Professor LIN Shangli was born in November 1963. He holds a PhD in Law and is a member of the Communist Party of China. Apart from being a Distinguished Professor of the Changjiang Scholars Program and a member in the Expert Committee of the National Textbook Committee, Professor LIN also won the Special Government Allowance from the State Council in 2001. Before he took office as the President of Renmin University of China and Vice Chairperson of the University Council in Renmin University of China, Professor LIN was Vice President of Fudan University, Secretary General and Deputy Director of the Central Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee.

His main research areas are political theory, Chinese politics and comparative politics. Professor LIN has been in charge of multiple major national and provincial research projects, for example, “Research Project on the Governing System of the Communist Party of China” of the National Social Science Fund of China. Professor LIN is also a productive author of many publications: Domestic Intergovernmental Relations, Party Politics and Modernization, The Logic of Politics—The Principles of Marxist Political Science (co-authored), Studies in Contemporary Chinese Politics Formation, The Communist Party of China and State Building, and Contemporary Chinese Politics: Foundation and Development, and hundreds of papers. All these academic achievements won him the first prize of the 3rd Outstanding Achievement Award for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences in Chinese Universities of the Ministry of Education and the third prize of the 7th Science Research Famous Achievement Award in Higher Institution (Humanities and Social Sciences) of the Ministry of Education.