He was head of the Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises from the Collège de France.

The couple was declared “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center, for their efforts in hiding Jewish people during the German occupation of Holland in World War II.

He organized and edited the first complete scientific study of the 1500 works contained in the Taoist Canon of the Ming Dynasty.

[4] In 2001, Kristofer Schipper and his wife Dr. Yuan Bingling founded the first library in China specialised in western art, literature, and culture, in Fuzhou.

)[citation needed] With his library, they intend to make western literature more accessible to Chinese scientists.