The Centre d'études chinoises (Institut des civilisations du Collège de France - pôle Mondes asiatiques), historically known as the Institut des hautes études chinoises (IHEC), was founded under this name in 1920 with the ambition of creating a place for cultural exchange, where lectures would be given on various aspects of Chinese culture. During its first decades of existence, the IHEC developed in two phases: the first, from 1920 to 1926, was the political phase, during which the institution had only limited activities and sought to be an instrument of Franco-Chinese diplomacy. The second phase began in 1926 with the return of the sinologists, first and foremost Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and Marcel Granet (1884-1940), who took over the direction of the IHEC. Thanks to a substantial grant from the Boxer indemnity fund, Marcel Granet launched an ambitious program to equip the Institute with lectures, a library and publications. The IHEC proposed a teaching program designed to bridge the gap between the language courses at the École des Langues Orientales and the few research seminars offered at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE) and the Collège de France.
Attached to the Collège de France library in 1972, the IHEC, now known as the Centre d'études chinoises, oversees the activities of the Chinese studies library ; it pursues a publications program and maintains relations and exchanges with Chinese scientific institutions.
The Centre has a scientific council of twelve members chosen from specialists in the field, and a director. The Director is either a professor at the Collège de France, or a colleague from another institution who has been asked to take on this role. Members of the Scientific Advisory Board are appointed for a renewable term of four years. Their appointment, like that of the Director, is approved by the Administrator of the Collège de France.
Center d'études chinoises publications
The Centre also publishes scholarly works in Sinology, as well as research tools in this field. Two collections form the core of this body of publications, the " Bibliothèque de l'Institut des hautes études chinoises " (42 vol. since its creation in 1934), and the " Mémoires de l'Institut des hautes études chinoises ", a series initiated in 1976 to promote the publication of high-quality theses and conference proceedings (41 vol.). There is also a series of university theses (1932-1936), indexes (8 vols., 1962-1991), the fifteen indexes of the Centre d'études sinologiques de Pékin - Université de Paris (1939-1953), and nine " Hors collection " (1992-2020). The two main collections include many books by great names in sinology, starting with Édouard Chavannes, whose volume IV of Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripitaka chinois appeared posthumously in 1934, inaugurating the Collection de la " Bibliothèque de l'IHEC ". Both illustrate the variety of Chinese studies encouraged by the Center, both in terms of disciplines and in terms of space and time : they include annotated translations of laws, documents and poems, contributions to history, and literary, religious and scientific studies. Some of these works also concern Central Asia, Mongolia and what used to be called Chinese Turkestan. Several volumes are now in their second or third editions : for example, Le Concile de Lhasa. Une controverse sur le quiétisme entre bouddhistes de l'Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne, by Paul Demiéville (1987 and 2007), or Histoire des marchands sogdiens, by Étienne de la Vaissière (2002, 2004, 2016). Jean-Pierre Diény honored the Institute with the publication of three of his works, and with a selected collection of his articles in 2012.
