The Royal Society & NSFC · £12,000 · 1 January 2025 – 31 December 2026 · Principal Investigator (UK): Helen X. H. Bao
About the project
Regional (spatial) inequality is a persistent and challenging issue facing both the UK and Chinese governments, and spatial governance is one of the tools that could address it effectively. Spatial-governance systems support formal and informal decision-making about the transformation of territories. China has embraced the concept informally since the Deng Xiaoping era of the 1980s, and then formally through numerous policy pilots, and is now actively promoting spatial governance to mobilise local resources and knowledge against widening regional disparities. The UK, meanwhile, has led the research and practice of behavioural public policy: the world’s first government-led behavioural-insights unit was established under David Cameron in 2011, and behavioural interventions have since been applied widely and successfully across policy areas such as environmental protection, energy conservation and organ donation, with more than 200 behavioural-insight units set up worldwide.
This project explores the possibility and potential of combining the models and experiences of the two countries to address regional inequality. While both models focus on local engagement, the UK model works at the level of the individual (for example, the residents of a city) and the Chinese model focuses on grassroots institutions (for example, rural collectives or village cadres). Combining the two may generate the synergy needed for regional development and levelling up.
Team Members
- Helen X. H. Bao — Principal Investigator (UK), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge
- Haijun Bao — Co-Investigator (China), Hangzhou City University
- Natalie Xiaoqi Liu — PhD student, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge
Symposium
The grant convened an international symposium at Newnham College, Cambridge (4–6 August 2026), hosted by the Lab for Interdisciplinary Spatial Analysis and bringing together researchers from Cambridge, Hangzhou City University and partner institutions in China.
Working papers
The team has been working on the following paper: