The Challenges of Chinese Universities
in the Next Decades
Jianhua Lin
Executive vice president and provost
Peking University
Context
 Historic view
 Some issues
 Future
2
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 one’s heart, cultivating
person
The main purpose of traditional learning

Utilitarianism: good scholar can become an official

Sciences: not developed in Chinese education
system
3
Modern higher education institutions


The missionary colleges

Saint John’s 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
4
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
5
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

1978~1998 slow moving

1998~2010 takeoff
First total synthesis of insulin in 1965
6
Some issues
Scale of high education
Merging of universities
7
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 ￥
8
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
Merging of Universities

Huge comprehensive universities




Merged with medical universities




PKU: with Beijing medical U
FDU: with Shanghai medical U
SJTU: with Shanghai second medical U
Local 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
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
10
Distribution of the higher learning
institutions in China
Economically activity areas
Higher Education
Institutes=1079+1184
Total Students=29 million
NBS Statistics,
11
 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
12
 Issue:
 211 and 985 projects
13
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, III:10.0
Investment to PKU
 985 (five year a term):
 I: 2.2 billion
 II: 2.2 billion
 III: 3.3 billion
14
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

15
Research activities at PKU

Quality and quantity of research output have been improved
over the decade
First Author Pub
Publications
ss
Ave IF
16
(from the Office of Scientific Research, PKU)
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
17
Citation of selected universities
 Í
18
The impact of the research is still
low
19
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 away
219 PKU, 233 Tsinghua, 365 SJTU, 389 Fudan, 417
Zhongshan, 418 Zhejiang, 428 Nanjing
20
 Issues
 Investment on R&D and education
21
R&D investiment in China

China’s R&D 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 ￥
22
Research funding policies
100 million

Fundament research



National needs oriented




NSFC and MOST
NSFC’s budget will be 10
billion next year
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
NSFC
Technology transfer

mainly by venture capitals,
but government provides
various financial and policy
assistant
23
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
24
External funding (R&D) of Chinese
universities
 External funding increases but the share decreases
because of more R&D spending in industry
 Chinese universities focus mostly on applied research
 The fundamental research funding is only 22%
25
Statistics from MoST，1997-2008
Research funding of universities

External research funding of PKU
Million ￥
26
26
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
Scientific
Research
Funding
School
enterprises
Government
Investment
University
Foundation
University Income
Special Funding
University
Income
PKU budget in 2009
Scientific Research Income
 Political willing


More investment on education and R&D
The education spending will be 4% of GDP by 2012
 about 1600 billion

The R&D 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, Ningxia:3,400, Shenzhen: 24,000
28
The research Culture



Different meaning for
“kexue” in Chinese
context
The culture influence on
the funding distribution
Big science versus
interests oriented
research
29
 Issue:
 Frontier and interdisciplinary
 Relocation the strengthen of the
universities
30
Strengthen and weakness
31
Strengthen of Chinese universities
 Comparison with US and EU
 Strengthen: physical sciences
 Weakness: life science and
medical sciences
• Peking
U
• Harvard
U
32
• Cambridge U
33
34
Biomedical research at PKU

Biomedical related Institutions


Faculty of Sciences

School of life sciences

School of chemistry

Department of psychology
Faculty of medicine

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

School of Basic Medical Sciences

School of Pharmaceutical
Sciences

School of Public Health

National protein genomic center

8 affiliated hospitals

National life science center

12 teaching hospitals

............
35
future perspective
36
Future perspectives
 Overall R&D 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?
37
Research Universities in China
Research Universities in China
New Research Universities in
developed regions

Financial revenue (billion Yuan)



Jiangsu: 315, Zhejiang: 214.2
Suzhou:74.5, 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,
Ningxia:3,400
Shenzhen: 24,000
Suzhou University founded in 1900
40
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
41
new campus of SUST
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
42
Joint education programs

SHJT:


XAJT:


Joint university with Liverpool U
Yale:


Joint engineering college with UM
Joint liberal arts college with NUS
NYU

discussion with Shanghai establishing a fully independent campus at
Pudong, Shanghai
43
International Cooperation and Exchange
Case 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.
44
Thank you
45
 Publications and citations


continuously improving in the past decade
but still for below the world average
SCI Papers
Citations
46
 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,
47