Provincial government and institution level strategy setting: the case of building Chinese ‘world-class universities’

ABSTRACT

This study contributes one of the first explorations into how provincial governments shaped the WCU building discourse in tandem with universities. Using a resource dependence approach and insights from institutional isomorphism, it develops a conceptual framework with three perspectives (national government, provincial governments and ‘ministerial universities’) to understand the relationship between national policies and local authorities’ and institutions’ strategic adaptations. This study shows that there are variations in how quickly provincial governments and universities within them respond to national policies. However, provincial reports and institutional strategies exhibit isomorphism with the national goals in the model of goal setting and interpretation of WCU definition. China's national policies for building WCUs reinforce provincial governments’ and ministerial universities’ resource dependence on national government, leading to the adoption of similar goal-setting approaches. However, an ambiguous understanding of WCU definition also prompts the imitation of building WCUs strategies. The ministerial universities develop tailored development plans, reflecting their reliance on provincial governments for critical resources, in light of the variable development advantages and requirements of provincial governments. Hence, the tension of homogeneous goals-setting oriented towards the national standard and diversified provincial development needs in the building WCUs pose a great challenge to local innovative practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese HE policy
• provincial governments
• world-class universities

Introduction

Within the wide policy discourse, developing and developed countries alike are striving to build ‘World Class Universities’ (WCUs) to better manage their research capacity (Deem, Mok, and Lucas 2008; Salmi 2009; Van Der Wende and Zhu 2016). Since the 1990s, the Chinese national government has launched a variety of national policies aimed at building WCUs, ranging from its Project 211 to Project 985 and the more recent Double First-Class Plan. These policies are top-down national strategic programmes directed by the national government, and provincial governments and HEIs are not involved in the related decision-making process (Yi et al. 2021). ‘World-class’ has arguably become the key strategic goal in the national agenda of Chinese universities. Subsequently, concerns arise regarding the diversity of the HE system, as all major universities are forced to strategically cater to the WCU initiative. In China, national policy is the most important factor affecting strategic development of universities, but different provinces and individual universities may have their own interpretations of and motivations for enacting national policy that differ from the overall goals of the national government.

The existing studies into the building WCUs within the China’s higher education landscape are mainly focused on analysing the specific strategies of individual institutions and influence of national policies on elite Chinese universities (Kim et al. 2018; Song 2018; Yang and Wang 2020; Zhao and You 2021). However, there appears to be a few scholarships delving into the interplay between Chinese national policies, provincial reports, and higher education institutional strategies. A notable number of scholars have, rather regrettably, overlooked the pivotal function provincial administrations fulfil in the construction of WCUs. Although the influence of these provincial governments has been examined in relation to local regular institutions (Dong et al. 2020; Tang 2022), specialised research concerning their interaction with Chinese ministerial universities remains scarce. This gap is especially pressing, given that, as evidenced by this investigation, the provincial government plays a crucial role in the negotiation and reinterpretation of WCU strategies.

The aim of this study is to explore the main practices and values of Chinese provincial governments and ministerial universities involved in the process of becoming WCUs and further analyse the main actors driving their behaviours. This paper is organised into five sections. Following an introduction to the context of building WCUs at China’s national and local perspectives, we provide an overview of the two-level governance in the Chinese higher education system, ministerial universities and local practices of the last 30 years in Chinese higher education’s quest for building WCUs. Based on the resource dependence theory, a conceptual framework is outlined where three perspectives (national government, provincial governments and ministerial universities) are presented as an ideal-type heuristic for understanding the relationship between policy/strategy making at the national and local levels. In the ‘findings’ section, we draw on insights from institutional isomorphism to analyse the strategic plans of four provincial governments and eight ministerial universities to build WCUs in China (see Appendix for a list of these plans and policies). In the concluding section, we discuss our findings and outline the main forces driving the goal setting of provincial governments and ministerial universities to build WCUs, and the tension between the diverse needs of these stakeholders and the pressure of their institutional isomorphism.

Literature review: levels of Chinese governance and the WCU initiative

This study explores how provincial governments and ministerial universities respond to national policies under the global context of developing WCUs. We first review the development backgrounds and relevant literature on the two-level governance of the HE system in China. We then analyse empirical case studies grounded in the existing literature of local practices related to the building WCUs.

Two-level governance in Chinese higher education

According to the latest statistics from the MOE (Ministry of Education), China’ higher education system has become the largest in the world, with the number of regular HEIs reaching 2759 (1270 universities and 1489 higher vocational colleges) (MOE 2022). The governance of the HEIs is conducted under the authority of either the national or provincial government. The State Council of China had granted the MOE the right to set the vision and goals for the HE system; to set national HE policies and objectives, determine the size and shape of the sector, and assess the quality of teaching and research. The State Council authorised provincial governments to regulate and coordinate regional HEIs within their jurisdictions. With Central authorisation, provincial governments are responsible for implementing the decisions and orders contained within the national policies, laws and regulations, supervising local universities, forecasting regional needs for talents and skills, formulating local development plans, allocating budgets, and auditing accounts (Higher Education Law 1998).

In 2010, the Chinese State Council issued the National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan Outline (2010–2020), which clearly proposed to strengthen the provincial government's overall planning of education in the region, improve the system of managing higher education mainly by provincial governments, promote regional cooperation in HE, and enhance the level of educational services to economic and social development. Subsequent to this, further elaborations were made by the Office of the National Education System Reform Leading Group (2014) through their issuance of Opinions on Further Expanding the Educational Comprehensive Planning Authority of Provincial Governments, specified the general requirements for responsibilities upon provincial governments in the governance of higher education. These responsibilities encompassed a dedicated compliance with national laws and policy directives, aligned with the imperatives of economic and social advancement, the current state of local educational development, and the availability of educational resources. Provincial governments were charged with the independent formulation of goals for educational development, the planning of strategic initiatives, and the organisation of their implementation, thereby effectively upholding their roles in the fields of educational reform, development, and stability.

Moreover, the document emphasised the importance of adopting a differentiated approach towards educational funding and policy implementation, one that takes into account the diverse characteristics of different regions, thereby avoiding a generalised, uniform strategy. It also advocated for enhanced communication and collaboration between provincial and ministerial levels, promoting a policy of individualised strategies tailored to the unique challenges of each province, especially in special fields. Both the two-level governance in China's higher education and the increasing responsibility of provincial governments within it mark an important step towards a more localised and context-responsive governance structure for China's higher education sector (Chu 2017).

By 2022, 114 of 858 public universities were governed by the national government in China, including 76 that were overseen directly by the MOE and 38 that were under other central ministries. The other 744 local universities (86.71%) were managed by their provincial (municipal) governments (MOE 2022). Municipalities are provincial administrative units and share the same administrative level as provincial governments. Both are considered ‘provincial governments’ in this study. As such, Chinese HE has gradually developed a two-level governance model. Hence, this governance design allows for some political autonomy not least to serve the regional/local economy, market or culture, although it is expected that regional/local governments are operating within the frames and conditions set by the national authorities (Dong et al. 2020).

The institutionalised stratification of the Chinese higher education system mainly depends on who is managing the institutions. Most elite universities in China are directly supervised by the national government, while local regular universities are subordinate to the provincial governments. In general, universities affiliated with the national government have higher prestige and have far more financial resources and political supports than those under local control (Ying et al. 2017).

In fact, the ministerial universities are under the ‘joint development’ by the national and provincial government; the national government is responsible for key decision-making and provincial government for the day-to-day operation of the universities (Mok 2005). Under this structure, the national government is charged with offering the general expenses and capital investment funds to these universities. In addition, the provincial governments collaborate closely with the national government to manage and fund all ministerial universities situated within their jurisdictions, and these universities are then incorporated into their local economic and social development plans. Provincial governments make full use of education, and research assets of universities to advance local economic and social development. Meanwhile, universities use the provincial governments as an effective platform for transforming scientific and technological achievements to further enhance the overall teaching and research performance in the region. Accordingly, these universities participating in ‘joint development’ can further enhance their prestige and position in the national university ranking, thus receiving more financial supports and political resources from the national government (Mok 2005). Moreover, from the current situation of universities participating in China’s national excellence initiatives for building WCUs, the majority of universities are ministerial universities. For example, all other 38 universities admitted to Project 985 (except one military university) are affiliated with central ministries. In 2017, the Double First-Class Plan published a new list of 42 first-class universities. All 39 universities included in the Project 985 were admitted to these first-class universities (Song, Chu, and Xu 2021). As a result, the ministerial universities are considered to be striving to achieve world-class standards, while the regular universities affiliated with local governments usually make efforts to meet the demands of local regions’ development (Dong et al. 2020).

To summarise, the review of policies, laws, and scholarly works on higher education reveals the critical role that provincial governments play in the governance of China’s higher education. Their collaboration with the national government in the efforts to build WCUs, particularly in terms of strategic goals setting for ministerial universities, is noteworthy. As a result, it becomes imperative to gain a profound understanding of the policy development processes at the national government, provincial government, and ministerial university levels in the context of WCU initiatives.

The local practices of building world-class universities in China

Since the 1990s, an array of policies aiming to build WCUs has been inaugurated by the national government of China. These policies have been met with favourable responses from both provincial governments and higher education institutions. Illustratively, a succession of localised adaptations of the Double First-Class Plan have been instituted by provincial governments, with the intention of more effective aligning with the Overall Plan for the Construction of WCUs and First-Class Disciplines (referred to as the ‘Overall Plan’) – an initiative introduced by the State Council in 2015. By March of 2018, subsequent to the 2017 release of the Implementation Measures for the Construction of WCUs and First-Class Disciplines (referred to as the ‘Implementation Measures’), provincial (municipal) governments across 29 provinces and cities (excluding Beijing and Tibet) had officially released their local strategic blueprints for the creation of first-class universities and first-class disciplines. Furthermore, the MOE mandated that all 42 universities identified as first-class must publicise their institutional plans for accountability purposes, and formulate distinct goals and detailed strategies for the future assessment of WCUs (Liu 2018).

Li, Lin, and Fang (2012) state that formulation of policies and institutional strategies with the objective of building WCUs involves a dynamic and interactive process that benefits from respect for interactive flow between the intellectual authority of scholars, the specific needs of national development, and the considerable resources embedded in national and local institutions. This examination of China’s national policies and local strategies enables us to map the interactive mechanism of bottom-up and top-down decision-making involved in the formulation of numerous policies promoting China’s drive for WCUs. However, since the reorganisation of China’s higher education sector in the early 1990s, the duty of provincial governments to oversee university affairs has been underscored and broadened. These governments are mandated to generate local growth plans and reconfigure their regional higher education layout in accordance with their unique needs, rather than merely acting as vehicles for the implementation of national policies (State Council 1986).

When conducting research on ministerial universities with the goal of building WCUs, however, few academics account for the provincial level. This could be attributed to the perception of these universities as independent from their provincial government due to their ministerial character. For example, Huang (2015) examines national policies and institutional strategies to present how China has strived to build Chinese WCUs and what distinguishes China’s efforts to form these universities. Yang, Yang, and Wang (2021) employ a ‘glonacal’ agency heuristic to explore how certain research-intensive universities exercise agency in response to global and national impacts in building the WCU. They analyse 41 Chinese universities’ strategic plans to identify three strategies to respond to these two impacts. As stated above, the provincial-ministry ‘joint development’ model for ministerial universities, as well as the involvement of provincial governments in resources, policies, and development planning, is critical to their goal of building WCUs.

Despite being directly supervised and financed by the MOE, these universities remain intrinsically connected to the backing and specific requirements of the provincial governments. Nevertheless, previous research on the building WCUs in China’s HE sector has focused primarily on the unique strategies of individual institutions (Gao and Li 2020; Li 2012; Liu 2018) or the effects of national policies on these elite ministerial universities (Kim et al. 2018; Yang and Wang 2020; Zhao and You 2021), overlooking the instrumental role of provincial governments in the WCU building process. As such, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to investigate how the national policies on WCU building are separately responded to within the strategic plans of both provincial governments and ministerial universities.

Conceptual framework

This paper draws upon the resource dependency theory that has been commonly used in HE policymaking studies (Cai and Mehari 2015) to explore the relationship among China’s national government, provincial governments and ministerial universities in the policies/strategies-making to build WCUs (see Figure 1). This theory recognises the influence of the external environment on organisational actions, and it addresses the exchanges between the organisation and its environment (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003). And with these exchanges come issues of power and dependence (Casciaro and Piskorski 2005). At the heart of this theory is that the organisation that controls the resources has power over the organisation in need of the resources. Power can be manifested in two ways: (a) the environment can limit an organisation’s access to the resources it requires; and (b) the environment can dictate how the resources are utilised by the organisation (Bess and Dee 2008). Thus, it is the nature of this dependence that shapes organisational actions and decisions (Austin and Jones 2015).

Figure 1. Framework for resources dependence theory applied in the relationship between China’s national, provincial governments and ministerial university’s policymaking to build WCUs.

In this study, the environment refers to China (particularly China’s governance in higher education), and the Chinese national and provincial governments, and ministerial universities are perceived as the organisations embedded in the relations between power and dependence. Based on the literature on China’s higher education governance and ministerial universities, we can find that all 38 ministerial universities selected in the Double First-Class Plan are jointly sponsored and administrated by the national and provincial governments. Under the current two-level governance system in China’s higher education sector, the Chinese national government shifted higher education from a state-controlled model to a state-supervised model, but the national government still exercised authority over important higher education policy (Yang, Vidovich, and Currie 2007). China national government has launched targeted funding projects to build WCUs, and those universities selected in these projects are guaranteed leading status and certain privileges – in terms of funding, reputational, and other key resources (Cui 2018; Hayhoe, Zha, and Lin 2005; Zha 2009). In turn, the national government's resources for universities selected will be adjusted constantly based on dynamic assessments on the actual performance of universities (State Council 2015), and this evaluation approach is used to select which universities are entitled to the resource’s privileges in next a five-year cycle (Liu 2018).

In addition to providing funding for ministerial universities in their regions, provincial governments can provide land resources for the construction of university campuses, offer more opportunities to collaborate with local industry, and promote various regional alliances in terms of talent cultivation and research projects (Cui 2018). Therefore, we can find that the China’s national and provincial governments’ the exercise of power through the imposition of conditional resources requirements will inevitably influence ministerial universities’ decisions and behaviours. Accordingly, universities selected may try to satisfy dependency conditions of resources supplier (national and provincial governments) to ensure the continuation of resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003).

Moreover, the national government also holds the resources (e.g. allocation of enrolment, funding resources, approval of research projects, political promotion of provincial leaders) that will have a significant impact on the provincial government’s decision on how to build ‘first-class universities’ (Chu 2017; Cui 2018).

In this study, the organisations’ decisions or behaviours refer to the policies/strategies-making. Such an exchange relationship between the national government, provincial governments and ministerial universities constitutes a mode of governing rooted in compliance and accountability in the policies-making to build WCUs (see Figure 1). Our proposed approach offers a conceptual framework to analyse how the national policies to build WCUs are perceived and realised respectively in the provincial governments’ reports and ministerial universities’ strategic plans.

Under the two-level governance in China’s higher education, characterised by the overarching developmental plan of the national government and varied demands of individual province, it becomes essential to investigate the underlying drivers that contribute to both the homogeneity and diversity in the behaviours of provincial governments and ministerial universities in their efforts to build Chinese WCUs. However, this framework helps us situate the relationships between resource needs at the national and local levels, it does not necessarily account for all the drivers behind similar strategic plans of local organisations. As a result, this study further draws upon institutional isomorphism perspectives to explain the forces driving the similar policy-making behaviours of China’s provincial governments and ministerial universities.

In order to acquire the resources to survive, the institutional isomorphism approach stresses that organisations have to adapt to the existence of and pressures of other organisations in their environment (Zha 2009). These adaptation mechanisms inevitably result in institutional homogeneity, as organisations respond to identical environmental situations in a similar way. Isomorphism describes a process by which organisations are forced to behave similar structures or forms with other organisations that confront the same environmental constraints (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). The homogenisation is caused by three types of institutional isomorphism, which lead to organisations to become increasingly similar to other organisations facing similar environmental conditions, resulting in a decrease in the diversity of system (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). First, ‘coercive isomorphism’ stems from the pressures exerted by other organisations in the environment, on which the organisation is dependent. Second, ‘mimetic isomorphism’ is attributed by ambiguity in the symbolic environment, which causes organisations to imitate the behaviour of successful organisations they perceived. Third, ‘normative isomorphism’ is driven by professionalisation pressures, in which a professionally trained workforce and professional exchange result in cross-organisational homogenisation. Using the three conditions of isomorphic forces as a guide, Chien (2008) classifies theoretically five different mechanisms regarding the isomorphism of local policy making in China, including compulsory regulations (coercive), resource competition (coercive), mimetic learning (mimetic), professional advice (normative), and movement of experienced personnel (normative).

Given the context of this study, we explicitly draw on the resource dependence theory to explore the relationships between policies/strategies-making at different levels of authority within Chinese higher education system, and also employ the two mechanisms from Chien’s conceptualisation – coercive resource competition and mimetic learning – to study the forces driving the isomorphism of provincial governments’ reports and ministerial universities’ strategies for building WCUs. A classic example of ‘coercive resource competition’ is the demand by the state or other powerful actors that subordinate units launch prescribed development plans or implement relevant strategies. These pressures are caused not only by fiat, but also by resource dependency (Boxenbaum and Jonsson 2017). Due to their heavy resource dependence on the national government, Chinese provincial governments and ministerial universities are likely to prioritise the demands of the national government, which provides key resources, driving them to adopt similar plans or strategies to deal with external environment in which they operate (Fowles 2014). In other words, their policies/strategies will change in a similar manner due to the competition with other provincial governments and universities in bidding for national resources (Chien 2008). Ambiguous strategy has been a major characteristic of the modern HE development in China (Cai 2010). Under the mechanism of ‘mimetic learning’, local policies are changed by ‘mimetic learning’ from successful organisations’ solutions when they face some uncertainties or ambiguous development goals (Chien 2008). The approach of imitating successful or standardised organisations’ solutions is another important force driving provincial governments and ministerial universities’ similar policy-making behaviours in this conceptualisation.

Methodological notes

Sample selection: geographical diversity and ‘one step ahead’ to ‘slow responder’ provinces

Under national and local sponsorship, China has developed a diverse higher education system across regions. In the process, provinces differ in population size and economic development. The development of local HEIs is affected directly by their local socio-economic environments from the bottom and by the national government from the top (Yang and Wang 2020). In accordance with the Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Rise of the Central Region, the Opinions of the State Council on the Implementation of Certain Policy Measures for the Development of the Western Region, and the spirit of the report of the 16th Party Congress, China's economic regions can be divided into four major regions: East, Central, West and Northeast (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2011). Thus, we can find that the majority of ministerial universities are concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and other eastern provinces. In the Double First-Class Plan, twenty-two of the all thirty-eight ministerial universities located in the East, with eight in Beijing and four in Shanghai. In contrast, only five universities are located in the middle, seven in the West and four in the North-East. We assume that the translations of national policies related to building WCUs into local practices may vary significantly in these four regions in the context of increased regional inequalities of higher education in China (Bickenbach and Liu 2013). Therefore, this study covers data from four different provinces (east, middle, west and northeast) and two correspondingly ministerial universities selected in the Double First-Class plan in each province (see Figure 2). The local governments’ development plans in those four provinces and their respective institutional strategies, served as the data source for the study.

Figure 2. The map of provinces and universities selected in China.

In terms of the timing of the promulgation of the development plans on the construction of WCUs, compared to the national policies, we have divided provincial governments responses into three categories: one step ahead (Guangdong), quick response (Hubei, Liaoning), and slow response (Sichuan) (See Figure 3).

Figure 3. The timeline for the development of national and local policies on the construction of WCUs.

The pioneering provinces in the first group were all economically developed regions in the east, with Guangdong Province enacting the Suggestions on the Construction of High-Level Universities in Guangdong Province six months earlier than the ‘Overall Plan’ issued by the state council in 2015, and this development plan of Guangdong province provided an important reference for the formulation of national and other provincial governments’ policies on ‘building WCUs’. The MOE held a special press conference in March 2016 to introduce the Guangdong experience in building high-level universities (Guangdong Provincial Education Commission 2016). The Provincial Education Commission in Hubei has also emphasised that the initial idea for exploring its plan is based on a study of the Guangdong’s policy (Chu 2017). Secondly, regions such as Hubei, which are predominantly located in the mid-western provinces, responded positively and quickly to the national policy. In the third group, regions such as Liaoning province were slow to respond, proposing their corresponding measures two years after the national policy was promulgated. Fourthly, Sichuan province is referred to as the region’s delayed response to national policy by not announcing their local plans for building WCUs until the MOE, the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission had launched the ‘Implementation Measures’ in 2017.

This study selected eight ministerial universities to understand institutional strategies to build WCUs and explore the interplay between national policies, provincial governments’ reports, and local institutional responses. Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) and South China University of Technology (SCUT) are both major Chinese public research universities located in Guangdong province. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2020, SYSU ranked 7th and in the top 150 worldwide, and SCUT ranked at 48th in engineering among world universities. In Hubei Province, Wuhan University (WHU) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) are both comprehensive research universities, with WHU being well known for research in social sciences, remote sensing, and survey engineering, and HUST being elected as ‘China’s Top 10 Research Institutions’ by Nature. These two universities were ranked respectively 151 and 101 in the ARWU 2020. Dalian University of Technology (DUT), one of the top four institutes of technology in China, and Northeast ern University China (NEU), known for its information technology industry, are both located in Liaoning province. The former was ranked 201 and the latter was among the top 500 in the world. In Sichuan Province, Sichuan University (SCU) was established after a merger of three institutions in 1994: Sichuan University, Chengdu University of Science and Technology and the previously private West China Union University. University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) has now evolved into a multidisciplinary university covering all-round electronic disciplines. These two universities were both ranked in the top 200 in the world. All these universities are members of various national excellence initiatives, including Double First-Class Plan, Project 985, and Project 211, and are Class A Double First-Class University directly under the national government.

Data analysis

This study adopted a policy discourse analysis (Allan 2008) to analyse published the policies and strategic plans of Double First-Class Plan at national and local levels. The national policies include the ‘Overall Plan’ and the ‘Implementation Measures’. The local policies include reports issued by these four provincial governments to build WCUs and the relevant strategic plans of eight ministerial universities located in these provinces. These documents are primarily from governments and institutional official websites, and include sections for policy name, word count, goals, website access to policy (see Appendix). Allan emphasised that ‘the coding processes enabled the identification of key terms and examination of how they were deployed within a document, among documents at a single institution, and between documents issued at different institutions’ (2008, 60). In particular, the data coding of this approach followed the deductive and inductive process to respond to the research questions that guided this study. Thus, the data of national policies, provincial governments’ reports and ministerial universities’ strategic plans were analysed from three perspectives. First, this study examined how provincial governments and ministerial universities presented the goals in their reports to respond to national related policies. Second, this study explored the discourses used in construction goals, which shows clearly these two agencies’ perceptions for the definition of WCUs. Finally, it investigated how these ministerial universities respond to the development needs of their provincial governments.

Findings

We have identified three primary categories from the analysis: (1) a three-phase model as the standard format used by almost all provincial governments and ministerial universities in their goal setting; (2) ambiguous definition of WCUs in their plans; (3) diversified institutional goals for different provinces’ needs.

Coercive isomorphism: a three-phase model

Aside from Guangdong Province, other three provincial governments and eight ministerial universities have adopted a three-phase model with short-, medium- and long-term goals to build WCUs. Displaying a more innovative strategy, Guangdong Province has taken the lead by setting a two-phase (short- and medium-term) developmental plan, prioritising the construction of high-level universities (see Table 1). The innovation seen in Guangdong's strategies offers a critical point of reference for other provincial governments and national policymakers in their endeavour to develop WCUs.

Table 1. The construction period of national and provincial governments for building WCUs.

	Organisation	Date	Short-term	Medium-term	Longer-term
One Step Ahead	Guangdong Provincial government	2015-04-10	By 2020	By 2030	–
State Council		2015-10-24	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
Quick Response	Hubei Provincial Government	2016-12-28	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
	Liaoning Provincial Government	2017-01-03	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
Slow Response	Sichuan Provincial Government	2017-11-07	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050

Source: Author compilation.

Subsequent to the State Council's issuance of the ‘Overall Plan’, respective provincial education departments put forth their individual construction reports (see Table 1). Under the dual-governance model in China’s HE, one of the core responsibilities of provincial governments is to facilitate and oversee the implementation of national policies and regulations within their respective jurisdictions. The State Council, in the ‘Overall Plan’, explicitly stipulates the requirement for all provincial governments to diligently implement this plan. As a result, it can be inferred that these provincial strategies were developed in response to the broader national policy stipulations.

With the goal of effectively aligning with the national directives (the ‘Overall Plan’ of 2015 and the ‘Implementation Measures’ of 2017), the strategic propositions of these universities also have been designed to mirror the national model of goal-setting (see Table 2). Interestingly, while Guangdong Province itself opted for a two-phase developmental plan, the pair of universities situated within its geographical boundaries chose to follow the national three-phase model. For instance, the SCUT delineated its short-term goal as ‘entering initially the ranks of WCUs by 2020’. This was followed by a medium-term goal to ‘achieve the World-Class status by 2030’, culminating in a long-term aspiration to ‘by 2050, have the comprehensive strength of the university ranked at the forefront of WCUs’. Notwithstanding the variability in the precise goals set for each phase by different institutions, the overarching structure in which these goals were presented remained consistent.

Table 2. The construction period of national government and HEIs for building WCUs.

	Organisation	Date	Short-term	Medium-term	Longer-term
1	MOE, Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission	2017-09-21	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
	Guangdong Province – One Step Ahead
2	SYSU	2017-12-15	By 2020	By 2030	By mid-twenty-first century
3	SCUT	2017-12-28	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
	Hubei Province – Quick Response
4	WHU	2018-01-18	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
5	HUST	2017-12-11	By 2020	By 2030	By mid-twenty-first century
	Liaoning Province – Quick Response
6	DUT	2017-12	By 2020	By 2030	By 2049
7	NEU	2017-12-28	By 2020	By 2030	By mid-twenty-first century
	Sichuan Province – Slow Response
8	SCU	2017-12-20	By 2020	By 2030	By 2050
9	UESTC	2017-12	By 2020	By 2030	By mid-twenty-first century

Source: Author compilation.

In this study, we observed that the timeline for goal setting in the local agencies selected is notably uniform, with three distinct steps allocated for goal achievement, namely 2020, 2030, and 2050 (as illustrated in Tables 1 and 2). Of the four provincial governments and eight ministerial universities, three provincial governments and seven universities utilised the same timeline for their strategic plans, with short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals set for the years 2020, 2030, and 2050, respectively. The only exception was DUT, which opted to use the centenary of its founding year, 2049, as the goal for its long-term plan. This suggests that the long-term goal of this university is related to its history and culture. However, the year for this university's long-term goal is also in close proximity to the year of the national plan. Despite significant disparities in socio-economic environment, and higher education development status, and strengths among the selected provincial governments and ministerial universities in the east, west, centre and north-east of China, our study found that they exhibit a remarkable similarity in their approach to goal setting and their timeline for achieving milestones, which is a noteworthy observation.

In the realm of higher education in China, the convergence of behaviour exhibited by provincial governments and ministerial universities stems predominantly from their pronounced reliance on the nation's central government for resources. Driven by their pursuit of resources bestowed by the national government, these organisations show a tendency to align with the overarching development goals set by the national government, leading them to proactively reference a nationally standardised model – referred to as the three-phase model. Despite the absence of stringent regulations or operational procedures dictated by this model, a compelling propensity towards the national endeavour of building WCUs has been observed amongst both provincial governments and ministerial universities. Their aspiration lies in securing a myriad of resources directly, leveraging legitimate project policies and rational public services. Their participation in the national First-Class university plan yields not only increased national government backing in the form of funding for selected universities, but also additional resources, such as exceptional talent, modern facilities, increased prestige, research assignments, and opportunities for international collaboration (Liu 2018). Moreover, the provincial selection of universities for the national programme potentially catalyses a domino effect, triggering local investment, sustained land value growth, and labour cost enhancements, thus more effectively fulfilling the comprehensive needs of provincial development (Yang and Wang 2020). With the substantial advantages that participation in the national WCU plan presents, resource dependency theory proposes that the needs and preferences of the primary resource provider – namely, the national government – will inevitably emerge as the pivotal influence shaping organisational decision-making and conduct.

Mimetic isomorphism: ambiguous definition of WCUs

The State Council in China has called for the launch of local development reports by provincial governments to build WCUs in accordance with the national ‘Overall Plan’. These governments have also proposed the construction of a dynamic evaluation mechanism based on their goals, with the ability to add universities located in their regions to the construction list in due course for those that meet the conditions and adjust those that do not (Chen, Che, and Zhu 2018). Following the release of the ‘Implementation Measures’, the MOE has required all selected universities to publish their strategic plans to hold them accountable, and to set clearly defined and effective goals for building WCUs, which will be used in the evaluation of the next round of the Double First-Class Plan (Liu 2018).

While these provincial governments and universities have launched their own strategic goals and proposed dynamic evaluation mechanisms, the question of what are WCUs is still a problem without a clear answer. Goals setting in these provincial reports is typically digitalised, and most provinces (except for Guangdong) have specified the number of WCUs planned to be built (see Table 3). These digitalised goals are divided into two levels: ‘domestic’ and ‘world’, and classified by stages, with slight differences in the discourse used, such as high-level, first-class, leading, forefront, etc. For instance, the Hubei provincial education commission has stated that at least five universities will enter the list of WCUs under construction at the national level by 2020, at least two will have ranked among WCUs by 2030, and the province will have ranked at the forefront of Chinese provinces in terms of the number of WCUs by 2050. However, there is no clear definition or specific explanation of what constitutes a first-class university or a WCU in these reports. According to this approach of goal setting, we found that provincial governments’ digitalised goals are aligned with the target number of universities set by the national government at the benchmark (i.e. ‘a number of universities in 2020’, ‘more universities in 2030’, ‘lead the world by number in 2050’). As a result, provincial governments have adopted these digital goals to express their construction plans primarily to imitate the language used by the national standardised model.

In institutional strategic plans, moreover, only two universities located in the Guangdong Province used global university rankings as a criterion to define what a WCU is, but none of the others have proposed the definition of WCUs. For example, SCUT set Top 200, Top 100 and Top 50 in the major global university ranking as its short-, medium-, and long-term goals. But neither of these universities referred to any specific global rankings and also provide any explanation. Almost all universities use the discourses with a clear stratification to express their goals, such as ‘initially enter the ranks of WCUs’, ‘become a WCU’ and ‘ranks the forefront of WCUs’, which is largely consistent with the language used by the national government (see Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3. The construction goals of national and provincial governments for building WCUs.

	Organisation	Short-term	Medium-term	Longer-term
One Step Ahead	Guangdong Provincial government	Several universities will have ranked at the forefront of domestic first-class universities, becoming universities with international reputations and influence	Overall becoming leading high-level universities of their kind in China	–
State Council		A number of universities will have achieved world-class status	More universities will have achieved world-class status, with more ranked at the forefront of WCUs	China will lead the world in WCUs by number and performance
Quick Response	Hubei Provincial Government	Five universities at least will enter the list of the building WCUs at the national level	Two universities at least will have ranked among WCUs	Our province will have ranked the forefront of Chinese provinces or cities in terms of number of WCUs
	Liaoning Provincial Government	Two ministerial universities will have significantly increased their comprehensive academic strength and international influence, laying a solid foundation for the construction of WCUs	Two ministerial universities will have entered among the WCUs	Several universities will be among the leading universities of their level and type in China
Slow Response	Sichuan Provincial Government	Supporting more than one university to enter the ranks of building WCUs	Building about 15 high-level universities	The number and academic strength of first-class universities in Sichuan will have ranked the forefront of Chinese provinces or cities

Source: Author compilation.

Table 4. The construction plan of HEIs for building WCUs.

	University	Short-term	Medium-term	Longer-term
	Guangdong Province – One Step Ahead
1	SYSU	The university ranks the forefront of the domestic first-class universities	The university has improved its overall strength and ranked in the global top 100 universities	The university will become one of global top 50 universities and be ranked the forefront of WCUs
2	SCUT	The university will become one of the global top 200 universities, and initially enters the ranks of WCUs	The university will become one of global top 100 universities, and achieve the world-class status	The comprehensive strength of the university will become one of global top 50 universities and be ranked the forefront of WCUs
	Hubei Province – Quick Response
3	WHU	The university initially enters the ranks of WCUs	The university will have improved its overall strength and developed comprehensively a WCU	The university will have ranked at the forefront of WCUs
4	HUST	The university initially enters the ranks of WCUs	The university will become a WCU	The university will have ranked at the forefront of WCUs
	Liaoning Province – Quick Response
5	DUT	The university forms the basic pattern of a well-structured WCU	The university initially builds a WCU with distinctive characteristics	The university will build comprehensively a WCU with distinctive characteristics
6	NEU	Overall strength and key indicators of university close to World-Class	The university will become a WCU with Chinese characteristics	The comprehensive strength and influence of the university will remain the level of World-Class
	Sichuan Province – Slow Response
7	SCU	The university closes to the level of a WCU	The university will have entered the ranks of WCUs	The university will have ranked at the forefront of WCUs
8	UESTC	Building a WCU with in-depth integration of science and technology in the field of electronic information	The university initially enters the ranks of WCUs	The university will have ranked at the forefront of WCUs

Source: Author compilation.

Some universities have also used different discourses, such as ‘building a WCU with distinctive characteristics’ used by DUT as its long-term goal, and ‘becoming a WCU with Chinese characteristics’ used by NEU as its medium-term goal. It shows that these institutional discourses learn the expressions of national policies, as both the ‘Overall Plan’ in 2015 and the ‘Implementation Measures’ in 2017 pointed clearly out that the construction of Double First-Class in China’s HE should be centred on ‘Chinese characteristics’ and ‘World-Class’. But ‘Chinese characteristics’ is a complex concept and constantly changing over time (Hong 2020). Without any clear or specific definition or explanation, these discourses utilised in the institutional strategic goals lacked enough information that can be evaluated. By doing so, however, they have broadened the scope of WCUs even further and allowed for more flexible areas in their interpretation of the definition of WCUs, putting them in a better position to confront the needs of assessment from the national and provincial governments (Zhao and You 2021).

To sum up, these provincial governments and ministerial universities choose to imitate these successful or standardised national discourses when they face some uncertainty or ambiguous development goals such as the definition of a WCU. This means that provincial governments’ officials or universities’ leaders confronted with complicated issues are more inclined to learn and copy approaches that have explored to be effective or promising in other organisations (Berry and Berry 2018). In this study, the national government’s goal-setting model or discourse is perceived by them as a more standardised or relatively effective, expression. As Zha (2009, 462) said ‘mimetic isomorphism stems from uncertainty caused by ambiguous goals, which induces organisations to imitate the behaviour of perceived successful organisations’. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes a WCU, which may cause a ‘disorder’ between the superficial quantitative goals and the deeper connotations of university construction (Chu 2017).

Catering to varied provincial needs: diversified institutional goals

Whilst universities have adopted similar goal-setting model and timeline in response to the pressure exerted by the national policy advocating the construction of WCUs, their strategic plans for local economic and social development demonstrate diverse foci, mirroring the unique developmental traits and competitive strengths inherent in each province. Tailoring their approach to address the precise requirements of local economic and societal progress, we discerned that six ministerial universities have established concrete construction goals in three main areas to bolster local development: (1) scientific research; (2) transformation of results; and (3) policy advisement (see Table 5). The remaining two universities primarily concentrate their efforts in the first two areas. Within these areas, all eight universities underscore the significance of resolving critical real-world challenges pertinent to local development. Nevertheless, significant disparities exist amongst provinces concerning geographical location, degrees of economic development, and industrial characteristics and proficiencies (Yang and Wang 2020). Consequently, universities situated in distinct provinces confront disparate realities and trajectories in the goal setting of local development.

Table 5. The provincial development needs in HEIs’ construction plans.

University		Scientific research	Results transformation	Policy advisement
	Guangdong Province – One Step Ahead
1	SYSU	Using key research issues and real-world local development problems as entry points, large research platforms, large research teams, and large research projects are built	Strengthen the construction of local research institutes to release their role in transforming results and supporting local industrial development, and stimulate the ability to serve the local economy and industrial sector development	Policy advice and scientific decision-making support to provincial governments based on key local development needs
2	SCUT	Focusing on improving research output and leveraging its location in the Greater Bay Area to address significant problems and support Guangdong’s innovation development	Proactively aligning with local needs to establish a demonstration zone for the transformation of scientific and technological results and collaborative innovation	Building a number of high-end think tanks with local characteristics to provide decision-making advice
	Hubei Province – Quick Response
3	WHU	Enhancing the vitality of research and innovation to provide solid support and services for local development	Promoting the transformation and industrialisation of university’s scientific and technological achievements to integrate and serve the construction of Wuhan’s ‘East Lake National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone’ and Hubei’s Yangtze River Economic Belt	Forming a pool of ideas and talent for local needs and providing advice on pertinent major issues
4	HUST	Improving the quality of basic and applied research, and solving major practical issues and cultivating leading scientific and technological achievements	Establishing a multi-modal framework for achievements transformation, such as project cooperation and joint R&D institutions, around the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the plan for the rise of industries in central China	Establishing a distinctive high-end think tank to enhance high-level policy advice and professional services
	Liaoning Province – Quick Response
5	DUT	Focusing on the needs of revitalisation of the old industrial bases in Northeast China, university strives to solve key problems that impede economic and social development by enhancing its capacity of scientific research services	Building a knowledge economy circle around ‘DUT’, closely integrated with local innovation demonstration zone, to accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity	Supporting research bases at all levels to undertake local policy advisory projects with a focus on the real-world issues faced by the local community
6	NEU	Prioritising the layout of key issues and establishing collaborative innovation centres, with a commitment to the integration of the university's development with the province's economic and social development	Accelerating the construction of service platforms for the industrialisation of scientific and technological achievements to serve the needs of the revitalisation and development of Northeast China	–
	Sichuan Province – Slow Response
7	SCU	The university-local jointly establish collaborative innovation institutes and industrial technology research institutes to promote a technology R&D support system tailored to local and industrial needs	Building a service platform for transforming the results of university-local cooperation and jointly establishing a knowledge economy around SCU	Establishing an effective decision-making mechanism for university-local cooperation and regional service
8	UESTC	Facing the needs of local economic and social development, maximising the university's strengths in the field of electronic information and producing a number of influential scientific research results	Building an electronic information industry belt with a focus on the transformation of achievements; an industrial technology development platform that actively serves the local economy and makes a leading contribution to the economic development of Sichuan and Chongqing regions	–

Source: Author compilation.

In the context of Guangdong Province, one of China's most economically developed provinces, known for its robust manufacturing sector, strong export-oriented economy, and advanced infrastructure. The province’s proximity to Hong Kong and Macau further enhances its economic growth. In the institutional plans, both SYSU and SCUT have focused on bolstering scientific research efforts to support the development of local strategic industries. To this end, they have dedicated their resources to the expansion of research platforms, research teams, and research projects. These research endeavours are intimately linked to critical research topics and practical challenges pertaining to the development of strategic industry and innovation within Guangdong Province. They are explicitly tailored to address local development needs and are aimed at enhancing the conversion of scientific and technological advancements into practical applications. For instance, SYSU has established local research institutes that promote the output of important research results (e.g. Institute of Guangdong, Hongkong and Macao Development Studies), while SCUT has set up demonstration zones (e.g. South China Institute of Collaborative Innovation) dedicated to the transformation of research results that have yielded significant economic and social benefits. Concurrently, these universities have outlined their intention to offer policy guidance and scientific assistance to the provincial government, leveraging their expertise in alignment with the prominent development requirements and regional strengths.

By contrast, Hubei Province, located in central China, has experienced relatively slower economic development. The universities in this province can contribute to its economic development by emphasising research and innovation in emerging industries and technologies. In the goals setting of the three areas, WHU and HUST have emphasised to provide strong supports and services for the joint ‘Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt’ and the ‘Plan of Rise of the Central Region’. Liaoning Province situated in north-eastern China, was once a leading industrial base. However, it has faced challenged in recent years due to the decline of traditional heavy industries such mining and manufacturing. The province has been working on revitalising its economy through the development of emerging sectors like advanced equipment manufacturing, information technology and high-end services. We found that DUT and NEU are committed to integrating the university's goals setting with the province's economic and social development, prioritising the layout of key research areas for ‘revitalisation of the old industrial bases of Northeast China’, and accelerating the construction of service platforms for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Located in southwestern in China, Sichuan Province is rich in natural resources, hydropower production and agricultural output, making it a major base for manufacturing and energy production. SCU and UESTC are prominent institutions that actively promote high-tech industries, such as electronics, and biotechnology, to further the Sichuan Province’s economic development. They proposed to be ‘rooted in the major challenges and practical needs of China’s western development’ to conduct innovative research, jointly build a service platform for the transformation of results and establish an efficient decision-making mechanism for university-local cooperation.

According to the resource dependence theory, China’s provincial governments hold a variety of key resources that influence the development of ministerial universities located in their regions. Indeed, each province in China has its own unique geographical location, industrial characteristics, strengths, and level of economic development, which shape their individual development models and directions for economic and social progress (Wei 2012). This diversity reflects the diverse nature of China’s regional economies and the provincial governments’ approach to regional development. It can therefore be observed that the exercise of power by these provincial governments through the imposition of conditional resource requirements will inevitably influence the policy-making behaviours of the ministerial universities. While the overall requirement of the national government is the main concern in guiding the behaviour of universities, universities also need to consider the conditions of dependency of local resource providers (provincial governments) to ensure the continuity of critical local resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003).

Considering the distinctive developmental characteristics and requirements of individual provinces, universities situated in diverse regions should adapt their strategies to align with each province’s competitive advantages. Consequently, universities’ reliance on provincial government resources can facilitate the diversification of Chinese ministerial universities in the process of building WCUs.

Discussion and concluding remarks

This study enriches our understanding of organisational responses to directive national policies, achieved by scrutinising the reports issued by four provincial governments and the strategic intentions set forth by eight ministerial universities. Our research unearthed several aspects of behaviour exhibited by provincial governments and ministerial universities, including the adoption of a three-phase model as a standardised format in goal-setting, an ambiguous definition of WCUs, and the diversification of institutional plans tailored to the varied needs of provinces. These behavioural patterns are largely attributed to a triad of intertwined driving forces: coercive resource competition exerted by the national government, mimetic learning employed among organisations, and the resource dependency of ministerial universities on their respective provincial governments.

The coercive isomorphism comes from the heavy resource dependence of Chinese local agencies (governments and universities) on the national government, which is embedded in the governance structure of Chinese higher education (Wang 2018). Provincial governments and ministerial universities in China compete fiercely to gain more economic and political support from the national government through the number of WCUs and their academic performance. As Zha (2009, 55–56) stated, ‘competition for scarce resources causes agencies to become more similar because the uniform environment conditions of competition bring forth similar responses’. When these provincial governments and ministerial universities are pressured to adopt the three-phase model and timeline set by the national government as a standardised format, it is also difficult to fully achieve these goals in the local practice due to the different economic circumstances and geographical locations of each region and their various practical development needs. Because the goals setting in the ‘Overall Plan’ are the national government’s overall goals for higher education in China at a systemic level, rather than the specific requirements for a provincial government or individual university (Zhao and You 2021). While the direct imitating of the national development goals can improve the efficiency with which national policies are implemented in local places, it is likely to be out of touch with reality and result in many problems that are not conducive to local development because of being not sufficiently integrated with the actual needs and circumstances in local areas.

Although the ‘Implementation Measures’ indicated four core missions for construction of a WCU with ‘Chinese characteristics’, each WCU is constantly influenced by globalisation (Marginson 2010) and there is not a globally agreed definition of the WCU. The concept of a WCU with ‘Chinese characteristics’ is not static but constantly changing and developing over time (Hong 2020). Because of the ambiguous definition of WCUs with ‘Chinese characteristics’, provincial governments and ministerial universities are forced to adopt a similar approach in their plans – imitating the discourses utilised by the national government – to present their goals. Most provincial governments and ministerial universities strictly followed the discourses used in national government documents such as ‘achieved world-class status’, ‘entered the ranks of WCUs’, and ‘ranked at the forefront of WCUs’, without any further clarifications which are expected for these local development plans. Provincial governments, by mimetic learning approach, set digital goals in their three phases in line with the standardised language used by the national government. In their longer-term goals, provincial governments also have emphasised the importance of ranking ‘at the forefront of Chinese provinces or cities in the number of WCUs’. This reflects the fierce competition between provincial governments for national government resources to build a number of first-class universities. Moreover, two universities used a global university ranking as a criterion to define what a WCU is, but none of them has specified to which rankings they referred. Due to the dynamic adjustment mechanism in the ‘Implementation Measurements’, all selected HEIs face the possibility of exclusion from the subsequent phases of this plan. They have strategically exploited the ambiguity of the concept of WCUs in order to deal with the pressures of each five-year evaluation process. These vague expressions, such as ‘global university rankings’, can allow universities to arbitrarily choose the ranking that best suits their needs.

In the current China’s higher education climate, a common pattern of strategic goal setting and timeline planning emerges from universities, driven by the national policies that encourage the construction of WCUs. Despite this shared pattern, the local focus of these strategic plans varies, reflecting the distinct development characteristics and competitive advantages inherent to each province. As posited by the resource dependence theory, the local governments of China's provinces play a significant role in the administration, political affairs, and supplemental financial support of ministerial universities situated in their respective regions. These governmental bodies wield a range of pivotal resources that directly impact the trajectory of university development. The exercise of authority by these provincial governments through the imposition of conditional resource requisites, will inevitably influence the formulation of ministerial universities’ strategies. Although the national government’s overarching requirements primarily guide university behaviours, these universities must also accommodate the provincial governments’ dependency conditions to ensure a consistent provision of critical local resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003). Hence, universities located in various provinces are compelled to navigate distinct realities and pathways towards the construction of WCUs.

Conclusively, this interplay between the national government, provincial governments and ministerial universities gives rise to a governance model centred on compliance and accountability in policy formation for the construction of WCUs. In other words, in the formulation of institutional strategic plans, all these universities explicitly associated institutional development with provincial and national development. This alignment includes goals such as helping China achieve the national development plan ‘Made in China 2025’ and serving the regional development needs of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau region (SYSU); promoting the national strategic plan of ‘Healthy China’; and contributing to the social and economic development of the western region (SCU).

In the past decade, regional higher education – with each province as the intermediate carrier – has developed rapidly and is an important force in the development of HEIs within its jurisdiction, as well as a key factor in the convergence and integration of national policy innovation and local practice of universities. This has formed a new pattern of multi-level interaction and synergistic development between the national government, provincial governments and HEIs under the unified leadership of the state. Influenced by the level of provincial economic development, demographic changes and the development base of higher education, these differentiated provincial conditions require, on the one hand, individual policy innovation and exploration of individual development paths for provincial higher education systems. On the other hand, they also require provinces to further strengthen the relevance of and synergy between higher education and local economic development in order to highlight the advantages of higher education in each province and thus enhance the overall competitiveness of the province (Deng 2018). The intensification of a competitive approach to higher education in provincial governments for the national resources has become an internal driver for provinces to adopt similar goals or strategies.

In spite of these homogenising forces resulting from the coercive pressure of national resources on provincial governments and ministerial universities and their imitative strategies, there continue to be some variations in the strategic responses of Chinese universities based on the unique development needs of each province. Thus, the tension of homogeneous goals-setting oriented towards the national standard and diversified provincial development needs in the building WCUs pose a great challenge to local innovative practice.

A joint declaration on the reform of China's academic evaluation system by the MOE and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOE and Ministry of Science and Technology 2020) sparked considerable debate among scholars. Through this new system, China seeks a profound transformation of the prevalent academic evaluation criteria, moving away from an overreliance on the quantity of SCI papers and their citations as the primary indicators of research excellence (Huang 2020). The intention is to evolve towards a framework that more aptly resonates with the Chinese academic landscape and addresses pertinent Chinese concerns. In the second selection round in 2022 for Double First-Class Plan, seven new universities were added, but none were removed from the original list (only 15 universities were publicly warned) (MOE, Ministry of Finance, and National Development and Reform Commission 2022), resulting in the ‘only in, not out’ phenomenon, which contradicts the initial principle of dynamic adjustment in the ‘total quantity control, both in and out’ approach. Moreover, the MOE (2022) clearly stated in its work plan that ‘the identity of universities and disciplines participating in the building of WCUs should be gradually faded’. Does this measure negate the overall development goal of building Chinese world-class universities that was originally set?

Nonetheless, like China’s these policies-making and evaluation systems, the apparent absence of specific and operational suggestions on forming the new academic frameworks, especially at institutional and individual levels, seems to be the biggest challenge facing the Chinese government now. Further research will do more in-depth case studies, looking at how these universities in practice respond to national, provincial and institutional development needs of their own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s ).

Appendix. List of analysed policies for building WCUs

Table

	Date of Publication	Region/ Department	Policy Name	Word count	Website access to policy
National government’s policies
1	24/10/2015	State council	The Overall Plan for the Construction of WCUs and First-Class Disciplines	5388	http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xxgk/moe_1777/moe_1778/201511/t20151105_217823.html
2	25/01/2017	MOE, Ministry of Finance, National Development Reform Commission	The Implementation Measures for the Construction of World-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines	4244	http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A22/moe_843/201701/t20170125_295701.html
Provincial governments’ policies
3	02/06/2015	Guangdong Province	Construction Plan for High-level Universities in Guangdong Province	7674	http://www.gd.gov.cn/gkmlpt/policy
4	28/12/2016	Hubei Province	Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Construction of First-class Universities and First-class Disciplines in Hubei Province	5636	http://fgcx.bjcourt.gov.cn:4601/law?fn = lar1353s058.txt
5	03/01/2017	Liaoning Province	Implementation Opinions on the Coordinated Promotion of the Construction of First-class Universities and First-class Disciplines in Liaoning Province	7397	http://www.ln.gov.cn/zfxx/zfwj/szfwj/zfwj2011_111254/201701/t20170110_2674317.html
6	07/11/2017	Sichuan Province	Implementation Opinions on the Coordinated Promotion of the Construction of First-class Universities and First-class Disciplines in Sichuan Province	6110	https://www.sc.gov.cn/10462/c103044/2017/11/9/92ad9cdce59e4e7cba09dbb466ab1860.shtml
Institutional strategic plans
7	15/12/2017	Sun Yat-sen University	The Construction Plan of First-class University at the Sun Yat-sen University	21,569	https://www.sciping.com/27219.html
8	28/12/2017	South China University of Technology	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the South China University of Technology	18,350	https://www.scut.edu.cn/new/2017/1229/c213a7707/page.htm
9	18/01/2018	Wuhan University	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the Wuhan University	10,701	https://www.whu.edu.cn/info/1118/9221.htm
10	11/12/2017	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology	19,987	http://xxgk.hust.edu.cn/info/1024/1348.htm
11	12/2017	Dalian University of Technology	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the Dalian University of Technology	23,650	http://news.dlut.edu.cn/info/1002/51164.htm
12	28/12/2017	Northeastern University China	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the Northeastern University of China	27,291	http://info.neu.edu.cn/2020/1105/c7694a182280/page.htm
13	20/12/2017	Sichuan University	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the Sichuan University	26,267	https://syl.scu.edu.cn/info/1007/1050.htm
14	12/2017	University of Electronic Science and Technology of China	The Construction Plan for First-class University at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China	12,211	https://news.uestc.edu.cn/?Id = 62131&n = UestcNews.Front.Document.ArticlePage
		Total		196,475