That China will host 2018 International Conference on Cultural Heritage Studies was declared by Laurajane Smith, Chairman of the Conference in the Assembly of International Association of Cultural Heritage Studies held in Canberra, Australia from 2nd to 4th December 2014 after beating Britain with a result of 37 against 21. Institute of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies at Zhejiang University, on behalf of Zhejiang University, Fudan University and Shanghai International Studies University, tendered for the hosting right.

The Assembly of International Association of Cultural Heritage Studies, held every two years, is sponsored by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS). The Association, established in 2012, is chaired by Prof. Laurajane Smith, director of Center for Heritage Studies at the Department of Archeology and Museology at Australian National University and editor-in-chief of International Heritage Studies Journal. The first Conference, held in University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2012 with participants of about 500 scholars and experts, aimed at not only promoting the transformation and innovation of cultural heritage studies and practices, but making heritage a key resource of cultural industry and a carrier of advancing society, ethical reconstruction and cross-cultural communication as well. The Conference represented the reflective nature of social sciences in the West and highlighted the communication and dialogue between European and non-European culture, with the academic value of reconstructing the concept of cultural heritage, theoretic system and professional practices.

This academic Conference attracted the experts, scholars and practitioners from museology, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, urban planning, landscape science, archeology, anthropology, history, art history, ancient architecture, cultural memory, leisure tourism and public policies.

Professor Wu Zongjie, director of Institute of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies, made a keynote speech entitled “Exploring the Significance of Cultural Heritage from Confucian Perspectives—Taking Zoulu Cultural Heritage Site as an Example”, and he underscored the global significance of holding the Conference in China as “carving the stones of other countries into the jade objects of our own”.