The establishment of CiCRL is to facilitate multi- and cross-disciplinary research at HKU and beyond on Christianity’s interactions with various key aspects of Chinese societies during different historical periods since its arrival in China in the 7th century. It is devoted especially to exploring the relationship between Christianity and the modernisation of China in the early modern and modern periods. Currently it focuses on two areas of enquiry. The first area is related to the life stories of prominent Chinese Christian individuals and families and the roles these individuals and families played in shaping Chinese modern societies. The second area deals with how diverse Christian institutional establishments (both Catholic and Protestant) shaped urban development of modern China in the 19th and 20th centuries. We seek to interact with scholars conducting architectural, art, colonial, cultural, economic, gender, quantitative, religious, social, transnational, and urban history; heritage studies, and religious studies, and together contribute to a broader and deeper understanding of the roles of Christianity in the making of modern China.