Data flickers on the screen like a steady breath—tracking the heat of Shanghai's shopping districts, the flow of consumers across the Yangtze River Delta, and the rise and fall of key industries. Since April 2020, this glow from the Think Tank Building hasn't dimmed once.

Tucked away in a corner of the Fudan Development Institute is a high-stakes workspace: the Big Data Laboratory of Consumer Market. Led by the head of the lab, Professor Zhang Yina from School of Social Development and Public Policy, this small but mighty team of ten sifts through mountains of data daily to power national economic decisions.

Ever wonder how the odds of a tax lottery are set to be fair yet effective? Or how shopping vouchers are tailor-made to boost the economy? From optimizing services for visa-free travelers to predicting retail trends that affect our daily lives, the answers are hidden in their tireless calculations. In this new era of Liberal Arts 2.0, they are making academic research something you can feel—turning cold data into warm, human insights.

Translated by Yongjia LIN

Full text in Chinese available at:

https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/d2/ad/c18985a774829/page.htm