Today, 17 December 2020, marks the eighty-fifth anniversary of the first award of a PhD by the University of Bristol to a Chinese student, Yu Jianzhang. Yu received his award from Vice-Chancellor Thomas Loveday in a ceremony in the Great Hall. As part of the ‘100 Years of PGR’ project, being co-ordinated by the University’s Bristol Doctoral College, supported by the Brigstow Institute and our John Reeks, a team including two historians has been developing a bank of material about the history of PhD study at Bristol. Following on from our earlier story about the first Chinese undergraduate at Bristol, current history PhD student Liu Xiao — who is working on the history of science in China — has built on their work, and on materials provided by colleagues at Jilin University, to pen this introduction to Yu Jianzhang’s life and career.  Continue reading →