It was founded in 2017. In the recent years, the team members chaired or participated in more than 30 projects entrusted by the national science foundations, state ministries or local governments in the fields of urbanization, urban and rural integration, urban development and agriculture and rural informatization, published more than 40 achievements, including 4 books, more than 30 papers in core journals, over 10 reports in Annual Report on Urban Development of China (Blue Book of Cities in China) and over 10 policy proposals.

Research area: agriculture and rural informatization, and urbanization.

Research directions: new-type urbanization, urban and rural integration, small town construction, village and town development planning, citizenization, agriculture and rural informatization, wisdom village / digital village, and rural e-commerce.