An undated photo of the Beijing Citizen Service Hotline Center, which operates around the clock. /Xinhua (Courtesy of the interviewee)
.
Editor’s note: Yan Yu, a special commentator for CGTN, is a lecturer at the School of Government at Beijing Normal University. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
.
As cities around the world embrace artificial intelligence, big data and digital platforms, the idea of the “smart city” is often associated with sensors, algorithms and connected infrastructure. Yet a more fundamental question deserves equal attention: How can a city actually hear its people and turn their everyday concerns into effective government action?
This question will be especially relevant when this year’s Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints convenes in Beijing on October 12 and 13 under the theme “Digital Intelligence Era and People’s City.” Beijing’s experience suggests that the future of smart urban governance depends as much on institutions and collaboration as on technology.
Beijing’s 12345 citizen service hotline represents an important experiment in making government more accessible and responsive. It allows residents to report problems, seek public services and communicate directly with the municipal government. The city has expanded these services through websites, mobile applications and other digital channels.
But digital access alone cannot make a city responsive. Our comparative research on Beijing and New York City helps explain the institutional arrangements behind this responsiveness. The two cities have developed different forms of internal government collaboration.
New York follows a horizontal mode of collaboration, with technology-oriented leadership, a relatively fragmented institutional framework and contractual cooperation among city agencies. NYC311 has been especially strong in technological development and accessibility. Its customer relationship management systems, mobile applications, open interfaces and data tools allow residents to submit and track requests through multiple channels. Cooperation with municipal agencies is organized largely through Service Level Agreements, which establish response standards and expected time frames. Regular communication among agencies further supports coordination.
Beijing has built what we describe as a vertical mode of collaboration, characterized by administration-oriented leadership, a comprehensive institutional framework and cross-level cooperation. Its approach illustrates an important feature of urban governance: Citizen demands are connected directly to the administrative system and can mobilize coordination across organizational levels. Since the launch of the Swift Response to Public Complaints reform in 2019, Beijing has treated the 12345 hotline as more than a communication channel. Requests received through the hotline are assigned to responsible agencies and local governments, while performance in responding to residents is incorporated into government evaluation.
The Regulations of Beijing Municipality on Swift Response to Public Complaints promulgated and implemented in 2021 further institutionalized the process, covering the reception, classification, assignment, handling and feedback of citizen requests, together with evaluation and accountability arrangements.
International guests visit the Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center to learn about the city’s “Swift Response to Public Complaints” reform, Beijing, China, June 26, 2026. /VCG
This institutionalization matters because many urban problems do not fit neatly within the boundaries of a single agency. A complaint about a neighborhood environment, a public facility or a local service may involve several departments and different levels of government. Beijing’s cross-level coordination mechanism enables grassroots governments to request assistance from higher-level authorities when a problem exceeds their own jurisdiction or capacity. Relevant agencies are then required to participate in resolving the issue. The result is an organizational mechanism that connects local knowledge with resources and authority located at different levels of governments.
Beijing offers a broader lesson for urban governance in the digital age. Technology can help governments sense social needs, process information and connect citizens with public agencies. But the ability to transform information into action depends on how authority, responsibility and resources are organized inside government.
This is where Beijing’s experience adds a distinctive perspective to the global discussion on smart cities. Its practice demonstrates how digital platforms can be embedded within administrative reform, legal rules, performance evaluation and cross-level coordination. Citizen input consequently becomes part of the routine operation of urban government rather than remaining simply a stream of data collected by a digital platform.
For cities searching for ways to govern increasingly complex societies, there is no single institutional model that can simply be transplanted across political and administrative contexts. The more transferable insight is the importance of aligning technology with governance. Smart technologies can expand the capacity to sense the city, while institutions determine whether and how governments respond to what they sense.
Beijing’s practice ultimately points to a broader question for the digital-intelligent era: What makes a city truly smart? The answer may lie less in the sophistication of its technologies than in whether those technologies help governments understand people’s needs and translate them into meaningful action. A people-centered city, in this sense, is one in which digital intelligence is ultimately measured by its capacity to make urban governance more responsive to citizens’ everyday lives.
The State of Qatar has reaffirmed that sustainable development is not merely a national responsibility, but a shared global endeavor requiring strengthened international cooperation grounded in solidarity and partnership. Qatar underscored its readiness to continue working with all Member States and the United Nations system to strengthen collective action and foster more resilient economies and societies.
Addressing the general debate of the Second Committee of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, Third Secretary at Qatar’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations Mohamed Hassan Al Emadi said the session is taking place amid an increasingly challenging global development landscape, with developing countries confronting a complex and interconnected set of pressures, including shrinking fiscal space, widening financing and investment gaps, mounting debt burdens, the escalating impacts of climate change, disruptions to trade and supply chains, and the far-reaching consequences of conflicts and geopolitical crises.
He said Qatar continues to implement Qatar National Vision 2030, which provides a comprehensive framework for sustainable national development built around four interconnected pillars: human, social, economic and environmental development. He stressed that Qatar’s national experience demonstrates that investing in people is fundamental to advancing inclusive, comprehensive and sustainable development.
Al Emadi said artificial intelligence represents a far-reaching technological and economic transformation with considerable potential to accelerate development, while cautioning that it could also exacerbate existing inequalities if developing countries lack the infrastructure, capabilities and resources necessary to harness its benefits.
Against this backdrop, he said Qatar attaches particular importance to strengthening international cooperation on digital capacity building, expanding access to digital infrastructure, and promoting the safe, inclusive and equitable use of artificial intelligence.
He reaffirmed Qatar’s firm commitment to international cooperation and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, noting that the country translates these commitments into concrete partnerships and practical contributions through projects undertaken by the Qatar Fund for Development in cooperation with UN agencies, international financial institutions, governments and humanitarian organizations.
He said these efforts reflect Qatar’s commitment to advancing effective multilateral cooperation through financing, innovation, knowledge-sharing, capacity building and long-term partnerships.
Al Emadi said Qatar attaches particular importance to the least developed countries (LDCs), reaffirming its commitment to implementing the Doha Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for 2022-2031 and strengthening international partnerships to support these countries in addressing structural challenges and accelerating sustainable development.
In this context, he highlighted Qatar’s readiness to host the Comprehensive High-Level Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Doha Programme of Action from March 25-27, 2027, in Doha, pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 80/150.
He said Qatar looks forward to the review serving as a key milestone in assessing progress, identifying gaps and challenges, and strengthening international partnerships to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Doha Programme of Action throughout the remainder of the decade.
Turning to UN reform, Al Emadi said Qatar views the UN80 Initiative as an opportunity to strengthen the United Nations’ capacity to fulfill its mandates with greater efficiency and effectiveness and to better serve its Member States.
He stressed that the reform process should be grounded in intergovernmental ownership and should contribute to reducing duplication, strengthening coherence across the UN development system, and enhancing the Organization’s efficiency and effectiveness in responding to global challenges.
Al Emadi said Qatar looks forward to the draft resolutions to be considered by the Second Committee during the session reflecting a spirit of consensus and partnership, with a focus on tangible outcomes, in line with the objectives of UN reform, the outcomes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, and the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Innovation has become a defining marker of national progress and competitiveness. From digital technologies and healthcare to renewable energy and education, societies are increasingly shaped by their capacity to generate and apply new ideas. Yet, the global innovation landscape remains highly concentrated.
The United States and China dominate research and development investment, patent activity and advanced technology development, while Europe, Japan and South Korea form complementary hubs.
This geographic clustering raises familiar but urgent questions: What role can developing countries play in a world where innovation is structurally uneven? Can universities in the Global South become more than consumers of external models? And are there emerging conditions that may allow new voices, perspectives and priorities to shape global innovation narratives?
Universities in the innovation pipeline
In leading economies, innovation is rarely a standalone activity. It emerges from dense ecosystems in which universities play a central role – producing talent, generating research, and partnering with industry, government and venture capital. Universities like Stanford, MIT, Oxford or Tsinghua operate as nodes within systems that are well-funded, commercially agile and globally connected.
By contrast, universities in many parts of the developing world often contend with limited resources, inadequate infrastructure and competing mandates. Their place in national innovation systems is less assured, and expectations often exceed what is realistically supported. Nevertheless, this does not mean innovation is absent, only that it may take different forms, respond to different priorities and draw from different knowledge traditions.
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, universities are increasingly seeking to redefine their role. In some cases, they are aligning more closely with local development challenges, such as climate resilience, health equity or food security, where innovation is not necessarily about high-tech disruption but about appropriate, sustainable and community-driven solutions.
Curriculum reform as a catalyst
Reimagining innovation also involves rethinking what and how universities teach. In many developing countries, curricula still reflect colonial legacies or imported templates that may not fully prepare students to solve local problems or participate meaningfully in the innovation economy.
Curriculum reform, when pursued strategically, can be a catalyst. Not only by integrating frontier areas like AI, green technologies or digital health but also by promoting interdisciplinary thinking, project-based learning and closer engagement with real-world contexts.
The goal is not to replicate Silicon Valley models but to nurture a new generation of problem-solvers who are grounded in their contexts while being globally aware.
Transnational education: Risk or opportunity?
One route through which universities in the Global South are seeking to broaden their horizons is transnational education (TNE). Often criticised for reinforcing asymmetrical dependencies where content flows from ‘provider’ to ‘recipient’, TNE can also evolve into a more collaborative and capacity-building mechanism.
Where partnerships are equitable and strategically aligned, TNE can enable co-developed programmes, shared research agendas and mobility pathways that enrich both sides. It can support the transfer of pedagogical models that promote innovation and help build academic ecosystems that are regionally relevant but internationally credible.
In Mauritius, Rwanda, Malaysia and the UAE, for example, efforts are underway to use TNE not merely to import global brands but to create regional education hubs that contribute to national innovation systems. Such models are still evolving, but they point to a shift: from dependency to interdependence and from consumption to co-creation.
A changing mobility landscape
Recent changes in global student mobility further complicate and perhaps enhance these dynamics. The tightening of visa rules and post-study work opportunities in traditional education destinations like the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia is prompting students, especially from Africa and South Asia, to explore alternative destinations.
This shift presents both a challenge and an opening. While it may disrupt long-established pipelines to Western institutions, it also creates space for new education hubs to emerge. Universities in the Global South that can offer quality, relevance and international connectivity may find themselves well-positioned to attract not only local students but also international ones.
This realignment may, in turn, accelerate investment in higher education infrastructure, the development of innovation-focused curricula and the strengthening of domestic research capacity. Some governments and university networks are already responding, not just to retain talent but to reposition themselves in a more multipolar higher education landscape.
Innovation on different terms
These developments raise deeper questions. What kinds of innovation are most urgently needed in the Global South? How do we value socially embedded forms of knowledge and problem-solving? Can South-South collaboration challenge the dominant paradigms of innovation defined largely by the North?
Universities are uniquely placed to mediate these tensions. But doing so may require more than isolated reforms. It calls for a shift in mindset, from emulation to experimentation, from benchmarking against external models to building on internal strengths.
There is, of course, no single path. Some institutions will pursue global rankings and research excellence strategies; others may prioritise community partnerships and applied problem-solving. What matters is that the space for innovation remains open to different logics, different origins and different futures.
A moment of possibility
Innovation is not owned by any one geography. While power and resources remain unevenly distributed, the conditions under which innovation can emerge are changing. Transnational education, shifting mobility patterns, curriculum reform and evolving institutional identities are converging in ways that invite new thinking.
For universities in the Global South, this moment offers both complexity and possibility. The challenge is not only to respond to global trends but also to help reshape them from within. What remains to be seen is how these institutions will seize the opportunity, not to replicate existing models of innovation but to imagine and nurture new ones, rooted in their own realities, yet connected to the world.
Dhanjay Jhurry is the managing director of the Uniciti International Education Hub in Mauritius. A former vice-chancellor of the University of Mauritius, he has been active in shaping regional higher education ecosystems through international partnerships, research-led innovation and transnational education initiatives.
Over recent months, the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb have become synonymous with geopolitical jostling. Whoever controls these narrow waterways governs the flow of maritime traffic from the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean – and with it, a vitally significant chunk of global trade.
However, conflict over these straits is almost as old as modern maritime trade itself. The war between the US and Iran over these chokepoints is just the latest chapter in a centuries-long history of extra-regional powers attempting to influence or dominate the Middle East by sea.
Ming China offers one of the earliest examples of an extra-regional power projecting its power through naval might and diplomacy. In 1405, the Chinese Muslim admiral, explorer and diplomat Zheng He embarked on the first of seven expeditions across the Indian Ocean. Commanding fleets of more than 300 vessels, he reached the town of Hormuz around 1414, then Aden in Yemen, passing through Bab el-Mandeb into the Red Sea.
This Pax Sinica did not control the straits. Instead, it established a strong trading presence based on displays of naval power, diplomatic missions, and lucrative gift exchanges. Unlike later colonial powers, Zheng He did not establish colonies at Hormuz or along the Arabian coast. Instead, he entered the existing trading system established by the region’s Arab, Persian, Indian, and East African merchants.
The voyages also demonstrate the limits of overextended maritime power. After Zheng He’s final expedition in the 1430s, shifting priorities in the Ming dynasty brought the voyages to an end. The state was unwilling to invest in its navy and its upkeep.
Today, China invokes Zheng He’s voyages to bestow historical legitimacy upon Chinese-Middle Eastern relations. Beijing presents its modern investments in infrastructure, energy, and ports, such as Gwadar in Pakistan, as the revival of an ancient and peaceful relationship that stretches back to the pre-modern Silk Road.
Back in the 1500s, however, the rise in global shipping traffic and the arrival of Europe’s colonial powers would soon mark a shift towards more violent, aggressive efforts to control the straits.
Portugal’s naval dominance
The Portuguese were naval innovators, introducing a more coercive form of maritime power employing heavy cannons on ocean-going ships. In 1513, Afonso de Albuquerque attacked Aden in an attempt to control access to the Red Sea. He failed to capture the fortified mainland city, which was surrounded by steep mountainous terrain.
As the US has learned centuries later, naval superiority did not translate into immediate victory on land. Portuguese warships could destroy vessels and bombard a harbour, but commanding the waters outside a port was not the same as controlling the land behind it.
However, in 1515, Albuquerque managed to seize the town of Hormuz, where he imposed the cartaz, a paid permit for merchants to sail through the gulf and Indian Ocean. This regulation of trade is, in essence, what Iran’s toll is attempting to do in the present.
This “Pax Lusitana” was more violent than its Chinese predecessor, and in 1622, forces from the Iranian Safavid dynasty and English East India Company vessels joined forces to expel the Portuguese from Hormuz and open up trade.
British and Dutch takeover
With Portugal ousted, Ottoman, Safavid, Omani, Dutch and English forces vied for control. The system was dominated by powerful European ships, and by local rulers who controlled both the ports and the goods that flowed through them.
The Dutch East India Company entered these waters in 1614. Supported by heavily armed ships, it established itself at the port of Mokha, in Yemen.
While the British were famous for the tea trade, the Dutch came to dominate coffee. Previously the domain of traders based in Mokha, the Dutch broke Yemen’s monopoly over the coffee trade by smuggling Arabica coffee plants to the Indonesian island of Java, where they were cultivated on a massive scale.
The Dutch thus demonstrated that the balance of maritime power could shift through control of production and trade, rather than through cannons and coercion.
However, once the British captured Aden in 1839 they gained the upper hand. They signed agreements with neighbouring rulers and tribes in South Yemen that gave them de facto control over Bal al-Mandab at the dawn of the industrial era.
Aden soon became a naval coaling station and communications centre, connected to India by telegraph cables. When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the British also dominated this chokepoint, as the Red Sea offered the shortest maritime route to its crown colony in India.
British hegemony soon came to rely on steam-powered warships and ports, as well as loans and treaties. Much of this was sustained by local proxies along the coast, stretching from Aden to Kuwait.
Lessons for the US today
After the second world war, the balance of power shifted once again. The US replaced the UK with bases, carrier groups, and arms sales in exchange for Gulf oil. In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter declared that any Soviet attempt to control the Gulf would be treated as an attack on American interests and resisted by military force.
Track forward 45 years, and Trump has effectively (though perhaps inadvertently) dismantled the Carter Doctrine. While US naval vessels are now in the strait of Hormuz to protect freedom of navigation, it was Trump’s February 2026 war that endangered shipping in the first place, as it prompted Iran to disrupt Gulf trade in retaliation.
The historical lesson is that, while extra-regional maritime hegemony is possible, it is temporary and ephemeral, as fleeting like the waves that carry it. China abandoned its fleets, Portugal lost Hormuz, the Dutch focused on Java, and Britain left Aden. Dominance shifted when hegemonic powers became overextended, technologies changed, and local alliances realigned.
Iran and the Houthis, who have recently seized Mokha, do not require carrier fleets. Instead, their missiles, mines and drones weaponise the cost of maritime insurance. For all its naval might, the US cannot eliminate the local agency of societies surrounding Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. Every empire before it has discovered that controlling a chokepoint does not translate into control of the political world and will that surrounds it.
Research integrity (RI) guidelines around the world increasingly recognise fairness, diversity, equity and inclusion.
But a new analysis suggests that fairness is still understood predominantly in procedural terms – for example, through fair authorship, peer review and misconduct procedures – while the structural inequalities that shape who conducts research, whose knowledge is recognised and who sets the rules are usually neglected.
This neglect risks reproducing colonial hierarchies and reinforcing the marginalisation of Indigenous and Global South actors and epistemic and ethical frameworks, the study argues.
Therefore, there is a need for the integration of non-Eurocentric, Indigenous knowledge and ethical frameworks in RI guiding documents for researchers.
These were the conclusions of the study, “Fairness in Research Integrity Guidelines Across the World: A Critical Discourse Analysis”, which was published in the Journal of Academic Ethics on 2 September.
The conclusions were drawn after analysing 66 national and international guidelines and codes of conduct for RI originated from 39 countries in Europe, Africa, South America, North America, Asia and Oceania.
“The topic of ‘research fairness’ is receiving growing attention in Research Integrity (RI) initiatives, with increasing acknowledgement of the relationship between RI and fairness concerns such as diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) and responsible collaborations,” the study says.
“However, initiatives usually neglect addressing structural injustices and their relationship to RI. Furthermore, RI standards are mostly set in economically powerful countries but are applied globally, posing a risk of ethical imperialism and reinforcing existing colonial hierarchies.”
The study analysed three aspects of ‘fairness’: Addressing injustices, attention to colonial hierarchies and DEI.
The authors – Clàudia Pallisé Perelló, María de los Ángeles Crespo López, Natalie Evans, Johannes Ket, Mariëtte van den Hoven and Krishma Labib at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands – say their study provides the “first systematic scoping review” of RI documents critically assessing the treatment of fairness.
“Moreover, it is also the first one that takes an explicit anticolonial and systemic justice perspective, putting structural inequalities in the centre of the analysis.”
Maura Hiney, an adjunct professor of Research Integrity at University College Dublin’s Institute for Discovery in Ireland, told University World News that the study is “very timely and will be an important consideration for the revision of the All European Academies (ALLEA) European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and the ongoing development of an African Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and AI”.
“While the necessarily high level of such frameworks precludes detailed elaboration of the concepts explored in the paper, they can nonetheless seek to clarify their importance for research integrity in more meaningful ways,” added Hiney, who served as chair and co-authored the ALLEA European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2017 and 2023).
Zeenath Reza Khan, founding president for the Centre for Academic Integrity at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Audit Group member for the European Network for Academic Integrity, told University World News that it was a “valuable and timely study” that offered an important opportunity for the research integrity community to “reflect on whether our existing frameworks adequately represent the diverse environments in which research is conducted”.
However, the research findings also raise questions about how research systems maintain common expectations for reliability, transparency and accountability while allowing legitimate contextual, Indigenous and epistemic diversity.
Lokman Meho, Professor and University Librarian at American University of Beirut in Lebanon and the developer of the Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²), told University World News that greater fairness in funding, collaboration, authorship, and participation should help create better research but not become a separate goal that competes with research quality and integrity.
Scant mention of injstices
The study found that RI documents originated mostly from European countries, with limited representation from elsewhere – of the 39 national documents, 24 came from European countries, with the rest originating from Africa (2), South America (1), North America (1), Asia (9) and Oceania (2).
The majority of the included documents referred to fairness only as “procedural”, covering issues such as fair authorship, peer review, and misconduct investigations.
A large number of guidance documents addressed diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) principles with at least one of these words being mentioned in just under half of the documents, but their uses vary significantly in terms of depth and meaning, the study found.
More than half of the documents either do not mention DEI or approach these in a more symbolic or superficial way, reflecting a more tokenistic or performative vision, the study said.
In these cases, the word “diversity” often appears without further elaboration, concrete actions, or clear links to research practices.
In general, the study found few documents explicitly mentioned issues of injustice, such as knowledge and material extractivism, epistemic injustice, and socioeconomic inequities.
It noted that Global North documents often fail to acknowledge in a meaningful way three forms of systemic injustice – injustices related to colonial history, socioeconomic injustices and injustices affecting the environment.
None of the documents explicitly mention ‘colonialism’. A small number discuss inequities in knowledge production in different countries, although they do not refer to these as colonial legacies or realities.
Only a minority of the documents acknowledge the validity of diverse epistemic values and systems, with most instead promoting Global North knowledge systems.
In general, many of the documents frame ‘objectivity’ as the approach of scientific research, but the study authors argue that this implicitly excludes diverse epistemic values.
The few codes of conduct that explicitly confronted colonial hierarchies came from colonised nations.
The study found some documents acknowledged diverse knowledge systems and ethical frameworks, but even these documents often reflected assumptions of colonial hierarchies in their language. For instance, they portrayed Indigenous and marginalised groups as “passive” agents and receivers of research rather than as “active” groups capable of conducting research.
Overall, the study unveiled that most European RI frameworks tended to frame fairness without taking into account structural injustices, colonial hierarchies and DEI systematically, reinforcing watered-down, “procedural” rather than “structural” visions of fairness.
“While most dominant RI initiatives can be considered Eurocentric, they have global influence, for instance via funding frameworks, publishing ethics, and data management requirements.
“Therefore, they might be considered a form of ‘ethical imperialism’, in which Eurocentric understandings of RI and responsible conduct of research are imposed across the world,” the study argues.
Speaking to University World News, lead author Perelló said the study found that the predominant standards that define “ethical” and “good” research, or define which issues are considered Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) or RI concerns, are mostly coming from Western contexts that “frequently fail to consider or include local frameworks, epistemic traditions, or histories of injustice and their associated concerns”.
She added that “deeper questions of structural injustice and equity in science are rarely addressed”.
Key messages for policy makers
Perelló said RI guidelines should acknowledge both the structural conditions in which research is conducted and ethical and epistemic plurality.
“This involves, on the one hand, recognising that universal and culturally neutral ethical frameworks do not exist, and, on the other hand, legitimising the existence of diverse epistemic traditions.”
She said there are good existing examples, such as the “Te Ara Tika Guidelines for Mori research ethics: A framework for researchers and ethics committee members or the San Code on Research Ethics”, which show that it is possible to “explicitly integrate non-Eurocentric, Indigenous knowledge and ethical frameworks in RI guiding documents for researchers in a situated way”.
Impact of funding inequality
Khan said the study “reminds us that fairness in research integrity cannot be understood only through procedures such as authorship, peer review or misconduct processes.
“As research becomes increasingly global and collaborative, our integrity frameworks also need to remain attentive to context, inclusion and different knowledge traditions,” she said.
Meho said the study shows that research integrity is not only about whether individual researchers follow rules and procedures.
“It is also shaped by the conditions in which researchers work, such as unequal access to funding and research resources, unequal power in international collaborations, and differences in who sets research standards and whose knowledge is recognised,” he said.
Call to widen perspectives
He argues that standards intended to apply internationally should not be developed mainly from the perspective of a small number of countries.
“Researchers from different countries and research systems, especially those currently under-represented, should have a meaningful role in deciding what constitutes responsible research,” Meho suggested.
Independent Research Ethics and Integrity Consultant, Dr Lyn Horn, former director of the Office of Research Integrity at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, told University World News she is grateful that scholars are taking this conversation forward.
“One of the biggest challenges for researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), especially in Africa, is that a huge amount of research funding comes from the Global North, and they dictate leadership requirements and project management aspects, not without reason, as they need to ensure that the high-income country (HIC) taxpayer money produces the intended outcomes,” said Horn, who is the lead author for “The Cape Town Statement on fairness, equity and diversity in research” made in 2023.
“One structural change that I believe would shift the balance would be for LMIC governments to provide a lot more funding for good-quality research directly and for HIC funders to provide a percentage of co-funding but enable projects to be LMIC-led and managed, providing support rather than dictating all administrative aspects, which is currently usually the case,” she added.
“This would advance LMIC research management systems, including ethics and integrity monitoring, at both institutional and national levels,” Horn said.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
An undated photo of the Beijing Citizen Service Hotline Center, which operates around the clock. /Xinhua (Courtesy of the interviewee)
.
Editor’s note: Yan Yu, a special commentator for CGTN, is a lecturer at the School of Government at Beijing Normal University. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
.
As cities around the world embrace artificial intelligence, big data and digital platforms, the idea of the “smart city” is often associated with sensors, algorithms and connected infrastructure. Yet a more fundamental question deserves equal attention: How can a city actually hear its people and turn their everyday concerns into effective government action?
This question will be especially relevant when this year’s Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints convenes in Beijing on October 12 and 13 under the theme “Digital Intelligence Era and People’s City.” Beijing’s experience suggests that the future of smart urban governance depends as much on institutions and collaboration as on technology.
Beijing’s 12345 citizen service hotline represents an important experiment in making government more accessible and responsive. It allows residents to report problems, seek public services and communicate directly with the municipal government. The city has expanded these services through websites, mobile applications and other digital channels.
But digital access alone cannot make a city responsive. Our comparative research on Beijing and New York City helps explain the institutional arrangements behind this responsiveness. The two cities have developed different forms of internal government collaboration.
New York follows a horizontal mode of collaboration, with technology-oriented leadership, a relatively fragmented institutional framework and contractual cooperation among city agencies. NYC311 has been especially strong in technological development and accessibility. Its customer relationship management systems, mobile applications, open interfaces and data tools allow residents to submit and track requests through multiple channels. Cooperation with municipal agencies is organized largely through Service Level Agreements, which establish response standards and expected time frames. Regular communication among agencies further supports coordination.
Beijing has built what we describe as a vertical mode of collaboration, characterized by administration-oriented leadership, a comprehensive institutional framework and cross-level cooperation. Its approach illustrates an important feature of urban governance: Citizen demands are connected directly to the administrative system and can mobilize coordination across organizational levels. Since the launch of the Swift Response to Public Complaints reform in 2019, Beijing has treated the 12345 hotline as more than a communication channel. Requests received through the hotline are assigned to responsible agencies and local governments, while performance in responding to residents is incorporated into government evaluation.
The Regulations of Beijing Municipality on Swift Response to Public Complaints promulgated and implemented in 2021 further institutionalized the process, covering the reception, classification, assignment, handling and feedback of citizen requests, together with evaluation and accountability arrangements.
International guests visit the Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center to learn about the city’s “Swift Response to Public Complaints” reform, Beijing, China, June 26, 2026. /VCG
This institutionalization matters because many urban problems do not fit neatly within the boundaries of a single agency. A complaint about a neighborhood environment, a public facility or a local service may involve several departments and different levels of government. Beijing’s cross-level coordination mechanism enables grassroots governments to request assistance from higher-level authorities when a problem exceeds their own jurisdiction or capacity. Relevant agencies are then required to participate in resolving the issue. The result is an organizational mechanism that connects local knowledge with resources and authority located at different levels of governments.
Beijing offers a broader lesson for urban governance in the digital age. Technology can help governments sense social needs, process information and connect citizens with public agencies. But the ability to transform information into action depends on how authority, responsibility and resources are organized inside government.
This is where Beijing’s experience adds a distinctive perspective to the global discussion on smart cities. Its practice demonstrates how digital platforms can be embedded within administrative reform, legal rules, performance evaluation and cross-level coordination. Citizen input consequently becomes part of the routine operation of urban government rather than remaining simply a stream of data collected by a digital platform.
For cities searching for ways to govern increasingly complex societies, there is no single institutional model that can simply be transplanted across political and administrative contexts. The more transferable insight is the importance of aligning technology with governance. Smart technologies can expand the capacity to sense the city, while institutions determine whether and how governments respond to what they sense.
Beijing’s practice ultimately points to a broader question for the digital-intelligent era: What makes a city truly smart? The answer may lie less in the sophistication of its technologies than in whether those technologies help governments understand people’s needs and translate them into meaningful action. A people-centered city, in this sense, is one in which digital intelligence is ultimately measured by its capacity to make urban governance more responsive to citizens’ everyday lives.
.
.