Linkages between research, scholarship and teaching in universities in China
research and scholarly successes is a very strong institu-
tional influence.
The last two pressures above can create the well-known
polarity of behaviour: academics who see themselves as
‘teachers’ may be reluctant to engage in research and schol-
arly activities, while ‘researchers’ can be so totally immersed
in their research that they are reluctant to teach. I have been
Head of two Academic Schools, Dean of Research and
Consultancy and now Director of Research. This polarised
behaviour, linked by a whole spectrum of individuals ‘posi-
tioning’ themselves academically, has been one of the major
concerns of my managerial life at Glamorgan and I take a
deep interest in it. So, when an opportunity arose to partici-
pate in the Sino-UK Higher Education Leadership
Development Programme1, I quite naturally chose the sub-
ject of this paper—sometimes referred to as the ‘nexus
between teaching and research’—to be the central topic of
study. The programme allows for senior academics from
China and the UK to experience and reflect on a particular
management issue with the intention of identifying good
practice which they can apply in their home institution.
This paper summarises my participation in this programme.
The activities included a preliminary workshop in the UK in
February 2006, which involved almost all of the participants
in the programme (both Chinese and British), my personal
visit to the Beijing Institute of Technology (Bit) from 17 to 25
April 2006, and a final workshop in Beijing on 26 April for all
the participants in the programme. The paper begins with a
brief description of Bit, followed by a discussion of the study
topic from which some research questions were derived. The
programme of study within Bit is then summarised and dis-
cussed, followed by some conclusions.
Beijing Institute of Technology
(BIT)
Founded in Yan An in 1940 as an academy of natural sci-
ences, the Institute moved to Beijing in 1952 and assumed its
current title. There are now two additional and substantial
campuses in Liangxiang and Zhuhai. It is classified by the
Ministry of Education as a ‘key university’, and is very much
a ‘research-leading’ university. In 1984 it became one of the
first 10 key universities to establish a graduate school, was
one of the first 15 universities in the ‘211 project’2 and is also
a leading university in the subsequent ‘985 project’3. Both of
these projects have substantial funding allocations designed
to enhance prestige and the research and teaching capabili-
ties of selected universities.
The University is organised into 12 schools which provide a
comprehensive academic coverage of science, engineering,
technology, humanities, social sciences, management, eco-
nomics and art and design, although their literature indicates
a bias towards technology. There are about 38,000 students,
including 5,000 Masters students and 900 PhD students. In
1999 the Ministry of Education rated the undergraduate pro-
grammes ‘excellent’. Bit had a total research income in 2004
of RMB625m (£44m) and has extensive international aca-
demic connections and research and development links with
more than 100 companies.
The study topic:
‘Linkages between research,
scholarship and teaching in
universities in China’
Purpose
The notion is widely held internationally that research, schol-
arship and teaching are closely linked and mutually
reinforcing. My experience as an academic in two quite dif-
ferent UK universities (one largely ‘research-led’ and the other
largely ‘teaching-led’) over a period of some 35 years leads
me to the view that the strength, effectiveness and visibility
of these linkages can be quite varied and in some cases quite
tenuous. There is a range of reasons for this variability, obvi-
ous examples being academic staff who do no research and
academic staff who do research that is far too advanced to be
incorporated easily in taught courses. So, as stated in the
Introduction, I chose to enhance my own understanding of
these linkages as the subject for my personal leadership
development programme.
Selective review of relevant literature
A literature search revealed quite quickly that there is an
extensive and diverse range of publications on the study
topic. For the purpose of this relatively limited study, I found
four publications to be particularly relevant. Since the Sino-UK
HE Leadership Development Programme is a UK Government
project, it seemed sensible to start at national level, with the
UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). It
publishes guidance on the criteria for granting degree-award-
ing powers and the title ‘university’ (QAA, 2004), from which
following key principles were extracted:
1. The institution must function effectively as an aca-
demic whole.
1 The programme is managed by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/international/sinoukprogramme.html)
2 ‘21st century, 100 world leading research universities’.
3 The President of China made a speech reinforcing ‘211’ in May 1985, at a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Beijing University.
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
Volume 1 • Number 1 • 75