In 1979, Zhou became an honorary member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP). He became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1980 and in 1993 was awarded the SVP's Romer-Simpson Medal for "sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate paleontology". He was an early and effective advocate of cladistic approaches to paleobiology in China, beginning in the early 1980s and promoted study abroad and academic training for young Chinese paleontologists, in the 1980s and 1990s.