The Joseph Needham Foundation for Science and Civilisation (JNFSC) is proud to announce the upcoming Needham Conference titled: “Needham’s Dialogical Vision: Understanding Science as a Multi-Civilizational Outcome “, to be held on 23rd - 24th March 2023 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and “The 13th Joseph Needham Memorial Lecture Series” to be held on 25th March 2023 at the Hong Kong Palace Museum Auditorium.

These events are organized by JNFSC and the Needham Research Institute (Cambridge), and jointly with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Jao Tsung-I Petite Ecole (JTIPE), and the Faculty of Asian and Middle East Studies of the University of Cambridge, and the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

For more information of Conference, please visit HERE. 

For event registration, please visit HERE.

The Joseph Needham Foundation for Science and Civilisation JNFSC, a Hong Kong Approved Charity was founded in late 1979 originally as the East Asian History of Science Trust Hong Kong and associated with the East Asian History of Science Trust in Cambridge.  It was re- registered in 1981 as the East Asian History of Science Foundation (EAHSF) in 1981 for ease of fund raisings to support the construction of a permanent East Asian History of Science Library in Cambridge, now known as the Needham Research Institute (NRI).  

To further promote the scholarly legacy of the late Dr. Joseph Needham, one of the greatest historians of ancient Chinese Science and Civilisation and an acclaimed humanist of the 20th Century, EAHSF was renamed  JNFSC in 2018.

JNFSC and NRI have over the years initiated several conferences, including the Needham Scholarly Heritage in Cambridge in 2015, The Joseph Needham Symposium on Early Cultural and Scientific Transmission across Eurasia with China at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2018, the planned Needham Question Conference in Beijing in 2020 but aborted owing to the global outbreak of the COVID-19.

Joseph Needham’s pioneering work on “Science and Civilisation in China” has inspired a vast body of literature showing how technological and scientific exchanges across multiple civilisations were woven together into making science. But his dialogical vision has hitherto been over-shadowed by another question he raised – “why was modern science born in Europe and not elsewhere”.

This Conference, and the Needham Memorial Lectures which follow, bring together leading scholars to address Needham’s dialogical question. They explore the significance of multi-civilizational exchanges has on the development of science through the centuries, which can profoundly transform our understanding of the historical, intellectual and sociocultural origins of modern science.

Dr.  Peter Lee, Chairman of the JNFSC and the Organizing Committee said " As the principal organizer of the conference, the Joseph Needham Foundation for Science and Civilisation has the honour to assemble a group of world renowned scholars to expound upon Dr. Needham's scholarly legacy, which embraces both the universality of science, and  the rise of Modern Science from ancient multi-civilisational origins. “