Keynote Speakers

Bios: Professor John Chi-Kin Lee, President and Chair Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, joined The Education University of Hong Kong (the then Hong Kong Institute of Education) in 2010. He was Vice President (Academic) from 2010 to 2019, and Vice President (Academic) and Provost from 2019 to 2023. Professor Lee was previously Dean of Education and a Professor at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He was also the Director of the Centre for University and School Partnership and served as a Fellow of United College and Morningside College at CUHK. Professor Lee was a recipient of The Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award 1999 at CUHK. Before that, he worked as a secondary school teacher and as a Lecturer in the Sir Robert Black College of Education.

Professor Lee graduated from The University of Hong Kong and subsequently received an MSc degree from the University of Oxford, and an MA (Education), PhD and Diploma in Education (with distinction) from CUHK. His research interests focus on curriculum and instruction, geographical and environmental education, life and values education, and teacher development and school improvement. He is active in leading education research and development projects and has a solid track record in securing external grants. Professor Lee was named among the top 1% most-cited scientists in the world in terms of career-long impact, in the latest list released by Stanford University. He was a Fellow of the Hong Kong Primary Educational Research Association.

 Professor Lee has served as Editor of the International Journal of Children's Spirituality, Executive Editor of Teaching and Teacher Education and editorial board member of Teachers and Teaching, as well as an editorial board members or advisory editor of many local, regional and international journals. He is also a prolific writer, having edited and written more than 25 books, and published over 175 journal articles and book chapters. He is the leading co-editor of the Springer book series, Curriculum and School Development in Asia and Education for Sustainability, as well as The Routledge Series on Life and Values Education and The Routledge Series on Chinese Language Education.

Bios: Christopher Day is Professor of Education in the School of Education, University of Nottingham, and Guest Professor, Beijing Normal University, China. He is judged to be in the top one hundred scholars globally for the range and lifetime impact of his research, a founder of The International Study Association for Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and the International Successful School Principalship Project(ISSPP). He is founding Editor-in-Chief of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, a Q1 rated journal, and has led national, European and international research and development projects in the areas of teachers' work, lives and effectiveness, school-university partnerships, and successful school principalship. Recent publications include Educational Research and the Quality of Successful School Leadership (Paper commissioned for the 2024/5 Global Education Monitoring UNESCO Report “Leadership in Education”); Going Beyond the ‘Effective’: How successful principals build and sustain teachers’ and students’ academic, social and individual learning and achievement (2024); and Teacher Professionalism During the Pandemic: Courage, Care and resilience (2023).

Bios: Pu Rui holds a Ph.D. in Education and completed her postdoctoral research in Public Administration. She is currently a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Education, Central China Normal University (CCNU), Director of the Research Center for Chinese Educational Management at CCNU, and a former Visiting Scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her primary research interests focus on fundamental educational theory, higher education governance, and educational policy. She also serves as Vice Chairperson of the Professional Committee for Young and Mid-Career Educational Theorists of the Chinese Society of Education, Vice President of the Hubei Provincial Educational Society, and Chairperson of the Hubei Educational Management Professional Committee .

She has led major research initiatives, including a Key Project of the National Social Science Fund of China titled "Research on the Boundaries and Implementation Mechanisms of School Autonomy" (16AGL019) and a Major Philosophy and Social Science Research Project of Hubei Higher Education Institutions (22ZD009). She has authored scholarly monographs such as Contemporary School Autonomous Development: Theory and Strategy, and published influential papers in prestigious journals—including the Journal of Central China Normal University—such as "The Evolution, Logic, and Prospects of China's Educational Poverty Alleviation Policies" and "Chinese-Style Modernization and the Improvement of Educational Governance Effectiveness" [6-8]. Her research has been awarded the Second Prize of the Hubei Provincial Outstanding Achievement Award in Social Sciences and the First Prize of the Hubei Provincial Outstanding Achievement Award in Educational Scientific Research.

Bios: Zhiyong Zhu is Professor of Sociology and Education Policy at the College of Educational Administration, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology and Education from the University of Hong Kong. Grounded in the sociology of education, Professor Zhu's current research interests focus on educational policy implementation, curriculum reform, school leadership and management, teacher professional development, and higher education reform in China. He was awarded the distinguished Fulbright New Century Scholarship (2007–2008) for his research on access and equity in higher education.

Bios: Zhang Xinping is Chair of the Academic Committee and Director and Professor of the Institute of Educational Leadership and Management in the School of Educational Science at Nanjing Normal University. He serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Educational Management, one of the first key textbooks commissioned under the Project to Study and Develop Marxist Theory in the New Era. He concurrently serves as President of the Professional Committee on Modern Educational Management of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy, and sits on the editorial boards of academic journals such as Primary and Secondary School Administration.

His research focuses on educational leadership and management, as well as basic education reform and development. He has published over 200 academic papers and more than 10 scholarly monographs, including On Educational Organizational Paradigms. Currently, he is Principal Investigator for a Major Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research funded by the Ministry of Education, having previously led and completed one Key Project and two General Projects funded by the National Social Science Fund of China. He has received numerous awards, including the First Prize twice, Second Prize twice, and Third Prize three times of the Jiangsu Provincial Award for Outstanding Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences; the Third Prize twice of the National Award for Outstanding Achievements in Educational Scientific Research; the Second Prize once of the Jiangsu Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award; the National Second Prize once for Graduate Teaching Achievement; and the Special Award once of the National Educational Professional Degree Teaching Achievement Award.

Bios: Dr. Yan Liu is an internationally engaged scholar and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Watson College of Education. She serves as the college’s Faculty Fellow for Research, coordinator of the Master of School Administration program, and Educational Administration area lead for the Ed.D. program. Dr. Liu earned dual doctoral degrees in K -12 Educational Administration and Educational Policy, with a specialization in Urban Education, from Michigan State University. Her research examines educational and teacher leadership, professional collaboration, leader development and retention, and the application of large-scale national and international data to complex educational challenges. Her scholarship has contributed to understanding how leadership, policy, and organizational conditions influence educators and educational outcomes across diverse contexts. Through interdisciplinary and international collaboration, Dr. Liu works to strengthen research capacity and translate rigorous evidence into meaningful improvements in educational policy, leadership, and practice.

Bios: Professor Chen's research focuses on school leader development. She is particularly interested in professional literacy, wellbeing, flow, and resilience of school principals and middle leaders. Professor Chen has developed four conceptual models and eight instruments. Her scientific contribution to the fields has been recognised by the international community. Professor Chen was invited as the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report Expert Group Member 2024 for the theme of ‘Leadership in Education’ and the reviewer for the UNESCO country profile (Chinese Mainland) and regional profile (Hong Kong). The framework on teacher leadership developed by Prof Chen was recommended by the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report 2024 for international adoption. Moreover, she was also ranked among the top 2% of the world’s most-cited scientists in education since 2021 and the top 1% of the world’s most-cited scientists in education since 2024, according to lists compiled by Stanford University.