Recently, the results of key project evaluation and approval on philosophy and social science research by ministry of education in 2015 have been officially released. Two projects of Nankai University gained approval, namely The Building of a Theory on the Value System of Literary Criticism and Its Practice Research (Ratification NO: 15JZD039) undertaken by Professor Liu Lili in School of Literature and The Study of Social Psychological Mechanism of Doctor - Patient Trust Relationship Construction conducted by  Wang Xinjian, professor in Zhou Enlai School of Government, as the chief expert(Ratification NO: 15JZD030). Each of the projects has been granted  800, 000 RMB respectively.

It is reported that there are 46 approved projects nationwide in 2015, and Nankai University shared the forth place together with Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Xiamen University and Wuhan University. Fudan University ranks the first with five approved projects, follwed by Beijing Normal University (four approved projects) and East China Normal University (with three approved projects).