Scaling Greater Heights in Higher Education Through Boundary-Spanning-Based University-Industry Collaboration: the ‘Four New’ Project in China

Abstract

Abstract China’s ‘Four New Project’ initiative has been a major attempt to achieve quality revolution in higher education since 2017. Underpinning it are comprehensive strategies coordinating multiple stakeholders to span boundaries and develop a synergistic approach for collaborative education. This paper teases out China’s national policies and measures to develop a leadership-oriented innovation ecosystem for higher education, drawing upon boundary-spanning perspectives of various practices in engineering education, medical education, agriculture education, and liberal arts education. It unravels how stakeholders with different interest pursuits have been coordinated to jointly fuel the reform to China’s higher education talent cultivation patterns in response to the demands of Industry 4.0 and Biomedicine 3.0. The findings render visible the macro changes in higher education institutions across tiers, types and fields, and also unravel the project’s robust effects on teaching and learning at micro level. Challenges are also discussed to shed light upon space of improvement.