Introduction

The Center for Balkan Studies (CBS) is committed to studying the Balkans, or “the Balkan Peninsula”, which is situated in Southeast Europe. Entirely or partly within the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey. The Center focuses on four of these countries, namely, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, which are strategically located at the junction of Asia and Europe, along the waterways of the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean. Taking advantage of the linguistic and literary scholars in the College of Foreign Languages, CBS aims to promote interdisciplinary studies, offer consultation and educational services, contribute to the national Belt and Road Initiative, promote educational exchanges with foreign institutions, and strengthen the training of interdisciplinary talents.

CBS currently has a corps of 13 multidisciplinary researchers, involving Civil Aviation, linguistics, pedagogy, translation studies, sociology, history and cultural studies. Among the team members are 4 professors, 10 doctors, and 12 part-time scholars (including 3 foreign experts), forming a professional research team featuring research of Civil Aviation in the Balkan Area.

CBS, backed by the disciplines of Civil Aviation, linguistics, translation studies and pedagogy of the College, has cooperated with Anadolu University of Turkey in the research and teaching of Chinese, and established an international talent training program through which extensive research into the Balkans is being conducted from such multidisciplinary perspectives as pedagogy, translation studies, literature, sociology, political science and cultural studies.

In terms of academic research, CBS has set up a research team to investigate the history of relations between China and the Balkan countries, the political and economic exchanges between China and the Balkan region, the foreign language education policy and the promotion of Chinese in the region. It has won support from NUAA’s “Think Tank Innovation Fund”. Another project of CBS, “Research into the Motivation and Implications of Greece’s Joining ‘Cooperation between the Central and Eastern European countries and China (16+1)’”, was approved and listed in 2019 by the Ministry of Education as a special national & area research project.

With regard to international cooperation and exchange, the Center sent Prof. Wu Dingmin, Prof. Xie Xiaoyuan, and Prof. Yu Jianliang on missions to Anadolu University to teach Chinese as a foreign language, popularize the Chinese culture, and undertake translation studies. Besides teaching during their stay, they assisted the Turkish Higher Education Commission with some relevant translation. On May 4, 2018, the Center invited Dr. Taşkiran and other scholars from the School of Foreign Languages of Anadolu University to CBS for cultural and academic exchanges. We also sent Chen Liyu and some other students to Anadolu University on exchange programs. Thus, the college has promoted Chinese teaching in Turkey, spread the Chinese culture, and provided counsel and support for China’s cultural exchanges.

As to counsel, CBS has submitted to the Center of the International and Area Studies of the Ministry of Education some monthly reports, notably “Higher Education Policies of the Balkan and Eurasian Countries”, and “An Overview of Romanian Education”.