Good News! Dean Jun Qian and Professor Huasheng Gao are Included in Elsevier List of Highly Cited Chinese Researchers! | Heavyweight

Release time：2026-02-04    

Good News

On January 30^th 2026, Elsevier released its 2025 list of “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers”. In the field of Applied Economics (including Finance), two scholars from Fudan University were included, both from the International School of Finance, namely Jun Qian, Executive Dean of FISF and Professor in Finance, and Huasheng Gao, Deputy Dean of FISF Faculty and Research and Professor in Finance. In the field of Theoretical Economics, Shiyi Chen, Distinguished Professor in Economics at FISF and Director of Fudan Institute of Green Finance, was also named to the list.

Shiyi Chen has been included in the list six consecutive times, Jun Qian five times and Huasheng Gao three times.

FISF professors’ being included in the list of “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers” multiple times is a full affirmation of the academic research achievements of the teaching team of FISF and a demonstration of its outstanding strength and surging power.

Discipline Field: Applied Economics

Jun Qian

Executive Dean of FISF

Professor in Finance

Since the official establishment of FISF in June 2017, Jun Qian has been the executive dean, a professor in finance and a doctoral supervisor in the school. He took post of Chairman of the Democratic Construction Fudan University Committee in October 2021, Standing Committee Member of the 14^th Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in January 2023, and Dean of Fudan Western International Financial Research Institute in April 2023. Previously, he worked as a professor in finance at Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, won the inaugural award of “Best Teaching” (in 2017), and acted as the academic director of DBA/EMBA/EE programs, Vice President of China Academy of Financial Research and Director of Center for Corporate Finance Research. He was a tenured professor in finance at Carroll School of Management, Boston College before he returned to China to teach as a full-time professor in July 2013.

Qian’s research fields cover several subjects including corporate finance, financial institutions and capital markets. He has published a series of papers on world-leading academic journals like Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of International Economics and Management Science. One of his most influential papers, entitled “Law, Finance and Economic Growth in China”, was published on Journal of Financial Economics in 2005, winning the award of “All Star Paper” and ranking the 14th in the ranking of citations among all the papers published on JFE. In this paper, he and his coauthors demonstrated how China achieved remarkable economic growth in the environment with no strong (Anglo-American) legal system or an efficient formal financial system (including the capital market and bank loans) in the first 30 years after the reform and opening up. It aroused a great deal of research on the role of substitute governance mechanisms and financing channels in stimulating the economic growth in China and other countries. According to Google Scholar, his total citation count exceeds 14,000, and he has been titled a “Highly Cited Chinese Researcher” by Elsevier in the field of Applied Economics for five consecutive years (2021-2025).

His monograph entitled Power of China’s Financial System was selected as one of the “most influential books in 2020” by China Publishing & Media Journal. He took the lead in completing many provincial- and ministerial-level research subjects such as the construction of Shanghai International Financial Center and the support of capital markets for the growth of “specialized, refined, unique, and new” enterprises, among which his political consultation reports on the mechanism design of the pilot registration system for the STAR Market and RMB internationalization were adopted by relevant central and Shanghai local departments, winning high emphasis from relevant leaders.

Qian was once the associate editor of Review of Finance, a first-class global academic journal, and is now an editorial board member of Journal of Capital Markets Studies and a senior researcher at Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). Additionally, he acted as a major academic adviser of the Chinese Finance Association (the largest Chinese association in the financial industry in the US), as well as a distinguished, visiting and chair professor at schools and universities like Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., Wharton School of business at University of Pennsylvania, Business School of Stanford University, Tsinghua School of Economic Management and the School of Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Concurrently he is also serving as the vice chairman of the 1^st Academic Committee of the China Capital Market Society (under the CSRC), a member of the Corporate Bond Issuance and Listing Review Committee, Shanghai Stock Market, an expert in consultation and demonstration of major administrative decisions in Shanghai, one of the first batch of legal experts in international finance at Shanghai High People’s Court, and etc. Moreover, he has accepted interviews by domestic and overseas media many times, in which he expounded his profound views and suggestions for improvement upon various economic and financial issues in an easy-to-understand way.

Jun Qian acquired his doctor’s degree in financial economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. He acquired his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Iowa and studied in the department of world economy at Fudan University from 1988 to 1991.

Huasheng Gao

Deputy Dean of FISF Faculty and Research

Professor in Finance

Huasheng Gao has been a professor in finance at FISF since its inception in June 2017 and is currently the Deputy Dean (overseeing research and faculty affairs) and Deputy Secretary of FISF General Party Branch. He was once a tenured professor in finance at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore before he returned to China to teach as a full-time professor in June 2017.

Huasheng Gao is committed to interdisciplinary studies researching the influence of political, social and cultural factors on macro finance, investment, technology innovation, monetary banking and capital market. He has successively published over 30 papers in world-leading journals in various fields of finance, accounting, management and economics, including Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Law and Economics and RAND Journal of Economics. Moreover, he has gained a series of research achievements which were covered by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New York Times and other media.  He has won numerous awards, such as the Best Paper Award of China International Conference in Finance  (CICF) (in 2011), the Best Paper Award of Eastern Finance Association (in 2013), the Best Paper Award of China Finance and Accounting Conference (in 2018), Excellent Teaching Case Award for Shanghai Masters of Finance (in 2019), Excellent Research Finding Award for Reform and Development of Shanghai Financial Industry (in 2020), the first-prize Excellent Achievement Award for Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences (in 2023), and one of the “Top 2% of Global Scientists” released by Stanford University in 2023.

Gao is currently working as the editor-in-chief of the world-famous SSCI academic journal Corporate Governance: An International Review and the executive editor-in-chief of Fudan Financial Review. He also holds a concurrent post of a postdoctoral supervisor at institutes like Shanghai Stock Exchange and China Financial Futures Exchange and has participated in mechanism designing and policy making involving launch and trade rules of the STAR Market, the A-share price discovery mechanism and the closing price calculation method of financial futures. Gao also cooperates with AIA Life Insurance, AnXin Trust, Confidel Academy and many other institutes, guiding them to carry out research on family inheritance, trust pension and wealth management. Currently, he is an independent director of Fortune Trust and Honghui Optics Communication.

Professor Huasheng Gao acquired his doctor’s degree in finance at Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia in 2009; and bachelor’s degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003.

Discipline Field: Theoretical Economics

Shiyi Chen

Distinguished Professor at FISF

Director of Fudan Institute of Green Finance

Shiyi Chen mainly conducts academic research in the directions of: China’s economic transformation and financial development, the economics of energy environment and climate change and applied econometrics and takes the lead in the thinktank research team on green finance, the development of Shanghai and Hong Kong, and sustainable development. He has published many academic papers on Chinese journals like Social Sciences in China, Economic Research Journal and Journal of Financial Research as well as English journals like Journal of Econometrics, Energy Economics and China Economic Review.

He once published three textbooks, Econometrics, Advanced Econometrics (High Education Press) and Introduction to Green Finance (Fudan University Press) and four academic works, including and Research on Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction, Structural Adjustment, and Transformation of Industrial Development Modes and Energy Environment and Economic Transformation in China (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group). He is the editor-in-chief of the four books of Fighting the “Pandemic” with Economics: influence of COVID-19 on economics and corresponding countermeasures (Fudan University Press), Beautiful China: from concept to action, Addressing Climate Change: promoting carbon dioxide reduction through market policies (Science Press) and Chinese and World Economic Growth under Multiple Shocks (Fudan University Press), and translated three books such as Financial Econometrics: statistical analysis of financial markets (China Machine Press).

Chen is a distinguished professor of the Ministry of Education, a winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the chief expert of National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovation Research Group, a leading talent in Shanghai and the winner of many other academic honors such as the highest award in China’s economic circle in 2018, Sun Yefang Economic Science Award; the 1^st Liushibai Economics Award in 2012, and the 5^th Zhang Peigang Development Economic Award. His work was selected into the 1^st National Achievements Library of Philosophy and Social Sciences, and his papers won the first prize of Excellent Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences in Shanghai in 2010, 2018 and 2022. In addition, he is the host of Major Projects of National Social Science Fund, the person in charge of first-class undergraduate curriculum for universities in Shanghai, and the winner of the first prize of the graduate teaching achievement award at Fudan University and the honorary title of the 9th “good mentors in the eyes of graduate students”.

Professor Shiyi Chen acquired his doctor’s degree in econometrics at Kyungpook National University in 2006. Before that he got his master’s degree in economics at Fudan University in 2003.

The Elsevier List of Highly Cited Chinese Researchers takes the globally authoritative citation and index database Scopus as the statistic source of the scientific research achievements of Chinese scholars. It not only serves as one of the key benchmarks for measuring the academic influence of institutions, but is also dedicated to deeply integrating the distribution of research talents and the disciplinary strengths of Chinese institutions, accurately mapping the core competitiveness of universities and research institutions in key technological fields, providing data-driven decision-making support for discipline development and talent strategy, and revealing the direction of topic selection and methodological innovation for high-quality research.

In 2025, a total of 6310 were included in the list of “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers”, coming from 543 universities, enterprises and scientific research institutions and covering 10 disciplinary fields and 83 first-level disciplines of the Ministry of Education. For the extraction of the basic data, the further optimized and updated Elsevier classification mapping of first-level disciplines of Ministry of Education was utilized (having already covered 111 disciplines), exhibiting the disciplinary attribution, disciplinary performance and other relevant information about Chinese scholars in a more direct and systematic manner.