Researching Higher Education in Asia History, Development and Future

139

The State Support

The state directs and supports the higher education research. In the RHERD data-
base of 1999–2014, the number of published articles indicates that governmental
projects and funding are increasing, especially since 2006 (Fig. 7.1). In 1999 just
1.63 percent of the articles in the database indicated funding support (i.e., five arti-
cles). By 2014 the total number of articles indicating funding support rose to 103,
accounting for almost 58 percent. Since 2011, over half of the published articles in
the RHERD database claimed the funding support by the state from various research
funding projects.

Outward-Looking from Referencing

Since its establishment in 1980s, higher education as a research field in China has
been open to international academic communities via individual networks, foreign
visitors, translation of classic works, and returning Chinese scholars educated over-
seas. Pan and Chen ( 2005 ) called for international academic exchanges to be used
to create a mutual dialogue between HE researchers in China and internationally
rather than for such exchanges to be seen as resulting in dependent development.
About 11 percent of the articles selected in the RHERD from 1999 to 2009 were
comparative in nature. This is quite different from the inward-looking nature of the
HER community in North America (Tight 2007 ). The Chinese community of HER
tends to be more outward looking.

1.63%

6.17%

5.43%

7.48%

7.29%

9.03%

0.37%

16.48%

23.17%

31.13% 31.19%

47.50%

54.79%

59.41% 61.41%

57.54%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014

Fig. 7.1 The percentage of the state-funded HER articles in the total published articles per year in
the RHERD database (1999–2014) (Note: Data in 2005 is missing)

7 Higher Education Research in China: An Independent Academic Field Under the State