REN Zhong is a tenured professor and doctoral supervisor at School of Law, Tsinghua University. His teaching focuses on Civil Procedure, but his writing extends to civil law and IP issues. Some of his articles are published in the most prominent Chinese law Journals. He obtain his bachelor (2008) and master degree (2011) from the law school of Tsinghua University, one of the top two Universities in China. He was offered the CSC-Scholarship (China Scholarship Council) for excellent doctoral candidate to do his Ph.D study in Saarland University, Germany (2009-2013). He joined Tsinghua as a research fellow in 2013.
He works also as Principal Expert of the major project “Collaborative Implementation of the Civil Code and Civil Procedure Law” under the National Social Science Fund of China, consultant expert of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Civil Procedure Society and executive editor of On Civil Procedure (the official journal of Civil Procedure Society). He was selected for the National-level Talent Program (Young Scholar) by the Ministry of Education of China.
He has published 72 academic papers. Among them, there are 7 papers independent published in Chinese Legal Science (a bimonthly journal published by the Chinese Law Society) and Legal Studies (a bimonthly journal published by the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Science), the top two legal journals in China, 25 independent published papers in CLSCI journals (so-called “core law journals”), 6 teaching papers, and 4 papers in Taiwan, China. He has published 2 Chinese books, a German book and a German translation, translated 6 German academic papers, and edited 11 volumes of On Civil Procedure (the official journal of Civil Procedure Society). The paper “On False Litigation” won the highest prize of the 4th Dong Biwu Law Youth Achievement Award (category of papers), it is deemed as the highest award for the legal scholars under 40, won the Third Prize of the Qian Duansheng Legal Research Achievement Award (the highest award for the legal scholars), won the first prize of the 4th National Young and Middle-aged Achievement by Civil Procedure Society, and in 2020, was selected in 100 highest cited papers of Chinese Legal Science (2011-2021), ranking 52st (He is the only young and middle-aged author in Civil Procedure selected). The paper “On the Relationship between the Object and the Claim of Civil Litigation” won Youth Award of the Qian Duansheng Legal Research Achievement. The translated book “The Right of Action and the Possibility of Action” (Klagrecht und Klagmöglischkeit) was selected in Top 10 Best Books of Law Press (2018), ranking 1st, won the first Golden Xiezhi (Haetae) Award, and went to a second printing 4 months after publication.
His papers have been reprinted 20 times by domestic and overseas journals, including 2 in Chinese Social Science Digest, 8 in Replicated Journals of RUC in “Procedure Law and Judicial System”, 3 in Replicated Journals of RUC in “Civil and Commercial Law”, and 2 in China Taiwan academic journals. In 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2024 he has been rated as CLSCI high-cited authors for 4 times. He was selected as a Highly-Cited Author in Legal Journals for 2023, ranking 37th out of 4,770 authors included in the statistics. In 2024, he continued to be recognized as a Highly-Cited Author in Legal Journals and was also named one of the Most Influential Authors (Top 1%) by CNKI.
He has been in charge of 8 projects at provincial and ministerial or higher level, sponsored by the National Social Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education, the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry of Justice. Since 2022, he has worked as the Principal Expert of the major project “Collaborative Implementation of the Civil Code and Civil Procedure Law” under the National Social Science Fund of China. Since 2017, he has been in charge of the National Social Science Foundation’s youth project “Research on the Basic Theory of Right of Action”. His research on enforcement of common property received high evaluation from the Supreme People’s Court. As a main member in the National Social Science Foundation’s major project “Civil Procedure intellectualization”, he has actively participated in the expert discussion and theoretical support for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games Chongli Court.
His research focuses on core, problematic, difficult and heated issues in Civil Procedure in China. In general, his research can be summarized into 1 mainline and 3 aspects. The mainline is to take Chinese issues as the start point, take Chinese procedure norms and practice as the basis, and serve the construction and improvement of the legal and theoretical system with Chinese characteristics. The 3 aspects are:
1) to reshape the civil procedure theory with the intersection between substantive and procedural research for the correct implementation of the Civil Code;
2) to ensure judicial justice with the benign interaction between rights of trial and action;
3) to advocate the dogmatics study of civil procedure law for construction of a coherent rule of law system and “consistent judgments in similar cases”.
He has participated in drafting of the Civil Enforcement Law of the People’s Republic of China and the latest revision of Chinese Civil Procedure Law, Chinese Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests. And he is often invited by courts and government braches to hold lectures or provide opinions.
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