Haitao Liu is a University Professor of the Humanities at Fudan University, a Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education's 'Changjiang Scholars’program, and a recipient of the State Council Special Allowance for Experts. Professor Liu has been listed as one of Elsevier's 'Highly Cited Chinese Researchers' for 10 years (2014–2023) and is among global top 2% scientists. 

He has published over 400 linguistics-related articles in domestic and international journals, with several papers recognized as ESI Hot Papers (top 0.1%) and Highly Cited Papers (top 1%). Thirteen of his research achievements have received Outstanding Social Science Awards from the Ministry of Education or provincial authorities.

Professor Liu and his team are actively engaged in quantitative and complex network research in human languages. Main research areas include: quantitative linguistics and digital humanities; computational cognitive science; dependency grammar and valency theory; language planning and language policy; interlinguistics and Esperanto studies. The aim of their research is to understand, through interdisciplinary efforts, the structure and evolution of languages from the perspective of complex system, which may open up new horizons for linguistics.