About Journal of Dalian University of Technology (Social Sciences Edition)

Journal of Dalian University of Technology (Social Sciences Edition)

The Journal of Dalian University of Technology (Social Sciences Edition) (Chinese title: 大连理工大学学报（社会科学版）) is a Chinese-language social sciences journal sponsored by Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, Liaoning. Published quarterly, it carries research in philosophy of science and technology, economics and management, law and public administration, reflecting the university's engineering base. Dalian University of Technology — founded in 1949, a key national university under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, concentrating on science and technology while covering economics, management, liberal arts, foreign languages and social sciences — gives the journal its distinctive standpoint: it is a social science journal written from inside one of China's great engineering universities, where the human consequences of technology are a home subject.

Dalian University of Technology

Dalian University of Technology (DUT) is located in the coastal city of Dalian in north-eastern China's Liaoning Province — a port and trading centre sometimes called the Hong Kong of northern China. Founded in 1949, it is one of the key national universities under the direct leadership of the Ministry of Education. The university has developed into a comprehensive university of science and technology: engineering is its main concentration, with applied sciences, economic and management sciences, humanities, social sciences and law also covered. Its structure reflects that breadth — a graduate school, numerous institutes and departments, and tens of thousands of enrolled students — and its School of Humanities and Social Sciences and School of International Cultural Exchange evidence its commitment to the humanities within a technological university: programmes in engineering, law, linguistics, media studies, philosophy, political science and public administration sit alongside the engineering faculties. The social sciences edition of the university journal is the periodical expression of that commitment: the venue in which DUT's humanities and social science scholars publish as a community.

A social sciences edition in an engineering university

Chinese technological universities publish their journals in editions, and the social sciences edition is where a university like DUT conducts its reflective business. The questions such a journal exists to ask are set by its setting: What does rapid technological change do to society, law and the economy? How should science and technology be governed, and what are the ethical limits of engineering? How do industrial regions — and Dalian and the north-east are China's historic heavy-industrial base — manage economic transformation? Published quarterly, the journal carries research in philosophy of science and technology, economics and management, law and public administration — a scope that maps the social sciences of a technological university precisely. Philosophy of science and technology, its first named field, is the signature discipline of such institutions in China: the study of the nature, history and social meaning of science and technology, taught and researched most intensively where science and technology are practised at the highest level.

Philosophy of science and technology

Philosophy of science and technology (科学技术哲学) is a recognised Chinese academic discipline — encompassing the philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, and science, technology and society (STS) studies — and it anchors the journal's identity. In a university whose laboratories and engineering schools generate the phenomena under study, this field has a natural laboratory: its scholars examine the methodology of engineering knowledge, the ethics of emerging technologies, the history of Chinese industrial science, and the social shaping of technical systems. DUT's humanities provision in philosophy and political science, and its research culture in the social study of science, feed the journal's coverage. Articles in this strand address questions of wide current resonance — artificial intelligence ethics, engineering ethics, technology governance, sustainable development — from the standpoint of a community that builds technology rather than merely commenting on it. That standpoint distinguishes the journal's STS coverage from that of comprehensive universities, and it is the first reason specialists consult the title.

Economics and management

Economics and management form the journal's second strand. DUT's management provision — business administration, information management and management science and engineering — prepares students for leadership in business, and the university's economics and management research addresses the problems of an industrial coastal economy: regional development in north-east China, the revitalisation of the old industrial base, port and maritime economics appropriate to Dalian's position as a north-east Asian trading and financial centre, innovation management and the economics of technology. The university describes itself as preparing students to navigate the complexities of global markets, and its journal publishes the corresponding scholarship: studies of enterprise management, technological innovation systems, industrial policy and regional economies. For a social sciences edition of an engineering university, management is not an ornamental add-on but a core professional discipline — management science and engineering is a doctoral field at technological universities — and the journal's economics and management coverage carries that professional weight.

Law and public administration

Law and public administration complete the journal's named scope. DUT teaches law within its humanities and social sciences provision, and its legal scholarship — in a technological university, characteristically strong in intellectual property, science and technology law, environmental law and administrative law — appears in the journal alongside public administration research on governance, public policy and public management. Public administration at an engineering university addresses the administrative systems that plan, fund and regulate technology and industry: science and technology policy, innovation governance, urban and regional administration in the north-east, and the management of public services in industrial cities. Together, law and public administration give the journal its governance strand, balancing its reflective strand (philosophy of science and technology) and its economic strand. The four named fields together — philosophy of science and technology, economics and management, law and public administration — define a coherent journal: the social sciences as they are constituted in, and needed by, a university of technology.

The wider journal family at DUT

The social sciences edition belongs to the journal family of Dalian University of Technology, whose senior title is the Journal of Dalian University of Technology — a comprehensive natural science academic journal managed by the Ministry of Education and hosted by the university (ISSN 1000-8608), publishing research in engineering, mathematics, physics and astronomy, with coverage recorded in international indexes from 1994 to the present and including reports of research from national laboratories. The university's publishing ecology extends further — for example Foreign Language Education & Research, established in October 2013 under the university's supervision and sponsored by DUT Press, awarded 'Most Popular Journal in Education' titles by the National Center for Philosophy and Social Sciences Documentation in 2018 and 2021, serves foreign-language teaching research with columns in language theory, literature, culture and translation. Within this family, the social sciences edition is the general humanities and social sciences title: the counterpart of the natural science journal, and the journal of record for DUT's non-engineering scholarship.

Readership and authors

The journal's readers are social scientists in China's technological universities — a large and distinctive community, since every major engineering university in China maintains humanities and social sciences faculties whose members share the journal's standpoint — together with researchers nationally in philosophy of science and technology, management, law and public administration. Its authors are principally DUT's own faculty in those fields, with national contributors. Students at the university — some 35,000 enrolled across its programmes in the university's own descriptions — include postgraduates in its social science disciplines, for whom the journal is a local scholarly forum and a model of publishable work. The journal circulates through China's academic journal channels and databases, in which university journals are comprehensively indexed and cited.

Publication pattern

The journal is published quarterly — four issues a year — in Chinese, in Dalian, Liaoning, sponsored by Dalian University of Technology. Quarterly publication is the standard rhythm for the social sciences editions of technological universities' journals, allowing substantial articles across its four fields in each issue. Its Chinese title follows the standard form for such editions — the university journal's name with the social sciences edition specified in parentheses — and it is catalogued under that title in Chinese libraries and databases. The university's journal administration presents its periodicals as part of its research output, alongside the natural science journal and specialist titles.

Significance

The Journal of Dalian University of Technology (Social Sciences Edition) represents a significant type in Chinese scholarly publishing: the reflective journal of a great technological university. Published quarterly from Dalian by a key national university founded in 1949, and carrying philosophy of science and technology, economics and management, law and public administration, it records how China's engineering universities think about the society their technology transforms. WorldNM lists it as Liaoning's representative technological-university social science journal and a source for research on science, technology and society in north-east China.