Dr. Jun Li is ARC Chair and Professor of Comparative and International Education at Western University, Past President of Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and Founding President of Chinese Society for Education (CSE, 中华教育学会). He is a recent Laureate of the Mingyuan Education Prize (2022-23), serving as an advisory, honorary or guest professor at various institutions, such as Peking, Beijing Normal, Southwest, St. Joseph, and Zhejiang Universities.

Prof. Li started his academic career in Shanghai in the early 1990s and served as Deputy Director of the Education Policy Unit at the University of Hong Kong before he moved back to Canada in 2017. With two PhDs - one in Educational History (ECNU, 1992) and another in International Education Policy (UMCP, 2006), he has rich leadership and other professional experiences accumulated in a global context (Shanghai, Tokyo, Maryland, Toronto, Hong Kong, etc.). Having led as Chairperson for the Hong Kong Educational Research Association (2014-17), President for the Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong (2012-14), an Advisory Programming Committee member of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Canada (2019-20), and President of the Comparative and International Education Society (2023-24), he also serves on various international editorial boards, such as Springer Nature.

Prof. Li is renowned for his studies on education in East and South Asia, North America, and Africa, advocating Educational Improvement Studies (EIS) as an emerging, transdisciplinary field on policy and leadership in comparative and international education, teacher education, higher education, schools as improving organizations, and professional improvement communities (PICs), etc. In particular, he works on how to transform educational reform - systemic, schoolwide, or micro in classrooms - into authentic improvement in various contexts, types, and levels of learning, teaching and schooling. He has extensively published, with many academic books and over a hundred journal/newspaper articles or book chapters in English, Chinese or Japanese, including his authored book Quest for World-Class Teacher Education? A Multiperspectival Study on the Chinese Model of Policy Implementation (Springer, 2016), co-authored book Portraits of 21st Century Chinese Universities: In the Move to Mass Higher Education (Springer/CERC, 2011) and co-edited books International Status Anxiety and Higher Education: Soviet Legacy in China and Russia (Springer/CERC, 2018) and Measuring up in Higher Education: How University Rankings and League Tables are Re-shaping Knowledge Production in the Global Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). He is often invited for keynote speeches around the globe, as well as interviewed on education and/or East Asia by The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Global Times, China Daily, South China Morning Post, China Central Television (CCTV), and China Global Television Network (CGTN), etc. Dr. Li's new article entitled "Goodbye to Reform: Improving Education for a More Equitable World" is available by Comparative Education Review, and his new authored book entitled Educational Improvement Science: The Art of the Improving Organization is forthcoming.

Prof. Li believes in a philosophy that humans are born close to one another but diverge through learning (The Analects of Confucius, 17.2). His “happy hour” is usually in the morning or evening with a pot of tea to discuss or write anything exploratory, creative, or even unthinkable. As a dedicated educator, researcher and father, he is always more than happy to share with you his learning about education.