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Professor Jia Jianmin, who studied mechanics in his undergraduate years, discovered an interest in mechanics and mathematics. Mathematical logic is the key to his management and big data research. “The knowledge base of applied mathematics and mechanics has always been something that I am greatly thankful for in my subsequent research.”

With the development of big data technology, naturally, he went beyond “marketing” and “decision analysis” to “big data” research from an earlier time.

In 2009, Professor Jia served as Chairman of the Department of Marketing at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to promote data-driven management research and disciplinary development. He firmly believed in cutting into behavioral research from big data, “with cross-disciplinary integration to carry out more influential research”. At the same time, in a post-mobile era, cross-research that combines big data with human behaviors and natural experiments has become a blue ocean of academia.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his team continued to conduct research and paid attention to the spread of the pandemic and its impact on people’s digital behaviors. In April 2020, research on using population flow data to track the spread of COVID-19 was successfully published in Nature. Later, Professor Jia published research articles on social networks under emergency risk conditions in Nature Communications (a sub-journal of Nature) and PNAS Nexus in 2021 and 2023 respectively. Indeed, just as a blacksmith in the past would spend years forging the perfect sword, big data research can be traced back to ten years ago.

When SARS broke out in 2003, Professor Jia started to learn about people’s perceived risks and coping behaviors in the context, out of his own research interest in risk management.

At that time, he also served as Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Southwest Jiaotong University, frequently traveling between Hong Kong and Chengdu. Once, “I was quarantined in a hotel in Chengdu as soon as I got off the plane and it took a few days before I was released.”

In the following days, he designed multiple questionnaires one after another, cooperated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and related universities, and asked colleagues for help to study people’s perceived risks of SARS in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Hong Kong.

After the Ya’an earthquake in 2013, Professor Jia investigated the victims’ reactions and coping behaviors when disasters occurred, as well as their risk perceptions after the earthquake. Based on years of research experience in risk perception and big data, Professor Jia and his team continued to extend their research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Jia participated in the establishment of the Pandemic Policy Analysis Team under the Department of Management Sciences of the National Natural Science Foundation of China to research emergency management policies for government departments. Professor Jia used big data analysis to predict the trend of pandemic development by monitoring population flows, helping decision-makers to effectively assess risks and allocate limited resources during the fight against the pandemic. As a result, Professor Jia was awarded the “First Prize of the 2022 Shenzhen Science and Technology Progress Award,” the first government award for science and technology progress to CUHK-Shenzhen.

For Professor Jia, Hong Kong and CUHK provide a good opportunity to not only draw on the advantages of both China and the West in academia but also “get to do something for the Chinese mainland.” “To take the burden off and start a new journey” is not only a message that Professor Jia sent to the freshmen at CUHK-Shenzhen but also his requirement for himself.

It was undoubtedly a new beginning for Professor Jia to join CUHK-Shenzhen in 2018. With his efforts, the MSc in Big Data Marketing programme was established in 2019 in Shenzhen, referring to the practice in Hong Kong yet not simply copying the model of the old days. In response to the development of the times and market demands, “Big Data Marketing” has shifted to “Artificial Intelligence Marketing (AI Marketing),” with the professional knowledge in AI major organically integrated into the newly established master’s programme. It also made CUHK-Shenzhen one of the first universities in Asia to launch AI Marketing courses.

From over 30 people to over 130 people, Professor Jia has witnessed the gradual growth of the SME team. In the future, he also plans to build an Asia-leading marketing department and marketing research team with unique research characteristics and advantageous areas. “This is our dream.”