Shu Kai Chan, A.SK founder, dies at 101

The WZB mourns the death of Shu Kai Chan, donor of the A.SK Social Science Award. The prize, endowed with a total of $200,000, honors social scientists working toward political and economic reform.

A century-long life characterized by German-Chinese friendship has come to an end. Chinese-born philanthropist Shu Kai Chan studied in Germany in the 1930s and returned to Hong Kong following the outbreak of World War II, never shedding his love of German and European culture and his interest in the social sciences. In 2007, Shu Kai Chan established the A.SK Foundation in remembrance of his years spent in Germany. The foundation was named after his and his wife Angela's initials and has since funded the A.SK Social Science Award organized and presented at the WZB.

The award, endowed with a prize money of currently US $200,000, honors social scientists working toward political and economic reform and has gone to Raj Chetty, John Ruggie, Esther Duflo, and Paul Collier, among others. The 2021 awardee will be announced this summer. Shu Kai Chan remained wide awake and deeply interested in the fate of the WZB and in international and European affairs until just before his death. Shu Kai Chan passed away peacefully on Dec. 30, 2020 at the age of 101 in Costa Rica where he had spent the last two decades of his life.

6 January 2021