The Rise of Chinese Universities: Research, Innovation and Building World-class Universities

Higher educational institutions coupled with research and development (R&D) and S&T institutions are intimately intertwined with the rise of Asia in the global knowledge economy. First Japan, followed by the Dragon economies together with China, South Korea and India continue to play a dominant role in characterising twenty-first century as the Asian Century. In the last couple of decades, the rise of China has caught up the imagination of people and governments alike all over the world. This has happened not only because of China’s manufacturing prowess and skills that the country has mastered over the decades, but also because of her ability and potential to develop human capital, training, advancement of knowledge and innovation impacting the national economy. In other words, science, technology and innovation policies (STI) in the last couple of decades enabled a select band of Chinese universities to not only enhance their research intensity but scale up in the rankings of world-class universities. STI strategies were systematically deployed towards building human capital and promoting ‘triple helix’-based entrepreneurship and innovation in universities. China is second only to the USA in the global research output of papers in science and engineering as well as R&D expenditure. It is the leading nation in the world not only in the production of science and engineering undergraduates and graduates but also PhDs. Chinese multinational firms such as Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and others, emerged to rival those in Japan and the USA in the last two decades. All this could not have been possible without harnessing education at all levels, but particularly in universities impacting advances in science and technology research. In the early 1990s, none of the Chinese universities figured in the top 200 list of World University Rankings. Within two decades, more than half a dozen Chinese universities were listed in the top 200, three in the Top 100 and two in the Top 50. More than any other factor, universities have come to occupy a very significant position in the Chinese national innovation system.