Lin-Jinhua-20101202

The Challenges of Chinese Universities in the Next Decades

Jianhua Lin

Executive vice president and provost Peking University

Context  Historic view  Some issues  Future

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Historic view: Ancient Education 

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Traditional Chinese higher education 

More than 2000 years

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“Sishu”: Private School

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“Shuyuan”: Private college of classical learning

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“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

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Sciences: not developed in Chinese education system 3

Modern higher education institutions 

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The missionary colleges 

Saint John’s college founded 1879

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There were 14 missionary college in 1919

The national colleges 

Tianjing University  Imperial Tientsin University, 1895  Focussing on technology

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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 

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The former president Cai Yuanpei of PKU 

Recruiting new faculty

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Reforming the system of PKU

First graduate schools in China 

Graduate institutes at PKU, 1917

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Overall graduate school was founded in 1932

Research at universities 

The facilities at PKU were comparable to some universities in US in 1930

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The devotion and enthusiasm of faculty and students for research was much higher

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Historic view: Chinese universities 

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Relocation of disciplines in 1952 

More specialized universities

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PKU: humanities, social sciences and natural sciences

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Tsinghua: purely technology oriented

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Single mission: serve to the industrialization of China

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Only few universities maintained research

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Education become more specialized

Cultural revolution 

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All universities were closedown for about 10 years

Opening policy in 1978 

1978~1998 slow moving

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1998~2010 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

Merging of Universities 

Huge comprehensive universities   

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Merged with medical universities   

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PKU: with Beijing medical U FDU: with Shanghai medical U SJTU: with Shanghai second medical U

Local universities  

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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,

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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  

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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%

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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

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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 First Author Pub

Publications ss

Ave IF

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(from the Office of Scientific Research, PKU)

Research activities in Chinese universities 

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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 away 219 PKU, 233 Tsinghua, 365 SJTU, 389 Fudan, 417 Zhongshan, 418 Zhejiang, 428 Nanjing 20

 Issues  Investment on R&D and education

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R&D investiment in China 

China’s R&D Investment increases continuously over 1995 to 2009

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The GERD is only 1.7% in 2009, which is much lower than most of the developed countries

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expected GERD is about 2.5 in 2020

Billion ￥

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Research funding policies 100 million

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Fundament research  

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National needs oriented   

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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  

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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 (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 ￥

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Investment 

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PKU 

The budget was about 4.6 billion in 2009

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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

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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

• Peking U

• Harvard U

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• Cambridge U

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Biomedical research at PKU 

Biomedical related Institutions 

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Faculty of Sciences 

School of life sciences

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School of chemistry

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Department of psychology

Faculty of medicine

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Research institutions 

Institute for molecular medicine

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Center for system biology

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Institute for clinic medical research

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Center for bio-optical image

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Center for functional image

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Center for chemical genomics

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Center for neurosciences

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Center for stem cell research

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School of Basic Medical Sciences

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School of Pharmaceutical Sciences

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School of Public Health

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National protein genomic center

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8 affiliated hospitals

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National life science center

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12 teaching hospitals

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............

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future perspective

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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) 

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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

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Research Universities 

South university for science and technology at Shenzhen city   

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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

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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

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Joint education programs 

SHJT: 

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XAJT: 

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Joint university with Liverpool U

Yale: 

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Joint engineering college with UM

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 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.

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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

SCI Papers

Citations

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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, 47