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Policy experimentation (PE) has been regarded as an integral element in defining China's reform capability. However, few studies have investigated the processes of PE in China's education reforms, as well as the policy conditions required for PE's successful initiation, implementation, and inclusion into the policy process. Through an empirically informed case study featuring university graduate assignment and employment reform, engaged with extensive documentary evidence and semi-structured interviews, the study argues that PE allows a temporary breakthrough from the existing policy constraints to generate contextualized novel policy options, but its large-scale diffusion and inclusion into the policy process have to proceed according to the institutional environment, corresponding to the broader social, economic, and cultural changes.

The development of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level has been accelerated by the ever-increasing degree of higher education internationalisation. The study, based on a survey with 112 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 instructors collected at a Sino-foreign cooperative education institution in China, explores students' perceptions of and adaptation to EMI teaching and learning. The findings indicate that students show a positive attitude towards EMI teaching and learning. Students' motivation and prior English proficiency are important factors that influence their learning experience through EMI. Tailored pedagogical strategies to facilitate students' learning, an enhanced level of collaboration between EMI teachers and language teachers, and the provision of an immersive sociolinguistic environment conducive to EMI are also instrumental. The study suggests a range of strategies and policy implications that might benefit EMI teaching and learning in non-Anglophone countries that are keen on higher education internationalisation.

One of the goals of China's 'Double First-class' initiative is to boost the top-notch disciplines in those next-to-top universities and allow their differentiated paths towards development. This study investigates Chinese universities' policy interpretations and strategic responses to this national initiative through a social network analysis of 86 strategic plans of 'first-class discipline universities' and an empirically informed case study. Despite the possibility of achieving greater higher education diversity through the initiative, their strategic plans reveal a highly identical structure with homogenous aims and strategies. As further shown in the case study, the university tends to interpret the national policy as an opportunity to acquire more financial, identity and policy resources, in order to build a comprehensive first-class university, which might lead to homogeneity rather than diversity. The study reveals the intrinsic complexities of the policy and the discrepancies in understanding among stakeholders in the policy implementation process, and therefore uses it as a lens to understand institutional behaviours through a resource dependency framework.

There is a noticeable reverse flow of academics from the Global North to the Global South in the recent decade. The study examines the emerging mobility trend by investigating three institutions in China. Based on case studies of traditional universities and Sino-foreign universities, the study argues that international academics in Chinese universities have experienced individual empowerment in terms of expanded academic networks and enhanced professional development. But they might face collective disempowerment due to the different professional values and protocols such as 'routinised improvisation,' and a lacking of bargaining power resulted from the university's inexplicit institutional power dynamics and a hierarchical approach to management. The findings suggest that the construction of international academics' experience is a process shaped and re-shaped by the interplay across individual interpretation, institutional configuration and national context, and reveal the complexities of higher education internationalisation in countries at the periphery of the global higher education landscape.

The state-university's interaction and relationship has long been a key focus of scholarly discussion. A distinct strategy in China's higher education is policy experimentation (PE), which allows indigenous policy innovations to be generated at local institutions and incorporated into national policymaking. The PE approach allows power negotiation among various stakeholders in creating a strategy space for reform. Through case studies, the paper examines those complicated processes enabled and shaped by stakeholders' perceptions, behaviours and strategic actions. It proposes three types of rationales for using PE as mission-driven, problem-driven and administration-driven. The university uses 'bargaining and persuasion' and 'formation of advocacy coalition' in negotiating with the state whereas the state communicates with the university through 'documentary politics' and 'open method of coordination'. Thus, PE can be regarded as a new way of HE governance in effectively mediating the state authority and university power in building consensus for China's HE development.

China has undergone unprecedented changes since the Reform and Opening-up policy in 1978. Policy experimentation (PE) has been key in generating and catalysing reforms in the process. This study proposes a conceptual framework to describe the different pathways of PE-enabled reforms. Comparing two empirically informed case studies, this study demonstrates the functions of this policy tool plays within China's higher education policy-making and development: generative, rhetorical and regulatory. The paper argues that PE can be a genuinely productive mechanism for producing, identifying and negotiating new policy options while allowing the government to supervise and regulate institutional reform behaviours. However, under certain conditions, it assumes more of a symbolic role allowing the government to acquire or consolidate reform legitimacy without engaging substantial innovation. By highlighting those key roles of PE, this paper provides a distinctive perspective for understanding the policy-making and reform process in China's higher education development.

This investigation concerns the latest teaching and learning innovations in Chinese engineering higher education with special reference to Tsinghua University in Beijing, a leading university of China. Set in the context of rapid enrolment expansion in Chinese higher education since entering the 21st century, the study addresses how university engineering education innovated their contents and modes of teaching and learning to foster top-level talent, enhance relevance and responsiveness of education against rising number of students, scale of knowledge, and labour market demand, through content analysis of 163 award-winning programmes. The study also presents five case studies from Tsinghua University that have won recentregional and national awards under China's Higher Education Teaching and Learning Award scheme in 2012-2013 and in 2014 respectively. The data for the present investigation comes from a rich set of first-hand data of those wining institutions' award applications and collected from field visits by the present authors. The study further proposes a framework for designing and implementing engineering education programme. It is hoped that such a Chinese perspective could contribute to the global dialogue on teaching and learning in engineering education.

China has adopted policy experimentation (PE) as a means of introducing and testing innovative policy options for reforms in higher education (HE). This paper explores how PE plays out in the HE sector, involving state actors and university actors in a dynamic interactive process and bringing about institutional changes. This paper proposes a theoretical categorisation to understand four types of PE that occurred in China's HE reforms, i.e. directive, authorised, exploratory and retrospectively authorised experiments. It discusses an empirically informed case study to illustrate the experiment process characterised by central-local interaction and intentionally ambiguous boundaries. The PE approach enables state-university interactions and power negotiations that create and maintain strategy space for consensus-building. The state, however, retains ultimate authority for legitimatising, selecting and expanding policy experiments. It is best understood as 'elite-enabled experimentation within existing political hierarchies'. This study provides a distinctive perspective for understanding and explaining the power dynamics embedded in China's HE reform process and more broadly the evolution of higher education governance.

Despite the increasing popularity of English Medium Instruction (EMI) for academic subject teaching in China, there is little research regarding the competencies that an EMI teacher needs for effective EMI course delivery and professional development (PD) in the higher education (HE) context. No research has investigated how those can be recognised through certain kinds of certification. This study fills the gap by investigating teachers' perspectives on competencies, certification and PD of EMI in relation to China through 133 survey returns and 12 semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that teachers have a generally positive attitude on EMI certification and PD programmes though few universities have made either a priority. Competencies required for effective EMI teaching include not only English proficiency and teaching skills through L2 but also skills of instruction in respective academic disciplines. This poses challenges for the design and implementation of EMI PD leading to teacher certification. The lack of official government involvement (at policy level) and institutional involvement (evaluation and faculty promotion) further complicates this issue in a country like China with a top-heavy bureaucracy.

Due to the politicisation of universities-within-the-state, the state's governance of higher education in China differentiates itself from other countries. This study examines how the Chinese central government adjusts its governance over universities between 1978 and 2018. Based on an extensive analysis of policy documents and scholarly research, this study proposes an analytic framework, comprising the state's governance logics, governance instruments, and institutional demonstrations. The three strategically selected governance instruments, i.e. laws, policies, and finance, are demonstrated through various aspects integral to China's higher education--the dual-goverance structure, appointment of the principal leadership, access to higher education, university and discipline structures, curriculum and ideology, funding and grants, and tuition fees. Based on an in-depth investigation, the study argues that the underlying governance logics of the state are moving from direct controls to indirect supervision; however, despite the increasing university autonomy and academic freedom in some areas, the state has never abdicated the essential power and authority over higher education institutions. This paper contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of China's governance of higher education in recent decades.

Policy network approach has become a broadly accepted and frequently adopted practice in modern state governance, especially in the public sector. The study utilises a broadly defined policy network conceptual frame and categories of reference to trace the evolution of education policy-making in China. The study uses "The Outline of China's National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)" as an illustrative case study. This study argues that China's education policy-making has changed, and the three most prominent changes are the transition from a Party-dominant practice to one primarily driven by the central government, the enhanced role of higher education institutions and scholars as "professional interest group" in the Chinese context and the increasing participation of non-governmental actors in the policy-making process. Essentially exploratory in nature, this study hopes to contribute to the understanding of China's education policy-making and broader education governance while contributing to the mapping of an important sector of the global education network.

In this study, the conceptual use of the strategy map approach and the strategy map which it produces have been adapted from the business sector and introduced as tools for achieving more effective strategic planning and management in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study discusses the development of strategy maps as transformational management tools in universities. It analyses 15 universities' strategy maps to establish a comparative perspective in terms of content, expression and form. Based on this analysis, the study synthesises a model for the effective employment of the strategy map approach and strategy maps in universities. The study then uses Tsinghua University as the subject of a case study to illustrate how a university's strategic plan could be converted into a strategy map. This study gives suggestions for implications of the strategy map approach in transforming the internal governance model in universities and achieving effective and responsive university strategic planning and management.

The development of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level has been accelerated by the ever-increasing degree of higher education internationalisation. The study, based on a survey with 112 students and semi-structured interviews with 16 instructors collected at a Sino-foreign cooperative education institution in China, explores students' perceptions of and adaptation to EMI teaching and learning. The findings indicate that students show a positive attitude towards EMI teaching and learning. Students' motivation and prior English proficiency are important factors that influence their learning experience through EMI. Tailored pedagogical strategies to facilitate students' learning, an enhanced level of collaboration between EMI teachers and language teachers, and the provision of an immersive sociolinguistic environment conducive to EMI are also instrumental. The study suggests a range of strategies and policy implications that might benefit EMI teaching and learning in non-Anglophone countries that are keen on higher education internationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a noticeable reverse flow of academics from the Global North to the Global South in the recent decade. The study examines the emerging mobility trend by investigating three institutions in China. Based on case studies of traditional universities and Sino-foreign universities, the study argues that international academics in Chinese universities have experienced individual empowerment in terms of expanded academic networks and enhanced professional development. But they might face collective disempowerment due to the different professional values and protocols such as 'routinised improvisation,' and a lacking of bargaining power resulted from the university's inexplicit institutional power dynamics and a hierarchical approach to management. The findings suggest that the construction of international academics' experience is a process shaped and re-shaped by the interplay across individual interpretation, institutional configuration and national context, and reveal the complexities of higher education internationalisation in countries at the periphery of the global higher education landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state-university's interaction and relationship has long been a key focus of scholarly discussion. A distinct strategy in China's higher education is policy experimentation (PE), which allows indigenous policy innovations to be generated at local institutions and incorporated into national policymaking. The PE approach allows power negotiation among various stakeholders in creating a strategy space for reform. Through case studies, the paper examines those complicated processes enabled and shaped by stakeholders' perceptions, behaviours and strategic actions. It proposes three types of rationales for using PE as mission-driven, problem-driven and administration-driven. The university uses 'bargaining and persuasion' and 'formation of advocacy coalition' in negotiating with the state whereas the state communicates with the university through 'documentary politics' and 'open method of coordination'. Thus, PE can be regarded as a new way of HE governance in effectively mediating the state authority and university power in building consensus for China's HE development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has undergone unprecedented changes since the Reform and Opening-up policy in 1978. Policy experimentation (PE) has been key in generating and catalysing reforms in the process. This study proposes a conceptual framework to describe the different pathways of PE-enabled reforms. Comparing two empirically informed case studies, this study demonstrates the functions of this policy tool plays within China's higher education policy-making and development: generative, rhetorical and regulatory. The paper argues that PE can be a genuinely productive mechanism for producing, identifying and negotiating new policy options while allowing the government to supervise and regulate institutional reform behaviours. However, under certain conditions, it assumes more of a symbolic role allowing the government to acquire or consolidate reform legitimacy without engaging substantial innovation. By highlighting those key roles of PE, this paper provides a distinctive perspective for understanding the policy-making and reform process in China's higher education development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing popularity of English Medium Instruction (EMI) for academic subject teaching in China, there is little research regarding the competencies that an EMI teacher needs for effective EMI course delivery and professional development (PD) in the higher education (HE) context. No research has investigated how those can be recognised through certain kinds of certification. This study fills the gap by investigating teachers' perspectives on competencies, certification and PD of EMI in relation to China through 133 survey returns and 12 semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that teachers have a generally positive attitude on EMI certification and PD programmes though few universities have made either a priority. Competencies required for effective EMI teaching include not only English proficiency and teaching skills through L2 but also skills of instruction in respective academic disciplines. This poses challenges for the design and implementation of EMI PD leading to teacher certification. The lack of official government involvement (at policy level) and institutional involvement (evaluation and faculty promotion) further complicates this issue in a country like China with a top-heavy bureaucracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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