China The universities and disciplines China aims to turn into world-beaters by 2030

[xizhimen]

The universities and disciplines China aims to turn into world-beaters by 2030​

• Plan from education and finance ministries lists 147 universities and 331 disciplines intended to reach ‘first-class’ standard
• The aim is for more Chinese institutions and specialisms to rank among the world’s best by 2030, and the country to be a global education power by 2035

Published: 6:00am, 15 Feb, 2022

The Chinese government has outlined plans to push further education institutions to join the global elite. Photo: Xinhua

China has revealed expanded plans to lift its universities to world-class level and nurture a wide range of disciplines as part of its push to create a higher education sector to support the country’s economic development.

The plan issued on Monday listed 147 universities and more than 300 of their disciplines, from science and engineering to social sciences, that it said should be developed to become “first-class”.
It is meant to catapult more Chinese universities and disciplines to the top by 2030, and was released by the education and finance ministries along with the government’s economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission.

The ministries said the goals were to develop top talent for the country, boost China’s competitiveness internationally, serve national strategic needs and encourage cross-disciplinary research, with the government set to increase investment in scientific and new cross-disciplinary subjects.

The plan is part of China’s vision to become a global education power by 2035. Last year, the Education Ministry designated 12 top universities to establish new faculties focused on building the country’s advantage in frontier technologies, at a time when it faces increasing trade and technology pressures from the United States.


“The task of building world-class universities with Chinese characteristics and bringing up the overall level of higher education is still very arduous,” read a question and answer document accompanying the announcement.

“Although the first set of goals has been achieved, the progress still falls short of the expectation of the [Communist Party] and people. We will continue to select advantageous tertiary institutions and grant them certain authority to designate key disciplines.”

The first two universities to decide on disciplines that they want to further cultivate will be Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing, according to the plan, which said the intention was for the institutions to shoulder responsibility and create a policy environment in which they could join the world’s elite.

Peking and Tsinghua were the only two mainland Chinese universities in the top 100 of four prominent global rankings for the world’s top universities in 2017, when the country first announced the plans to turn selected colleges into world-class seats of learning.

Since then, other Chinese institutions have joined those global lists, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Fudan University in Shanghai, Zhejiang University, and the University of Science and Technology of China, in Anhui province.

The 331 disciplines listed in the plans published on Monday comprised 180 engineering-related subjects, 59 basic science majors such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, and 92 related to philosophy and social sciences, such as ethnology and Marxism studies.

The disciplines were chosen on the basis of their performance and the country’s needs, according to the plan.

The universities and disciplines China aims to turn into world-beaters

Plan from education and finance ministries lists 147 universities and 331 disciplines intended to reach ‘first-class’ standard.

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