The Challenges of Chinese Universities in the Next Decades

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• The Challenges of Chinese Universities in the
  Next Decades

Jianhua Lin Executive vice president and
provost Peking University
2
Context

• Historic view
• Some issues
• Future

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Historic view Ancient Education

• Traditional Chinese higher education
• More than 2000 years
• Sishu Private School
• Shuyuan Private college of classical learning
• Taixue Imperial college
• Core value of traditional Great Learning
• What the great learning teaches, is to illustrate
  illustrious virtue to renovate the people and
  to rest in the highest excellence
• emphasizing on rectifying ones heart,
  cultivating person
• The main purpose of traditional learning
• Utilitarianism good scholar can become an
  official
• Sciences not developed in Chinese education
  system

4
Modern higher education institutions

• The missionary colleges
• Saint Johns college founded 1879
• There were 14 missionary college in 1919
• The national colleges
• Tianjing University
• Imperial Tientsin University, 1895
• Focussing on technology
• Peking University
• Imperial University of Peking, 1898
• The administrative ministry of higher education
  in China
• Many universities were founded in the beginning
  of the 20th century
• Liberal arts education

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Research Universities in China

• The former president Cai Yuanpei of PKU
• Recruiting new faculty
• Reforming the system of PKU
• First graduate schools in China
• Graduate institutes at PKU, 1917
• Overall graduate school was founded in 1932
• Research at universities
• The facilities at PKU were comparable to some
  universities in US in 1930
• The devotion and enthusiasm of faculty and
  students for research was much higher

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Historic view Chinese universities

• Relocation of disciplines in 1952
• More specialized universities
• PKU humanities, social sciences and natural
  sciences
• Tsinghua purely technology oriented
• Single mission serve to the industrialization of
  China
• Only few universities maintained research
• Education become more specialized
• Cultural revolution
• All universities were closedown for about 10
  years
• Opening policy in 1978
• 19781998 slow moving
• 19982010 takeoff

First total synthesis of insulin in 1965
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Some issues

• Scale of high education
• Merging of universities

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Expansion of Chinese universities

• Expanding size of universities
• The gross rate of enrollment reach to 24, almost
  30 million registered students, the largest in
  the world
• The increase of the state investment on education
  was slow

Billion ?
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Scale of the universities

• Many new campus, new recruiting, and new
  facilities
• The average spending per student decreases
  dramatically, quality?
• About 300 billion bank loans, recent relief plan
  
• New campuses profitable investment for the future

New Campus of Jilin U
New Campus of Sun Yet-sen U
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Merging of Universities

• Huge comprehensive universities
• ZJU with Hangzhou U, Zhejiang medical U and
  Zhejiang agriculture U
• WHU with Wuhan hydroelectricity U, Wuhan mapping
  U, Hubei medical U
• JLU with Jilin U industry, Baiqiuen medical U,
  Changchun U geology, Changchun communication U
• Merged with medical universities
• PKU with Beijing medical U
• FDU with Shanghai medical U
• SJTU with Shanghai second medical U
• Local universities
• Suzhou U with Suzhou silkworm college, Silk
  technology college, Sushou medical college
• Ningbo U Ningbo normal college, Zhejiang
  aquaculture college
• A powerful reaction to the former relocation of
  disciplines in 1952
• Good for small specialized colleges, but
  destroying the diversity of Chinese higher
  education system

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Distribution of the higher learning institutions
in China
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• The higher education in 2020
• enrollment 36 million
• the gross rate of enrollment 40
• The main target of next 10 years is to improve
  the quality of education

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• Issue
• 211 and 985 projects

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211 and 985 projects

• Promoting excellent universities
• Centennial anniversary of PKU, in May 4 1998
• 985 project
• Promoting few Chinese universities to top level
• Investment(billion) I 14, II 18.9, III 30.5
  (five years a term)
• 211 project
• Improving 100 good universities in China
• Investment(billion) I 2.755, II 6.0, III10.0
• Investment to PKU
• 985 (five year a term)
• I 2.2 billion
• II 2.2 billion
• III 3.3 billion

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Concentration of funding

• 985-III project
• PKU and Tsinghua share
• I 25.7 II 19.1 III 21.6
• The other 7 universities in C9 share 27.5 in
  985-III, but they should receive similar
  compensation from local government
• The rest 30 universities share 41.9
• about 10 flexible
• C9 is informer association what include 9 top
  universities

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Research activities at PKU

• Quality and quantity of research output have been
  improved over the decade

(from the Office of Scientific Research, PKU)
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Research activities in Chinese universities

• The scientific publications on international
  journals increase dramatically in the past decade
  for the major comprehensive universities in China
• The overall publications also increase for all
  universities

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Citation of selected universities

• Í

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The impact of the research is still low
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Rankings

• The performance of Chinese universities in these
  rankings are improving continuously
• Better performance on comprehensive ranking
• PKU is around 14-50 in the past several years
• For research orientated ranking, Chinese
  universities are all far behind
• Shanghai Jiaotong
• PKU 200-250
• Tsinghua 200-250
• Australia Research council
• Chinese universities are all quit far away219
  PKU, 233 Tsinghua, 365 SJTU, 389 Fudan, 417
  Zhongshan, 418 Zhejiang, 428 Nanjing

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• Issues
• Investment on RD and education

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RD investiment in China

• Chinas RD Investment increases continuously
  over 1995 to 2009
• The GERD is only 1.7 in 2009, which is much
  lower than most of the developed countries
• expected GERD is about 2.5 in 2020

Billion ?
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Research funding policies
100 million

• Fundament research
• NSFC and MOST
• NSFCs budget will be 10 billion next year
• National needs oriented
• MOST, local government, other ministries and
  industry
• 16 national key project, about tens of billions
  each
• 600 billion budget was approved within the
  stimulating package
• Technology transfer
• mainly by venture capitals, but government
  provides various financial and policy assistant

NSFC
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Large research facilities

• Synchrotron radiation
• Neutron sources
• Reactor at Beijing
• Spallation neutron source at Dongguan, Guangdong
  province
• Others
• Super magnetic field facilities
• Protein genomics
• wild species bank
• astronomical telescope

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External funding (RD) of Chinese universities

• External funding increases but the share
  decreases because of more RD spending in
  industry
• Chinese universities focus mostly on applied
  research
• The fundamental research funding is only 22

Statistics from MoST,1997-2008
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Research funding of universities

• External research funding of PKU

26
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Investment

• PKU
• The budget was about 4.6 billion in 2009
• The external research grant was about 1.26
  billion in 2009
• Tsinghua
• The research grant was 30 billion in 2009

in 100 million Yuan
Government Investment
School enterprises
Scientific Research Funding
University Income
University Foundation
Special Funding
University Income
Scientific Research Income
PKU budget in 2009
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• Political willing
• More investment on education and RD
• The education spending will be 4 of GDP by 2012
• about 1600 billion
• The RD spending will be 2.5 of GDP in 2020
• about 720 billion
• Difficulties
• it is difficult to force the local government
  invest more on education
• rich and poor regions
• The state compensation per students
• Beijing 24,380, Shanghai 15,349, Guangdong
  10,622, Tianjing 9,827, Zhejiang 8,771,
  Sichuan 4,000, Xijiang 6,300, Ningxia3,400,
  Shenzhen 24,000

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The research Culture

• Different meaning for kexue in Chinese context
  
• The culture influence on the funding distribution
  
• Big science versus interests oriented research

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• Issue
• Frontier and interdisciplinary
• Relocation the strengthen of the universities

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Strengthen and weakness
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Strengthen of Chinese universities

• Comparison with US and EU
• Strengthen physical sciences
• Weakness life science and medical sciences

• Cambridge U

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Biomedical research at PKU

• Research institutions
• Institute for molecular medicine
• Center for system biology
• Institute for clinic medical research
• Center for bio-optical image
• Center for functional image
• Center for chemical genomics
• Center for neurosciences
• Center for stem cell research
• National protein genomic center
• National life science center
• ............

• Biomedical related Institutions
• Faculty of Sciences
• School of life sciences
• School of chemistry
• Department of psychology
• Faculty of medicine
• School of Basic Medical Sciences
• School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• School of Public Health
• 8 affiliated hospitals
• 12 teaching hospitals

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• future perspective

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Future perspectives

• Overall RD input be raised to over 2.5 of GDP
  in 2020 and overall education input should be 4
  of GDP (about 36,000 billion 2009)
• Become an innovative country in 2020
• the contribution rates of scientific advancement
  reach over 60
• dependency on foreign technology decrease to
  below 30
• number of annual authorization of invention
  patents and number of international citation of
  scientific thesis rank among top 5 in the world
• The top research universities would play a
  significant role in this process
• Do we need more research universities in China?

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Research Universities in China
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Research Universities in China
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New Research Universities in developed regions

• Financial revenue (billion Yuan)
• Jiangsu 315, Zhejiang 214.2
• Suzhou74.5, Ningbo 39.0, Shenzhen 101.6
• Financial compensation per college student (yuan)
• Beijing 24,380, Shanghai 15,349, Guangdong
  10,622, Tianjing 9,827, Zhejiang 8,771,
  Sichuan 4,000, Xijiang 6,300, Ningxia3,400
• Shenzhen 24,000

Suzhou University founded in 1900
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Research Universities

• South university for science and technology at
  Shenzhen city
• The city invested 10 billion for a new campus,
  and 1 billion per year for running
• 400 new recruiting faculty, 6000 undergraduates
  and 4000 post graduates
• Focussing on science, engineering and management,
  taking HKUST as a model
• According to State Strategic Plan, the education
  spending should be 4 of GDP
• The GDP of Shenzhen city is more than 1000
  billion for Shenzhen, which means they have to
  spend at least 40 billion on education each year

new campus of SUST
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International collaboration

• There are many joint research collaborations
• in PKU
• Joint PhD program with GIT
• Joint research institute with UCLA, UM
• Joint programs with more than 200 institutions

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Joint education programs

• SHJT
• Joint engineering college with UM
• XAJT
• Joint university with Liverpool U
• Yale
• Joint liberal arts college with NUS
• NYU
• discussion with Shanghai establishing a fully
  independent campus at Pudong, Shanghai

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International Cooperation and ExchangeCase
Study XJLU University

• International joint institution
• jointly formed by Xian Jiaotong U and Loverpool U
• mainly undergraduate
• very successful and well accepted by society and
  other academic institutions
• Vision
• a research-led international university in China
  with its unique features in teaching learning,
  research, social service, education management.

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• Thank you

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• Publications and citations
• continuously improving in the past decade
• but still for below the world average

Citations
SCI Papers
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• State key project
• key IT devices and software,
• IC integrate circuit,
• new generation of broad band mobile communication
  system,
• drug discovery,
• aircraft,
• exploring new oil resource, petroleum,
• nuclear power plant,
• water pollution,
• biotech and gene related technology,
• infectious diseases,
• space flight, aerospace technology,