Our Network, Our Community.

The Global Governance & International Development Cooperation Network brings together a diverse community of scholars, policy experts, and development practitioners committed to advancing more inclusive and equitable approaches to global governance.

Housed at the University of Melbourne and supported by the Ford Foundation, the Network draws on expertise spanning the Asia–Pacific and the Global South to produce policy-relevant research, foster cross-regional dialogue, and support evidence-based engagement with governments and multilateral institutions.

Advisory Board

Our work is guided by an Advisory Board of leading academics, carried out by a dedicated Project Team, and enriched by a wider pool of Experts who contribute research, analysis, and policy insight across our thematic areas.

Jon Barnet

University of Melbourne

Jon Barnett is Professor in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne. A political geographer, his research investigates the social impacts of and responses to environmental change, with over twenty-five years of field-based work in Australia, China, Timor-Leste, and Pacific Island Countries. He co-directs the Oceania Institute at the University of Melbourne and serves on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) to the Global Environment Facility. He was a Lead Author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

Susan Park

University of Sydney

Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in International Relations at the University of Sydney and a Research Lead at the Sydney Environment Institute. Her research examines how international organisations, particularly multilateral development banks, can become more environmentally sustainable and accountable. She is a lead editor of the journal Global Environmental Politics and a Senior Research Fellow of Earth System Governance. Her books include The Good Hegemon (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Environmental Recourse at the Multilateral Development Banks (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Yang Yao

Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Yang Yao is Professor and Dean of the Dishui Lake Advanced Finance Institute (DAFI) at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and a visiting professor at Peking University. He previously served as Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University (2012–2024). He is the founding editor of China Economic Quarterly and a member of the China Economists 50 Forum. His research focuses on political economy, economic transition, and development in China, and he has published extensively in leading international journals.

Suriyan Vichitlekarn

Mekong Institute

Suriyan Vichitlekarn is Executive Director of the Mekong Institute, an intergovernmental organisation based in Khon Kaen, Thailand, focused on sustainable development and poverty alleviation in the Greater Mekong Subregion. He brings over fifteen years of experience in agriculture, rural development, and trade facilitation, having previously held key positions at GIZ, the Asian Development Bank, and the ASEAN Secretariat. He holds a master’s degree from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Zha Daojiong

Peking University

Zha Daojiong is Professor of International Political Economy in the School of International Studies at Peking University, where he also directs the Center on Transnational Issues and holds a professorship at the University’s Ocean Research Institute. His research focuses on non-traditional security issues in China’s foreign relations, including energy, food, and transboundary water. He is a regular contributor to Track II dialogues on China–US relations and writes for outlets including the South China Morning Post. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii.

Project Team

Mark Wang

Mark Wang is a professor of geography and a human geographer whose research focuses on China’s development, Chinese societies and Chinese economies in the 21st century, international development cooperation, global governance network, Global China, sustainable rural development, and China’s role in the Global South. He is also the director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Dong Wang

Dong Wang is a development economist specialising in structural transformation, agrifood systems, and the global green transition, with a regional focus on Asia-Pacific and the Global South. He is currently a Casual Researcher at the University of Melbourne on the Ford Foundation project, and prior to this, he held research positions at the Australian National University, the University of Queensland, and the University of Sydney. His work integrates energy economics, agricultural economics, development economics, new structural economics, applied econometrics, and applied policy research, examining how factor endowments, industrial change, and development stages shape pathways for sustainable growth.

Enjiang Cheng

Enjiang Cheng is an honorary principal fellow with the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne and a visiting professor at China’s Zhejiang University. Enjiang worked with Ford Foundation as a program officer for eight years. Before joining the foundation, he was an associate professor at Victoria University in Melbourne. He served as a chief research coordinator at the International Poverty Reduction Center of China and as a senior China economist at Citibank in China from 2009 to 2013. Enjiang has worked as senior advisor and international consultant for the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, AusAID and other donors. Enjiang earned a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Melbourne and a bachelor’s degree in the same field from China’s Nanjing Agricultural University.

Pengyi Huang

Pengyi Huang is the project manager of the Ford Foundation BUILD project and the Global Governance/IDC Network at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, the University of Melbourne. He received his PhD of comparative literature from Louisiana State University in 2017. His research focuses on Chinese migrant literature and photography in North America.

Ling Li

Ling Li is pursuing a PhD at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with a focus on the role of technology in enabling sexual exploitation, modern slavery, and human trafficking in East and Southeast Asia. She is a co-author of Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds (Verso, 2025). Her articles have appeared in Critical Asian Studies, Trends in Organized Crime, 南洋问题研究, Global China Pulse, and The Conversation, among other outlets.

Experts

Paul D’Arcy

Paul D’Arcy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. His research focuses on Asia–Pacific history, environmental conflict resolution, and sustainable development. He is General Editor of the Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean and has published extensively on China’s engagement in the Pacific.

Ivan Franceschini

Ivan Franceschini is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne. His research explores the intersections of globalisation, labour, and crime in the digital age, with a focus on the cyber-fraud industry. His latest books include Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds (Verso, 2025) and Global China as Method (Cambridge University Press, 2022). He is the founder and co-editor-in-chief of the Made in China Journal, The People’s Map of Global China, and Global China Pulse.

Diane Hu

Diane Hu is Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne. Her research interests include global China, China–Australia relations, and, more recently, China’s relations with ASEAN countries, with a focus on climate diplomacy and energy transition.

Lewis Mayo

Lewis Mayo is a Lecturer in Asian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. His research and teaching focus on Asian and Pacific history, with particular interests in China’s historical and contemporary engagement with the Pacific region.

Qiuping Pan

Qiuping Pan is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies and Deputy Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. Her research centres on migration and mobility, examining citizenship practices, civic participation, gender, and state–society dynamics in the contexts of China and Australia.

Sarah Rogers

Sarah Rogers is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. A geographer, she studies social, political, and environmental change in rural China and beyond. Her current research focuses on China’s agrochemical complex, China’s engagements in Indonesia, and the impacts of China’s net-zero transition on rural communities.

Craig Smith

Craig Smith is an Associate Professor of Translation Studies (Chinese) at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. A historian of modern East Asia, his research focuses on Chinese intellectual history and transnational regionalism. He is the author of Chinese Asianism 1894–1945 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2021) and co-editor of Translating the Occupation (UBC Press, 2021).

Charlotte Setijadi

Charlotte Setijadi is a Lecturer in Asian Studies and Head of Program for Asian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. An anthropologist, she researches Chinese Indonesian identity politics, Indonesian political culture, and diaspora politics. She is the author of Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia (University of Hawai’i Press, 2023).

Anthony Spires

Anthony Spires is a Professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne, and Deputy Associate Dean International (China) in the Faculty of Arts. A sociologist, his research focuses on the development of civil society in China, including philanthropy, governmental regulation, and the cultures of non-profit organisations. He is the author of Everyday Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2024) and Global Civil Society and China (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Sow Keat Tok

Sow Keat Tok is a Lecturer at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. His research interests span China’s foreign relations and domestic politics, international relations in East and Southeast Asia, and sovereignty questions in China–Hong Kong and China–Taiwan relations. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick.

We are supported by

The establishment of the Global Governance & IDC Network has been made possible through the generous support of the Ford Foundation. With a longstanding commitment to advancing social justice, inclusive development, and equitable global systems, the Foundation supports initiatives that strengthen Global South leadership and promote more accountable and resilient governance. This support enables the Network to convene cross-regional dialogue, produce policy-relevant research, and build collaborative platforms that advance sustainable development in the Asia–Pacific and beyond.