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Figure 5. 2 Top host Countries’ International Enrolment as a Percentage of Total HE Enrolment in 2011
Source: Adapted from (Institute of International Education, Open doors Data, 2014).
China’s cross-border education can be observed from the newly established cooperation universities. Up to year 2012, there have been 4 Chinese-foreign cooperation universities and 1841 Chinese-foreign cooperation institutions or programmes setting up in China (Shao 2013). The University of Nottingham Ningbo China and the New York University in Shanghai are the example of these cooperation universities. In the case of international research cooperation, Zhongshan University in Guangzhou has been actively raising its international research profile. The college of Government and Public Affairs has collaborated with overseas institutions in co-organising international conference and symposia to promote its areas of research excellence (Mok and Yang). It is dated that 13 research fields in Zhongshan University are ranked top 1% by the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) (MOE China 2014c).
In R. Yang’s (2002) studies, Guangzhou University, South China Normal University and South China University of Technology all basing in Guangzhou have triumphed in creating international programmes, attracting international students as well as establishing international cooperation although there exists internal differentiation on what internationalisation is for a HEI and how it can pursue to achieve a goal of being internationalised.
1.0%
3.6%
11.4% 12.3%
18.6%
21.4%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
China U.S. Germany France U.K. Australia
Top Host Countries' International Enrolement as a percentage of total HE
enrollement
Percentage
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101 5.2.2 Pursuit of World-class University
During the implementation of the Project 211 and Project 985, increased funding was allocated to the selected universities so that these universities can upgrade and strengthen specific disciplines and academic programmes and so to become world-class universities. It is not hard to imagine, in fact, that most of the world-world-class universities around the world are also leading research institutions and for this reason, the research function has been reemphasised in Chinese universities (Min 2004).
Although with strong regional disparity, universities which participate in the Project 211 and Project 285 have endeavoured to pursue internationalisation to become world leading universities. The table below includes China’s top 3 universities ranked by QS World University Ranking. As the table shows, all the top universities in China have made progress in the world university ranking from 2008-2012. In 2013, Peking University dropped to number 46 in the ranking comparing to number 44 in the previous year. Tsinghua University falls from number 47 to number 48 in 2012 and it remains in the same ranking in 2012 and 2013.
Table 5. 2 QS World University Ranking (China)
University 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Peking University
50 52 47 46 44 46
Tsinghua University
56 49 54 47 48 48
Fudan University
113 103 105 91 90 88
Source: QS Top Universities, 2014.
Other than Peking and Tsinghua University, there are other universities which have endeavoured to pursue its world ranking status. The senior management of Zhejiang University (ranking in the Top Three in China’s university league) has tried to adopt strategies to better position the University in the global ranking exercise by joining the Worldwide University Network to promote international research collaboration (Mok and Chan 2008). University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University and Beijing Normal University are all ranked top 50 universities according to QS Asian University Rankings while 3
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Hong Kong (HK) universities67 are ranked top 10 in the same year (QS Top University Ranking). The leading forces of HK universities in internationalisation to China’s HEIs were highly emphasised by Yang who argued that HK offers China ‘a unique model of successful East-West academic integration’ (Yang 2002, p.162).
Another important world university ranking system, which was created by Shanghai Jiao Tong University－the Academic Ranking of World University (also known as ARWU)－is an example showing that some university in China intends to join the global academic community by taking the initiative to rank universities throughout the world (ARWU 2014) by creating its own indicators and ranking system. As is written on the official website of ARWU: 68
‘Starting from 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world Top 500 universities annually based on transparent methodology and reliable data. It has been recognised as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy one’.
Other than ranking world universities, the ARWU also offers Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau for students, teachers, and academic researchers to use the ranking as a reference to more than 3000 HEIs’ in China.
Similar to many other HEIs in the world, the SCI impact factor is a way to show how universities react to the state’s request on the internationalisation policy and how these results can be evaluated. The SCI and SSCI index provide clear quantitative data for academic researchers and HEIs to understand how much the impact are for those published papers. The number of SCI and SSCI papers published by scholars basing in China is open to the public on SCI and SSCI index websites. Figure 5.3 and 5.4 present the publication numbers on SCI and SSCI journals in recent years. From these figures, one can tell that the number of papers published in SCI and SSCI index grew from year 2008-2013.
67According to QS Asian University Rankings in 2013, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was ranked No.1, University of Hong Kong was No. 2 and The Chinese University of Hong Kong was ranked No. 7.
68 Refer to the official website of ARWU at http://www.shanghairanking.com/
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Figure 5. 3 Number of Papers Published in SSCI Journals (China) Source: Social Sciences Citation Index (2013).
Figure 5. 4 Number of Papers Published in SCI Journals (Taiwan) Source: Science Citation Index Expanded (2014).
5.2.3 Education for global engagement and promoting Chinese language internationally