Zhang has been involved in more than 20 DRC projects, including research on regional development strategy and reform, thoughts on financial system reform, research on China's systematic investment reform, research on China's economic structure during cross-century development, the East Asia financial storm, China's economic development and preventing financial crisis in economic globalization.

Zhang has also taken the leading role in project research, including supervision, control and management research of the Chinese currency market; comparative studies on Chinese and Japanese public investment; research on private financing channel exploration, forecast, precaution and resolution of systematic risk in the insurance industry; and research on developing a healthy insurance market in China.