Welcoming the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science to Dublin

On 29 June 2026, Emerald Strategy Partners (ESP) was delighted to welcome a delegation from the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science (SISS) to our Dublin office — a visit that reflects the deepening of research and innovation ties between Ireland and China.

Founded in January 1980, SISS is one of China’s earliest soft-science research institutes and today stands among Shanghai’s key think tanks. With a team of roughly 85 researchers — including 41 doctorate holders and a median age of just 37 — the Institute leads in fields such as leadership science and technology statistics, contributes directly to Shanghai’s and China’s national development plans, and maintains an extensive network of international collaborations.

Research at the frontier

Several of the themes the delegation shared stood out as especially relevant to conversations now taking place across Ireland and Europe:

• Technology foresight, a tradition SISS has built since 2001, now extending to 2035 and frontier technologies such as organ-on-chip and gene editing.

• Research on the new artificial intelligence paradigm — from the safe development of AI to governance, facial recognition risk and “AI for Science”.

• Regional innovation collaboration, with the Yangtze River Delta as a living case study in cross-regional coordination.

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Why this matters for Ireland

Ireland is an English-speaking gateway to the EU single market of over 450 million consumers, the fastest-growing economy in the Eurozone, and home to one of the most research-friendly policy environments in Europe. SISS’s focus on the dynamics and societal impact of technological change maps closely onto the questions Irish institutions, universities and companies are themselves working through.

Through our Go Ireland / Go EU initiative, ESP works to connect Chinese institutions with the right Irish and European partners in research, industry and policy. As a strategic bridge between Ireland and China, we look forward to exploring concrete avenues for cooperation with SISS in the months ahead.

To our partners at SISS: thank you for visiting. The door at 2 Malahide Road is always open.