What price the building of world-class universities? Academic pressure faced by young lecturers at a research-centered University in China

ABSTRACT

This study explores the challenges faced by young lecturers in managerial transformation in elite Chinese academic institutions which aim to develop into world-class universities. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, the paper discusses how a group of lecturers on tenure-track contracts at a research university in China perceived the impacts of this managerial personnel reform. The study revealed intensified academic pressure and consequent feelings of insecurity, uncertainty and anxiety among the participants. Rigid tenure requirements pushed down research quality, and detracted from the efforts the participants could have devoted to teaching. Further negative impacts were strengthened power hierarchies and increasingly gendered nature of the academic culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Managerialism
• tenure-track reform
• young lecturers
• academic pressure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In line with the tenure-track policy implemented at the case-study university, we use ‘young’ scholars to refer to the scholars under 35 years old and holding a lectureship upon their recent completion of the PhD studies. The term is used interchangeably with ‘early-career’ scholars in this paper.

2. The Chinese Ministry of Education initiated 211-Project in 1993 to prepare the nation for new challenges in the twentyfirst century (hence the name). The project distributes local and national funding to the top 100 universities in China to strengthen their educational quality.

3. The Chinese Ministry of Education initiated 985-Project in May 1998 (hence the name). The project distributes national funding to develop the best 39 Chinese universities, promote their research reputation and help to establish their ‘world-class’ status.

4. In 2012 4,210 SSCI papers, compared to 164,700 SCI papers, were published by Chinese scholars based in Chinese HEIs who listed themselves as the papers’ first authors (Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China 2013).

5. As part of a bigger project, the survey was designed jointly by one author of this paper and colleagues at the Chinese university of Hong Kong (see Lai, Du, and Li (2014) on the research design); at CU data collection and analysis were conducted independently by the author (see Lu et al. 2010).

6. ‘The top international journals’ refer to Nature, Science and Cell.

7. ‘The most influential journal’ refers to the SCI/SSCI journal with highest Impact Factor in the contract-holder’s discipline.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities, China (sk201409) and Shaanxi Social Science Research Fund, Chin a (2014M01).