In mid-February, China’s Ministry of Education announced the second phase of the country’s World Class Universities and Disciplines initiative, a funding scheme which aims to develop institutions with the potential of becoming “world-class” in specific subject areas or as a whole. The second phase of the project lists 147 universities for support – a slight increase compared to the 139 institutions named in the first round, which launched in 2016.

The new announcement describes a “multi-dimensional evaluation mechanism” and in comparison to the previous round of the initiative discusses selecting universities with “distinctive characteristics and comprehensive advantages” rather than specifically aiming at creating world-class institutions. In comparison to the previous round of the project, which separated institutions into 42 participants at the institution level and 97 at the discipline level, the new announcement treats all participating institutions as a single class – although some universities still have more disciplines targeted for support than others.

The action plan for the new round of the project includes:

• Prioritize the talent training work in the construction, encourage HEIs to play key role of cultivating high-level professionals and basic research talents in urgent need, develop advanced engineers and high-end composite engineering talents.
• Serve the national strategic needs, optimize the layout of discipline majors and talent training, advance the adjustment of discipline majors, consolidate the construction of basic disciplines, strengthen the collaboration between applied disciplines and industry.
• Build a high-level teaching team, improve the innovation team building mechanism, and support the cultivation of young talents with innovative potential
• Deepen the integration of science and education, promote the "Everest Plan for Basic Research in Colleges and Universities". Strengthen the cultivation of high-level innovative talents and joint scientific research, as well as to advance the coordination of major scientific research platforms.
• Enhance the level of international cooperation and exchanges, explore new mechanisms for studying abroad support for two-way exchanges with high-level universities in the world, take the initiative to undertake educational development and scientific research tasks involving the shared sustainable development challenges.
• Optimize the management evaluation mechanism, explore classified evaluation and international peer review, build a multi-dimensional outcome evaluation system oriented by innovative value, capacity and contribution.
• Improve the stability support mechanism, guide diversified and stable investment, innovate fund management, implement differentiated financial support for the construction of universities and disciplines, focus on strengthening key basic disciplines, advantageous and characteristic disciplines, and emerging interdisciplinary disciplines.

The list of disciplines supported under the project includes 59 basic disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, as well as 180 engineering disciplines and 92 philosophy and social science disciplines. All institutions and almost all subjects supported in the previous round of the plan are still covered in the latest announcement, although 15 institutions have been warned to improve standards in their targeted disciplines, including two which had their supported disciplines replaced with other subject areas.

British Council Comments

While the focus of the initiative has shifted somewhat to weaken the status of a “world class university / discipline” and refer more to distinctive characteristics, the launch of the second round of the plan and the continued involvement of all previously-supported HEIs shows that China plans to continue supporting its top universities, while participation in the scheme still shows that a university has been recognised as one of China’s leading HEIs in the relevant discipline. Support for international cooperation and exchange as part of the scheme means that these institutions would make particularly attractive partners for UK institutions looking to cooperate with Chinese institutions in particular fields.

Source:

Announcement

http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/202202/t20220214_599079.html

List

http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A22/s7065/202202/t20220211_598710.html