Oliver Hart Research Center of Contracts and Governance at ECUST (ECUST OHCG) was formally established at East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) on September 22, 2019. Named after Oliver Hart, the 2016 Nobel Prize laureate in Economic Sciences and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, the Center was co-founded by ECUST in collaboration with Professor Hart and multiple economists from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University, and East China Normal University. Oliver Hart, Honorary Professor of ECUST, serves as the Director of the Research Center. In 2023, Professor Hart began his tenure as Chairman of the First Strategic Advisory Committee of the Business School at ECUST. 

Composed of full-time and part-time researchers, the OHCG is dedicated to its mission: "studying major economic issues initiated by China or with typical Chinese characteristics that also carry universal global significance, as well as internationally successful cases with high application value in China." The Center aims to conduct fundamental, applied, and policy-oriented research in economics. Its key research areas include: contract theory focusing on enterprises, industries, parks, and urban-rural regions; organizational economics; law and economics; ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and corporate governance; digital economy and industry (organization, chain, space) governance; public service and social governance; resource-environment and energy-carbon governance; national land space governance; urban-rural regional spatial governance; big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and cyberspace governance; as well as experimental and empirical research related to the above fields.