Academic Competition | Review of the Final of the 14th Guangdong Social Research Competition on Government Affairs

During the afternoon of May 23, 2021, the Final iteration of the 14th Guangdong Social Research Competition on Government Affairs was held in D215, in the North College Building of School of Government, at the Guangzhou East Campus of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU). This competition was hosted by the Guangdong Youth Research and Development Center, the Sun Yat-sen University Committee of the Communist Youth League, and School of Government of Sun Yat-sen University. It was organized by the School of Government of Sun Yat-sen University Committee of the Communist Youth League.
For the first time, there was no subject limit for this year’s Government Affairs Competition. The participating teams were only required to search for meaningful and in-depth research issues from the perspective of public administration and politics. This was done in order to provide a more open platform for participants to show their limitless possibilities. The competition attracted 111 teams composed of 586 students from 43 colleges and universities across the country to actively participate in the competition and started in January of this year. After the preliminary rounds of competition, the preliminary contests, and the intermediary contest, a total of nine teams stood out and went through to the final.

The final was divided into two parts: the presentation of the research report and the defense. The nine teams respectively conducted investigation and surveys on several pertinent social issues, such as the situation of algorithmic governance of takeaway delivery drivers, social workers under the guidance of CPC, domestic violence, and Party-industry integration in primary level public administration and county governance. Focusing upon China's governance, they intended to promote modern governance; paying attention to social construction, and they aimed to improve the well-being of people. A variety of public management theories and data analysis tools were used in order to present their research results.

After the presentation and defense, all the judges and audience had seen the creative ideas, meticulous preparation, and confident performance of each team. They witnessed the keen insight and practical action of contemporary university students, and perceived the way their public minds are concerned with current affairs and modern society.

After the fierce competition and careful scoring by the judges, team No. 29 won the first prize of this competition. Based upon the practical and concrete experience of the Party-industry integration in the primary level of public administration, this team conducted a comparative analysis of the organizations of the CPC, the government, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in order to study the mechanisms of improving primary level administrative quality under the guidance of the Party construction.
The 14th Guangdong Social Research Competition on Government Affairs built an academic-practice platform for all students to practice the integration of knowledge and action. Under the guidance of the school principle of “Asking the politics of the world to govern the world well and search for the principle of public administration in order to govern China well”, we hope that we can guide young students to pay attention to China in the new era, improve their academic interest and ability of social practice, and cultivate more political elites for China in tandem with our sister universities!