The element characteristics of China's new research university: based on the perspective of sustainable entrepreneurial university

• In Event: Higher Education and Institutional Improvement Initiatives

Proposal

Since the 1980s and 1990s, with the change of the mode of knowledge production, more attention has been paid to the functions of university scientific research and social service. Many scholars have studied and discussed the connection between university and society, and the concept of entrepreneurial university has also been applied (Etzkowitz, 1983; Clark, 1998). With the transformation of innovation system to the innovation ecosystem, the innovation of knowledge production mode, the progress of university governance idea (Ma, 2022), academia for the existing entrepreneurial university, some scholars in the "ideal entrepreneurial university" characteristics, put forward the concept of sustainable entrepreneurial university (Cai, Ahmad, 2021). At the same time, in order to improve national innovation capacity, countries around the world have begun to explore new models of university development and gradually transform to sustainable entrepreneurial universities (Ma, 2022), such as Pohang University of Science and Technology (Chen, 2021).
Meanwhile, China has implemented the innovation-driven development strategy to build the national innovation system and improve the national scientific research capacity. One of its plans is to build the new type of research university (Wu, 2021). New research universities are established in various ways, such as the establishment of returnee talent Foundation, the cooperation with local governments and so on. And typical representatives include Southern University of Science and Technology, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, etc(Chen, 2023). Compared with traditional universities, the new research universities have more diversified investment entities, more flexible and open internal governance mechanism (Ding, 2019; Peng, 2020). According to the analysis of the concept of sustainable entrepreneurial universities by Cai and Ahmad, China's new research universities show the characteristics of sustainable entrepreneurial universities, and some scholars further believe that the new research universities are the product of the localization of sustainable entrepreneurial universities (Ma, 2022).
Throughout the existing research, however, many scholars on the new research university "new" where the key problem has not yet reached a consensus, and the existing research mostly from the appearance, from the schooling, discipline layout dominant factors to collect the so-called "new traits", not around "the localization of sustainable research university" the identity characteristics of in-depth analysis. Professor Ma's theoretical explanation of the localization of the new research university as a sustainable entrepreneurial university provides a new perspective for the research of the new research university. Compared with the general entrepreneurial universities, the teaching scale of sustainable entrepreneurial universities has expanded to the global scope (Sivapalan et al., 2016), with the ability to break away from the system and participate in the market competition (Fu, 2019); in scientific research, the scientific research subject is more diversified (Fu et al, 2021), sustainable development has become an important driving force to guide the direction of scientific research (Waas et al., 2010); In social services, universities no longer only serve society, but further shape society (Shapiro, 2005) .The new research universities established in China in the new century all reflect the above characteristics to different degrees.
Based on the above literature review, this study starts from the interpretation of the concept of sustainable research universities, and systematically analyzes the characteristics of such universities around the three functions of universities and combined with the national conditions of China? At the same time, what are the Chinese characteristics of China's new research universities compared with foreign sustainable entrepreneurship universities?
In terms of research design, the research object of this study are the new research universities established in China. Considering the dynamic development characteristics of the new research universities, this study adopts the CIPP model as the overall framework of the whole research. In terms of specific research data collection and processing, this study used a questionnaire survey method to collect data. In terms of questionnaire design, according to CIPP theory, the questionnaire was designed into 5 dimensions: C-environmental background, I-input-dimension, P-process, P-result-dimension and Q-quality-assurance dimension, and there are 86 variables in the questionnaire. The Likert five-level scale is used to show the respondents from low to high from 1 to 5. In terms of respondents and questionnaire distribution, this study is mainly aimed at researchers in higher education, especially those within the new research universities. Their views represent the expectations of the current academic circles for the new research universities. In terms of data processing, this study uses the principal component analysis method and social network analysis method to process the data, completing the extraction of the elements of the new research university education system and the judgment of the element connection relationship.
In this study, 304 questionnaires were collected, of which 262 were valid questionnaires, and the effective recovery rate of the questionnaires was 86.18%. First, the use of principal component analysis, the questionnaire of five dimensions of 86 variables dimension processing, extracted the 11 new research university education system components: Environmental trends, System specification, Sustainable education concept, Concept of social participation, Innovation oriented education mode, Interdisciplinary knowledge production, Multiple subject of knowledge transfer, Economic and organization value, Education and innovation of sustainable value, Internal quality assurance system, External quality assurance system. Secondly, the social network analysis method is used to analyze each element, and according to the breadth and depth of the connection, the 11 elements are divided into four categories: high breadth and high depth, low breadth and high depth, high breadth and low depth, and low breadth and low depth. The results show that the four elements of education and sustainable innovation value, knowledge transformation of multiple subjects, internal quality assurance system and economic and organizational value are in high depth and high breadth; elements of sustainable education concept are in low breadth and high depth and institutional standard elements are in high breadth and low depth; external quality assurance system, interdisciplinary knowledge production, innovation-oriented education mode and environmental trend are in low breadth and low depth area.

Authors

• Chunlu Liu, Tongji University

• Zhiyang Zhong, Tongji University