang then explained the project application process in three main aspects. First, he provided an overview of humanities and social sciences projects, including their classification, establishment procedures, review processes, and the differences between the National Social Science Fund and the Ministry of Education Social Science Projects. Second, he focused on the principles of selecting topics for humanities and social sciences projects. The first principle is that the topic must be "new": new viewpoints form the foundation for topic selection, and new methods are important for research. The second principle is that the size of the topic should be appropriate, meaning that the topic should be highly focused and able to reflect broader significance. The third principle is that the topic should have practical significance, responding to social hot topics and aligning with national strategic needs. The fourth principle is that the topic should have academic depth, which can be expressed through in-depth exploration of a specific field, major issues, or social theories. Professor Xiang also introduced eight methods for selecting topics in humanities and social sciences projects, including simultaneous selection, cross-selection, opportunity clue method, browsing and capturing, small topic big impact, old bottle new wine, retrospective verification, and research-based topic selection. After explaining the basic information about project applications and general topic selection principles, Professor Xiang further presented 100 academic topics from the report of the 20th National Congress that could be considered for project applications, such as "Promoting the Great Spirit of Party Building," "Building an Innovative Country," "The Chinese Communist Party's 'Courage to Struggle and Good at Struggling,'" "Firm Historical Confidence," and "Comprehensive Development of Whole Process People’s Democracy," among others.
At the end of the session, Vice Dean Zhang Shoukui expressed gratitude to Professor Xiang for his excellent presentation and gave a concluding speech, noting that this was a comprehensive and rich guidance session, from macro to micro perspectives. Professor Xiang’s insightful presentation provided valuable inspiration for teachers in future topic selection and project applications. The content shared in this session was abundant and practical, and the participants gained a lot of useful information. This will help the young faculty members at our school familiarize themselves with the techniques and requirements for applying for national-level social science projects and accumulate more beneficial experience, thus actively contributing to the improvement of our school’s project application success rate for 2025.
