Prof. Rita Yi Man Li

Hong Kong Shue Yan University, HK China

I graduated from HKU (global subject ranking 14 in QS) and now serve as a full-time professor at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. I am the founder and director of the Sustainable Real Estate Research Center. My primary research interests lie in SDGs, construction safety and health, housing economics, real estate economics, and applied AI. I am listed as Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientist across 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields of all scientists in the recent four years. I have 8266 citations in Google Scholar and 4976 in Scopus. I act as a journal editorial board member and SI editor for SSCI/SCIE journals, an author of 9 books and over 200 articles over the past eight years. I have quite an extensive academic network with research collaborators from Australia, the UK, Italy, the US, Cyprus, France, Canada, Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, mainland China, etc. I am also an invited keynote speaker for over 30 conferences. Over the years, I have won many local and international awards. I act as a PI and co-I for many academic research grants, including highly competitive grants from Research Grant Council and Public Policy Research Grant in Hong Kong, ARC Linkage Grant in Australia, Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan and other grants obtained from quasi-public institutions and government departments (over 10 million).

Asst. Prof. Yitian Ren

Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China

Dr. Yitian Ren is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU); Associate Researcher of XJTLU; and Honorary Associate at The University of Liverpool.

Dr Ren has cross-disciplinary education trajectory in relation to sustainable built environment. She obtained the BEng in Construction Management and Real Estate and MSc in Mangement Science and Engineering from Chongqing University, and PhD in Planning and Environmental Management from The University of Manchester with Full Scholarship and has won the prestigious Manchester Doctoral College (MDC) Excellence Award.

Dr Ren’s research has been rooted in the field of urban (re)development, rural restructuring, digital development, entrepreneurial development, and sustainable built environment. Her research works have appeared in the top journals in the field such as Cities, Sustainable Cities and Society, Land Use Policy, Habitat International, and Scientific Data (Nature Portfolio); with the Google Scholar citation 2000+, H-index 27. Dr Ren has been named a 2024 Top Scholar by ScholarGPS: #22 in Carrying Capacity (Lifetime) and #57 in Impact Assessment (Prior 5 years). 

Dr Ren is Member of ICARDC Network on Agriculture and Rural Development in China and CRIOCM Chinese Research Institute of Construction Management, Committee Member of Economic Geography Committee of Jiangsu Geographical Society, and Guest Research Fellow of Alibaba Research Centre for Rural Dynamics.

Dr Ren serves the Editorial roles of Journal of Urban Management (SCI Q1, TOP 8 in Urban Studies); and Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (Nature Portfolio Journal, SSCI Q1); and invited reviewer for over 30 international journals such as Sustainable Cities and Society; Cities; Habitat International; Technology in Society; Technological Forecasting & Social Change; Journal of Environmental Management; Transportation; Applied Energy; Applied Geography; Landscape and Urban Planning; Technovation.