China's Rising Research Universities: A New Era of Global Ambition

Conclusion: Achievements and Challenges in the Quest to Build Leading Universities

Conclusion Achievements and Challenges in the Quest to Build Leading Universities in recent times it seems hardly a day goes by without a new story about one Chinese university or another building academic or research partnerships with foreign universities. At UCLA, home to the lead author of this book, it is virtually impossible to keep track of all the collaborations and partnerships forged between academic departments and related programs at Chinese universities. indeed, examples of Western universities partnering with their Chinese counterparts are too numerous to count. Just to offer a few examples from one relatively brief time period, in 2012 Fudan University in shanghai formed a partnership with the University of California to create the Fudan-UC Center to be hosted at UC san diego. the center was founded to further advance China studies, obviously in recognition of the growing importance China plays in the geopolitical arena. A few months later Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh announced it had agreed to develop the Joint institute of engineering (Jie) with sun yatsen University in guangzhou (also known as Zhongshan University). And a month later, Mcgill University in Montreal announced it had formed a partnership with Peking University to promote increased collaboration, especially in the fields of law and medicine.1 the fact that universities all over the world are lining up to formalize relationships with China’s leading universities is further evidence that Chinese higher education truly has come of age. 156 China’s Rising Research Universities A 2013 story in the Economist further highlighted the general trend of Chinese and Western universities building collaborative programs, noting that britain ’s Lancaster University, new york’s Juilliard school, and duke University “are just the latest foreign institutions to pile into an already crowded marketplace . other co-operative and exchange programmes in higher education are being announced almost every month. some recruit Chinese students to foreign universities, or foreign students to Chinese ones. others take the form of research facilities or academic-exchange centres. some offer dual degrees. the most ambitious involve building, staffing and operating satellite campuses in China” (“Campus Collaboration” 2013). however, such partnerships have not been without their problems. the article went on to note that differences in academic “standards and values” have resulted in some failed partnerships, noting that yale University ended its joint undergraduate program with Peking University. yale’s administrators pointed to various issues, including low enrollment and excessive costs, but early on in the program some of yale’s faculty had complained of “rampant plagiarism” on the part of Chinese students in the program (“Campus Collaboration” 2013). despite these and other organizational complications, including differences in academic culture, Chinese and Western universities continue to forge collaborative ties at a breakneck pace. Although one might think that the proliferation of partnerships among Chinese and Western universities reflects the aggressive push of Chinese university faculty and staff in light of vast governmental funding and support for internationalization , the reality is that such collaborations are just as likely to be initiated by Western partners hoping to gain a foothold into China. Western faculty and staff may not be sure about what riches lie in the vast Middle Land,2 but no university wants to be left behind. As much as MooC-madness3 has consumed the world of higher education, it pales in comparison to China-madness. the general attitude is captured to some extent by Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit (VU) and its rationale for developing the VU China Research Centre: one of the more distinguishing news items of 2010 was that China has developed into the second economy in the world. Moreover, the continuing growth of the Chinese economy also made China lead the world out of the recent global recession . this economic growth can be felt far beyond its national borders. in particular in europe, the rapidly increasing investment of Chinese companies in the region is the talk of the day. this is alternately described in terms of opportunity for european businesses and threat. surely, when even institutions like Volvo are acquired by Chinese enterprises, that feeling of threat is understandable, though not necessarily justified. Perception of threat is usually caused by a lack of understanding , and the best way to mend such a lack of understanding is research. Achievements and Challenges 157 in the background of these developments, it makes sense that an academic entity like the Faculty of economy and business Administration (FeWeb...