On October 9, 2016, Professor James J. Heckman was honored as the Chairman of Advisory Board of the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Jinan University. After the ceremony, Professor delivered a lecture titled the Life cycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Intervention". 

Prof. James J. Heckman is the Nobel Laureate in Economics of 2000 and Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in University of Chicago. Last winter, Prof. Heckman had an in-depth conversation with Prof. Shuaizhang Feng. Both of them concerns a lot about the education problem of children in China and they exchanged their ideas about the great number of left-behind children and migrant children as well as their problem of lacking early education.

Migration and child development is the focus of IESR's research, which is also the focus of Prof. Heckman's recent research. The high matching degree is the potential and opportunity of the cooperation between Prof. Heckman and IESR.

As the chairman of advisory board, Prof. Heckman will support the development of IESR by sharing his great insight, offering his advices, and IESR can grow into a better institution that would meet the challenges of contemporary China better.