The reform of public hospitals is regarded as one of China’s biggest challenges, critical for the success of national health reform. This two-year project aims to conduct a systematic evaluation of pilot hospital reform projects through quantitative and qualitative research. Literature reviews and an international comparative study on public hospital reforms will be undertaken to define the major domains of hospital reform. The final reform plan issued by the central government, scheduled for October, will provide an important guide for the study design. Other activities will include seminars, baseline studies, setup of research task groups to track sample pilot hospitals, designing a framework of evaluation, selecting evaluation indicators and implementing an evaluative study. To measure the results of the reform, hospital reform evaluating software will be developed. Reports, books on policy case studies and seminars will summarize the outcome of the project. Harbin will use this research opportunity to develop a long-term human resource development plan with the aim to further strengthen research capacity in the discipline of health management and evaluation. The principal investigator for this project is Professor Wu Qunhong. The co-investigators are Professors Liu Guoxiang, Hao Yanhua and Lei Haichao.