The Centre brings together colleagues working in similar areas in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and beyond into an interdisciplinary cluster to investigate the global vicissitudes of modernity/modernities to foster research synergy. It endeavours to move beyond the western-centric paradigm by reconsidering the fundamental nature and characteristics of modernity and challenging many of the conventional understandings of how the world has changed over time. The Centre aims at fostering new scholarship and facilitating research initiatives and collaboration. As a joint initiative with the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Zhejiang University, China, the Centre brings extra expertise, research and perspectives from leading academics from China.