On March 16, Shandong Provincial government announced the list of winners of the fourth Shandong Provincial Cultural Innovation Award, and the "Innovative Practice of Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture and Community (rural) Civilization" initiated by Shandong University won the prize. The project was completed by a team of experts led by Professor Yan Binggang, vice dean of the Advanced Institute of Confucian Studies, Shandong University.

The project takes in-depth elucidation of the essence of Chinese excellent traditional culture as the starting point, takes the construction of community (rural) civilization as the starting point, and takes the promotion of citizens' quality and civilization level as the goal. It combines the exploration and interpretation of Chinese excellent traditional culture with the promotion of the spirit of the times, and makes an important contribution to the dissemination of Chinese excellent traditional culture and the construction of citizens' morality.

The Shandong Provincial Cultural Innovation Award was established by the Shandong government on March 2013. The award, as the province's highest award for cultural innovation, is aimed at rewarding organizations and project participants who make outstanding contributions to the development of cultural innovation in Shandong. The pool of candidates will be chosen every two years through public appraisal and 30 awards will go to 30 winners.