Lingnan University co-organizes with National Taiwan University for “The Transformation of East Asian Welfare States in the Post COVID 19 Era: Challenges, Opportunities and Futures” Symposium

Lingnan University successfully co-organized the international symposium with a theme of “The Transformation of East Asian Welfare States in the Post COVID19 Era: Challenges, Opportunities and Futures” with National Taiwan University and the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. The symposium was held at the National Taiwan University in Taipei with speakers and participants from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. The two day symposium discussed issues related to social service delivery, welfare expenditure and social policy change, and ageing and long-term care in East Asia. Comparative and international experiences were shared in the symposium with critical reflections on the challenges and futures of East Asian welfare states.

During the symposium, Lingnan University, National Taiwan University and the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong co-launched a new Inter-university Consortium for Social Change, Wellbeing and Social Policy Studies to promote regional and international comparative research on social development and social policy in East Asia. The Consortium offers an open platform for academics and researchers to engage in series of research, symposium and conference, student and staff exchange and collaborative research projects to build stronger links for social policy research with focus on East Asia. Core partners of the Consortium includes Lingnan University, National Taiwan University, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Sun Yat Sen University, University of New South Wales and National Chung Cheng University. The Consortium welcomes member institutions to join from other parts of East Asia and plans to host the next symposium in Hong Kong.

Professor Ka Ho Mok was invited to present a keynote speech at the Symposium, he shared a topic of “Managing the rise of older adults in Hong Kong: Towards a community-based integrated care and health approach in post-COVID 19 crisis era”, examining the search for a new social governance of social support to the growth of older people in Hong Kong. Professor Padmore Amoah presented research findings regarding wellbeing of African asylum seekers in a productivist welfare region of Hong Kong, sharing the major challenges they face and also informal social / community support in Hong Kong. Dr Cheng Shi presented long-term care for the older people in Hong Kong with a cross-sectional study, while Ms Yawen Wen shared her joint-paper with Professor Genghua Huang about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care policy in China mainland, critically reflecting upon how path dependency of policy change being disrupted by the critical global public health crisis in China. The fruitful discussions will contribute to international publications in major social policy / policy studies journals.