There exist gaps, to some extent, between universities located in different areas.
Referring to the traditional division of Chinese territory which divides mainland
China into eastern, central and western regions, as well as the concentration of
Chinese higher education resources, we divide the full sample 211Us into several
groups, namely eastern 211Us, central 211Us, and western 211Us, and subdivide
eastern 211Us into JUs, HSZUs, and OUs. Through a comparative analysis, it’s
easy tofind that on most indicators eastern 211Us outperform the central 211Us,
and the central 211Us outperform the western 211Us. Alternatively speaking, there
obviously exists a trend of step-wise decay from the east to the west. However, on
the NEAM indicators of T&R Staff and T&R Staff with Senior Title, and the HSS
indicators of R&D Staff, the central 211Us outstrip the eastern and the western
211Us. Inside eastern 211Us, JUs are beaten by HSZUs on the indicators of human
inputs, while HSZUs outstrips on the indicators offinancial inputs. OUs are always
placed in disadvantage on most indicators.
7.1.2 Research Outputs of 211Us.........................
3.5.2.1 Overall Status
In the views of indicators of Monographs, Journal Articles, and Intellectual
Property, the total research outputs of 211Us are increasing steadily during the
five-year period. On the indicator of Journal Articles, the ratio of international
journal articles to total journal articles is growing all along, reflecting the interna-
tionalization trend of research production in 211Us. According to the experience of
internationalization process of Chinese universities, there are three major aspects,
namely, academic research, collaborative operations (or joint teaching programs),
faculty exchange, where thefirst is the most important. Therefore, the interna-
tionalization of 211Us’research production provides Chinese universities’the great
foundation to strive for world-class university.
To NEAM disciplines of 211Us, their growth rate of publishing on the inter-
national top journals goes steadily, which in part means that 211Us highly
emphasize the research quality along with the research quantity. However, com-
pared with world-class universities, there are still considerable gaps. According to
the researchingfinding of“Evaluation Report on the Disciplinary Competitiveness
of World-Class Universities and Institutions (2014–2015)”authored by Qiu et al.
( 2014 ),
5
the research strength of Chinese universities is more relied on the quantity
of publications, while their quality of publications is fall short of expectations.
(^5) According to “Evaluation Report on the Disciplinary Competitiveness of World-Class
Universities and Institutions (2014–2015)”, Tsinghua University is ranked first among all
Chinese universities in the number of highly cited papers, but from a global perspective, its rank
would slide to 81st.
3.5 Conclusions 101