7.2 Policy Implications.....................................
Accompanying the deepening recognition of R&D’s key role in facilitating social
and economic development, and the great strategy of establishing innovative
country, the Chinese government has made huge efforts to build a group of
high-level research universities through a series of national programs and projects
like “211 Project”. Taking “211 Project” as example, 211Us have received
tremendously large funds from government to enhance their research activities and
discipline constructions.“211 Project”substantially speeds up the development of
those universities under its umbrella, and greatly raises their research quantity and
quality, and achieves the great-leap in research development in Chinese top uni-
versities, and truly supports them to become world-class universities. However,
high-level research university would never be built in a day, and it’s a sustaining
process needed long-term planning and investments. During the process of con-
struction, it’s necessary to pay more attention to the research investments in
high-level research universities, and at the same time, pay more attention to the
better use and management of research funds, and make more efforts to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the management level.
In December, 2012, several central departments including China Ministry of
Finance, Ministry of S&T, and Ministry of Education, published a series of new
policies to regulate university research activity. For example,“Opinions on Further
Enhancing the Management of University Research Projects”,“Opinions on Further
Normalizing the University Research Conducts”,“Opinions on Further Enhancing
the Management of Research Funds in Universities Administered by Central
Departments”. The publication of these documents indicates that the regulation on
research projects and funds has become a great issue in Chinese higher education
monitoring. National polices demand the studies on the university research effi-
ciency. And at the same time, database of university statistics also get improved to
support the evaluations on university research efficiency. Therefore, based on a
series of econometric models and statistical instruments, this book takes 211Us as
the research target, to examine the research efficiency of NEAM and HSS
disciplines.
In order to improve the performance management mechanism in university
research funds, based on thefindings in previous chapters,^1 and the government
documents mentioned above, we highlight several points as below, and wish this
would benefit both policymakers and university administrators in effectively
managing research activities.
First, university research should stride on the way of“rational scale, optimal
structure, best quality, effectiveness first”, and make every effort to create
groundbreaking research outcomes, promoting the great leap of research quality.
(^1) For instance, the number of monographs per 10 thousand yuan of 985Us is lower than that of
non-985Us. Moreover, the number of SCI articles per 10 thousand R&D funds of 211Us in most
regions is also in the downtrend.
298 7 Concluding Remarks and Policy Implications