Building the world-class research universities: a case study of China

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze how China has strived to develop its world-class research universities and what are distinguishing characteristics of China’s efforts to form these universities for the last decades. This study begins with a review of literature and research questions. It then touches on the background and rationale of creating China’s world-class university. In the third section, it examines national policies and strategies of building China’s world-class research university since the mid-1990s. In the fourth section, based on national documentation and institutional strategies as well as major findings from the international survey of the Changing Academic Profession which was exercised in China in 2007, the study presents what has been achieved in the effort launched to create Chinese world-class research university and challenges facing China in this regard. The study concludes by arguing the following aspects: firstly, China has made an impressive progress of forming its world-class research university and national policies and strategies are effective; secondly, differing from the world-class research universities in the USA and the UK, the Chinese path to building a world-class research university is characterized with a top-down policy, accompanied by the growth in intensive funding from both national government and especially local authorities on few selected elite universities; and finally, the Chinese way is still receptive to Western influence and external international ranking systems or organizations; therefore, there is still a long way for China to become an internationally influential part of the higher education landscape.