Recently, the academic journal Music Culture Studies, hosted by Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, has reached a cooperation with the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), becoming the newest member of the RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text (RAFT) database. As one of approximately 300 music journals worldwide included in RAFT, Music Culture Studies will henceforth be accessible to academic institutions around the world through the online platform of this database. Music scholars globally will be able to download, read, and cite it online.

RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale) was founded in 1966 as a joint project of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML), the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), the International Musicological Society (IMS), and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). Over the past six decades, the RILM Abstracts of Music Literature database has cataloged over 1.7 million bibliographic records covering 184 countries and more than 140 languages. RAFT is an upgraded version of the RILM Abstracts database that provides not only abstracts but also full-text access to scholarly literature; it currently includes over 500,000 articles published from the early 20th century to the present.

Music Culture Studies was first published in October 2017, primarily featuring research results in music culture and outstanding works of musical art. It is dedicated to promoting national music culture, exploring the laws of musical art, and facilitating music dissemination and exchange, with the aim of serving the prosperous and innovative development of socialist literature and art.

Music Culture Studies has a regular column titled 'Music Silk Road Research.' In 2023, it won the 'National University Social Science Journal Special Column Award' in the 'Seventh Quality Inspection and Evaluation of Academic Journals in Universities' activity. The journal also features special columns such as 'Yangtze River Delta Regional Music Research,' 'Song Dynasty Music Culture Research,' 'Youth Academic Forum,' 'Zhejiang Opera and Music Research,' and 'Opera Studies,' as well as academic columns on Chinese traditional music research, music history and cultural studies, composition theory research, and performance and creation research. In 2025, Music Culture Research organized the 'First Youth Academic Forum in Musicology' paper competition, focusing on academic frontiers and cultivating reserve talent, providing a platform for young scholars to grow.

The journal’s formal inclusion in RAFT, the full-text database under the international music literature resource RILM, marks a solid step in Music Culture Studies’s process of expanding international influence. Moving forward, Music Culture Studies will leverage this international platform to continuously publish high-quality, cutting-edge, and original academic results, promoting the deeper integration of Chinese music theory and practical experience into global academic dialogue, and contributing Chinese wisdom and strength to building an equal and diverse world music research framework.