From October 27 to 29, the 9th College Student Case Study Competition of City Governance was held in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The competition was hosted by SJTU and co-organized by the School of International and Public Affairs of SJTU and the China Institute for Urban Governance of SJTU. Under the guidance of Mao Xuewen, a young teacher of LUSM, the “Decoder Team” composed of Liu Boao, a 2020 undergraduate student majoring in Administrative Management, and three undergraduates of the 2021 Administrative Management major, Sai Gelin, Wang Yilin and Sun Yanyun, participated in the competition and won the Excellence Award.

In the semifinal, the case written by the “Decoder Team” successfully stood out and qualified for the final, which was under the title of “Timely rain or hot potato: Deciphering the ‘black box’ code of the ‘Matthew Effect’ in the diffusion of grassroots governance innovation”.

The assigned case study text was provided to all participating teams only one week prior to the final, necessitating completion of the case study report and defense within a limited timeframe. Under the careful guidance of Mao, after many discussions and repeated revisions, LUSM’s team finally completed the case analysis report, entitled “From Single-point to Collaboration: Two Leaps Forward for Collective Governance in Public Crisis Response”. From a collective perspective, the report examines the internal mechanism of multi-subject collaborative response to sudden public crises in the case study. During the final defense, questioning and other stages, the School’s team engaged in a rigorous debate and confrontation with teams from Sun Yat-sen University and Northeastern University, and finally ranked fourth in the competition, won the Excellence Award.

The competition, which has been held for nine consecutive years, aims to foster a unique perspective among participating teams in analyzing typical cases and gaining profound insights into governance logic. It provides a platform for students from universities nationwide to apply their knowledge, collaborate, make progress, exchange ideas, and attract exceptional students from prestigious higher institutions such as Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, among others. LUSM’s team members confidently played their roles in the competition, enhancing their awareness and proficiency in integrating theory with practice and teamwork, effectively strengthened the innovative thinking capabilities and improved the level of scientific research.