Tibet Sustainable Governance Program

The University of Virginia Tibet Sustainable Governance Program (TSGP) seeks to advance scholarship, research, and new perspectives on key issues confronting contemporary Tibet.

Guided by a central concern for the well-being of communities on the Tibetan plateau, the program seeks to develop research initiatives that produce fresh insights, analyses, and approaches to the challenges of governance and public policy throughout the Tibetan region. Drawing on studies of specific public sectors, social services, and pressing social problems, our aim is to identify and evaluate emerging trends and dynamics, and to understand their implications for a more fair, just, and sustainable ordering of society.

The program strives to integrate a diversity of perspectives by convening workshops and symposia that offer a nonpartisan forum for a broad range of stakeholders—not only scholars and researchers, but also policymakers, nonprofit organizations, local officials, and community leaders from the Tibetan plateau as well as across China and globally. By forging new institutional partnerships and joint research initiatives, we hope to create a new space for engagement and dialogue on substantive issues of governance in the Tibetan region.

A New Paradigm

As the Tibetan region approaches uncertain times, the Tibet Sustainable Governance Program seeks to build new approaches to understanding and addressing the social and economic challenges facing Tibetan communities. The rubric of governance offers a new paradigm for framing these issues, one that provides both a conceptual and pragmatic way out of the conventional public discourse on Tibet. We premise our work on a broad notion of governance that encompasses not only the technical and institutional aspects of public policy and administration, but also larger questions concerning the negotiation and allocation of resources, social agency, and public authority.

Public Service

In line with the University’s public service mission, the program aims to expand the reach of this work by transposing new ideas and insights into practical solutions and policy options. Recognizing that solutions to complex public problems require comprehensive and integrated efforts, we hope to find common ground with a broad range of stakeholders as well as to develop a shared sense of normative aspiration for human well-being across different sectors. Through these and other public outreach efforts and education initiatives, we aim to inform and shape the broader public debate on contemporary Tibet.

The TSGP was established by the University of Virginia in partnership with Machik, a nonprofit organization dedicated to community service work on the Tibetan plateau. The work of Machik began with the founding of an award-winning primary school in a rural Tibetan township in the heart of Kham. Within its first year, the Ruth Walter Chungba Primary School became the top-performing school in the county and has since become a model for community-based rural education in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a region of nearly a million Tibetans.