Han Cheng

Han Cheng is a senior research scholar at MPIWG’s Lise Meitner Research Group “China in the Global System of Science” and an adjunct professor at Université Laval’s Graduate School of International Studies. He is a human geographer with particular interests in political and development geographies, the geopolitics of territory and infrastructure, geographies of knowledge, and the histories of geographical thought. He has published widely in leading journals, including Progress in Human Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Political Geography, and Review of International Political Economy.

Han currently serves as a principal investigator for the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project, “China’s Science Silk Road and the New Geopolitics of Knowledge Production” (2026-2030). Together with Anna Lisa Ahlers (MPIWG) and Hang Zhou (Université Laval), he co-leads one of the first in-depth analyses of new science infrastructures and networks under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the course of four years, this interdisciplinary collaborative project will critically map out the Science Silk Road’s multi-level impacts on BRI countries, established science powers, and international scientific cooperation.  
 
Han is an editor of Dialogues in Human Geography and a member of the editorial board of Political Geography. He also serves as an editor of The People’s Map of Global China / Global China Pulse as well as on the global advisory board of the Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Research Network and the De:link//Re:link Research Consortium.

Han holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has received fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, Yale University, and the National University of Singapore. His research has been supported by the Cambridge Trust, the Royal Geographical Society, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the Max Weber Foundation.