Hello, my name is Nora Van den Bosch, and I am undertaking a PhD project (2026-2029) at the EAST center of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. I specifically research the transnational history of Sino-Belgian educational exchanges (1900–1950), with the focus on the social and political dynamics shaping the Chinese student migration to Belgium.
As part of the research I construct a database which traces the overseas Chinese students in Belgium as well as other actors who were part of the educational exchanges. This database, which is currently named the ‘Chinese Overseas Education in Belgium’ database (COEB for short), will be accessible to the public towards the end of the project, hopefully just in time for the hundredth year anniversary of the arrival of the first Chinese Boxer Indemnity scholarship students in Belgium (see group photo).
The COEB Research Blog will house my reflections on the research journey and the history and serves as a (temporary) platform for sharing news of the database. I choose Blogger as my place because, although Blogger is old school, it is still less effort than creating a personal website, especially at this time when I do not know how long the blog holds, and it is more 'open' as a platform than Substack, Medium and Linkedin where incoming readers are nudged to sign in for accessibility.
The most important thing for me in having this blog is training my writing muscles and sharing research in a format that is less formal and low stakes. The audience I envision for this (quite niche) blog is probably other people interested in student migrations in the early twentieth century and/or the history of internationalization of education, but I can also imagine that the blog can be an entry point for people who have their own connections to the history of Chinese students in Belgium.
In a productivity-oriented ideal world I publish one post per week, but, realistically, once a month is considered an achievement. So, a minimal total of eleven posts in 2026 (which includes this one). To me, that is manageable and, having set these expectations beforehand, I feel less pressure to post and it allows me to plan my writings.
I have no idea what will come out of this experience, but, I guess, we will find it out together.
In any case, dear reader, I welcome you to the COEB research blog.