03 Sep 2026
According to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a total of 470,561 applications were received during the centralised application period for 2026; following initial and final reviews, 469,429 were accepted, and 69,563 projects across ten funding categories — including General Programme and Young Scientists Fund (Category C) projects — were ultimately funded.
Against this highly competitive backdrop, International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), secured nine NSFC grants for 2026 — the best result in the School’s history — with the funded projects spanning multiple fields, including management science and economic science. Three of these grants were awarded to academic staff members from the Department of Finance: one Young Scientists Fund (Category C) project and two General Programme projects, further reinforcing the Department’s record in securing national-level research funding.
The three funded projects are: Dr Ning Zhang’s Young Scientists Fund (Category C) project, “Multi-dimensional Semantic Deconstruction of Policy Information Flow, High-Frequency Belief-Based Gaming, and Market Efficiency Evolution: Evidence from China in the "AI+" Era”; Dr Yajun Xiao’s General Programme project, “Real Estate Shocks and Corporate Behavior: Spillover Mechanism via Real Estate Exposure and Cash Flow Channel”; and Dr Yifan Zhou’s General Programme project, “How Privacy Rules Reshape Work and Innovation”.
Dr Ning Zhang joined IBSS in 2023 and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance. Her research focuses on financial econometrics, empirical asset pricing, and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in finance, with work published in international journals including the Journal of Banking & Finance, the European Journal of Finance, the International Review of Financial Analysis and the Journal of Futures Markets. Her funded project centres on policy information and asset pricing in China’s capital markets, seeking to understand how policy information affects market operation and pricing efficiency in an increasingly digitalised, AI-driven environment. The research is expected to provide fresh empirical evidence on the mechanisms of information transmission in China’s capital markets, and inform more effective macroeconomic expectations management and the mitigation of potential financial risks.
Dr Yajun Xiao’s research spans financial frictions, asset pricing, banking and shadow banking, and corporate financing and investment, with his work appearing in leading journals including the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Review of Finance, the Review of Asset Pricing Studies and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. Dr Xiao’s funded General Programme project examines how changes in the real estate market affect businesses beyond the property sector. Drawing on natural language processing and large language models, the project will develop a firm-level measure of real estate exposure and examine how real estate shocks spread through supply chains, credit relationships and other economic linkages. It will assess the subsequent effects on firms’ cash flows, financing, investment, employment and innovation, before constructing a macroeconomic model to assess how these effects diffuse through the wider economy. The research is expected to help policymakers and financial institutions identify “high-exposure, low-holding” firms — businesses that hold relatively little real estate themselves yet face significant cash-flow and financing pressures during a property market downturn — and to provide evidence for more targeted liquidity support and macroprudential policy design.
Dr Yifan Zhou’s research has appeared in leading journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Banking & Finance. Dr Zhou’s funded General Programme project, set against the backdrop of China’s Personal Information Protection Law, investigates how privacy regulation reshapes firms’ workforce composition and capacity for innovation while strengthening the protection of personal data. In particular, the research will examine whether companies can maintain their capacity for innovation under tighter compliance requirements by recruiting more experienced, research-oriented employees and investing more heavily in training and retention. The project will identify the firms and regions facing the greatest adjustment costs, assess whether better jobs and higher pay offset some of those costs, and offer guidance for regulators seeking to avoid one-size-fits-all enforcement, local governments seeking to combine data protection with talent development, and firms planning their recruitment and innovation strategies under stricter privacy rules.
According to the NSFC announcement, national funding for Young Scientists Fund (Category C) and General Programme projects increased markedly in 2026, by 50.1 per cent and 14.8 per cent respectively, reflecting the country’s continued commitment to fundamental research and the cultivation of early-career researchers. IBSS previously achieved an outstanding result in the 2025 NSFC performance evaluation, earning four “Excellent” and one “Good” ratings, underscoring the quality and sustained impact of the School’s research. As one of the few international business schools in the world to hold the Triple Crown accreditation from AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS, IBSS remains committed to advancing high-calibre research with a global perspective that responds to major economic and societal challenges. The success of these three Department of Finance projects further evinces the School’s thriving research ecosystem and ability of its academics to contribute to research at the forefront of their fields. Professor Stephen Gong, Head of the Department of Finance, in congratulating these awardees on their outstanding achievements, encourages all colleagues to continue engaging in impactful research as well as high-quality teaching.
03 Sep 2026