these cities have become new highlands for "double first-class" universities, and one city is heading for the "fourth city"
2024-08-29
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the number of universities a city has is an important indicator of the city's talent competitiveness. in recent years, some cities in china have strengthened their higher education through the "new establishment + introduction" approach, and new highlands of higher education with "double first-class" universities have emerged, such as shenzhen, suzhou, qingdao, zhuhai, and weihai.
recently, the henggang sub-district office of longgang district, shenzhen city, announced the work summary for the first half of 2024 and the work plan for the second half of the year. it mentioned that the jinan university (shenzhen) project passed the review of the central united front work department and was approved to run a school in henggang. this shows that the shenzhen campus of jinan university has been officially established, and shenzhen has added another "double first-class" university (campus), bringing the total number to 5. the number of "double first-class" universities (campuses) is comparable to that of tianjin, and exceeds that of traditional high-education cities such as changsha, harbin, and chongqing.
public information shows that there are currently 147 "double first-class" universities (disciplines) in china, which are distributed in 45 cities across the country by school headquarters. among them, there are 34 in beijing, 15 in shanghai, 13 in nanjing, 7 each in guangzhou, wuhan, xi'an, and chengdu, 5 in tianjin, and less than 5 in other cities.
shenzhen takes a leap forward in establishing a university
jinan university is the first government-founded overseas chinese university in china. it was jointly established by the central united front work department, the ministry of education and the guangdong provincial government and is directly under the management of the central united front work department. as a long-established "211" university and the second batch of "double first-class" universities, jinan university is headquartered in guangzhou and currently has 5 campuses in guangzhou, shenzhen and zhuhai. among them, in early 2020, jinan university shenzhen tourism college began to implement campus construction.
as a first-tier city in china, shenzhen's higher education has long been a drag on the city's development. according to statistics from the first financial daily, by the end of 2023, there will be 30 cities in china with more than 20 universities, of which 14 cities have more than 50. even hohhot, whose economic output is only about 1/10 of shenzhen's, has 24 universities. at that time, shenzhen had only 15, and before 2000, there were only 5.
for a city built on high-tech and modern manufacturing, the lack of a sufficient number of strong university communities has always been the "achilles' heel" of its development. in order to make up for this obvious shortcoming, shenzhen has accelerated the construction of an international, open and innovative higher education system and continuously expanded its university team through a two-pronged model of self-establishment and cooperative education over the past decade.
since 2000, shenzhen has introduced famous universities at home and abroad, including tsinghua university, peking university, harbin institute of technology, chinese university of hong kong, and sun yat-sen university. among them, except for tsinghua university and peking university, which mainly carry out graduate education and do not enroll students separately, the others have established campuses in shenzhen and enroll and train undergraduate students separately.
at the same time, shenzhen has also made great efforts to establish new universities, including sino-foreign cooperative schools. in 2012, southern university of science and technology was officially established; since 2016, shenzhen university of science and technology of china, shenzhen university of technology, shenzhen institute of technology of tianjin university, shenzhen city vocational college, and shenzhen university of science and technology have been approved for establishment. so far, in 23 years, the number of universities in shenzhen has increased from only 5 to 17, with an average increase of 1 every two years, creating the "shenzhen miracle" of extraordinary leapfrog development of higher education.
according to the reporter from china business news, shenzhen is currently vigorously promoting the preparation and construction of universities such as shenzhen conservatory of music, shenzhen institute of innovation and design, shenzhen ocean university, shenzhen normal university, and the university of hong kong (shenzhen). in the next few years, the number of universities offering undergraduate education in shenzhen is expected to exceed 20.
a new highland of "double first-class" universities
university construction is not a matter of a day or a night, especially for high-level universities. in my country, the historical distribution pattern of universities has remained stable for a long time, which has basically influenced the distribution pattern of high-level universities such as "211", "985" and "double first-class" universities. it is extremely difficult for newly established universities in the past decade to become "double first-class". currently, there are only a few "lucky ones" such as southern university of science and technology, shanghaitech university, and university of chinese academy of sciences.
under this circumstance, some cities, including shenzhen, that have developed higher education by introducing famous universities to set up schools in other places have stood out and "accidentally" become new hotspots for the gathering of "double first-class" universities. among them are many second- and third-tier cities that previously had weak foundations in higher education.
the reporter of china business news found that in addition to shenzhen, the four cities that have made the most progress in this regard include suzhou, qingdao, zhuhai, weihai, and the xiongan new area in hebei province, which is under construction. these cities already have at least three "double first-class" universities (campuses), which is more than a large number of provincial capitals.
obviously, except for xiongan new area, the other cities are located in the eastern coastal areas. a regional economic research expert told reporters that these eastern coastal cities have a stronger demand for high-quality talents, and at the same time, they are more able to provide financial and policy support; and the establishment of off-site campuses by old and famous schools in these cities is of great significance to improving school conditions, expanding development space, and improving school standards. both sides can be said to be "running in both directions." in addition, from the perspective of city level, shenzhen and qingdao are sub-provincial cities, and the others are prefecture-level cities; shenzhen, suzhou, and qingdao are cities with a gdp of one trillion yuan.
in december 1984, shandong university and the weihai municipal government jointly established the weihai campus of shandong university, setting a precedent for a famous chinese university to run a school in a different place. since then, weihai has also introduced harbin institute of technology and beijing jiaotong university to set up campuses locally, becoming a third-tier city with three "double first-class" universities (campuses).
qingdao, shandong, which has a higher level of urban energy than weihai, is also better at attracting high-quality universities to set up schools in other places. in september 2021, with the official launch of the school of oceanography of the university of chinese academy of sciences in qingdao, qingdao welcomed the fourth "double first-class" university to land. previously, shandong university and china university of petroleum had established campuses in the local area, and the headquarters of the ocean university of china is in qingdao.
suzhou, which also has a local "double first-class" university (soochow university), is also an early city to try to introduce famous universities to run schools in other places. in september 2012, renmin university of china officially issued a document to establish the suzhou campus, and began to recruit undergraduate students that year; in 2018, the suzhou research institute of southeast university was upgraded to the suzhou campus; in 2019, suzhou city and nanjing university signed an agreement to successfully "pull" nanjing university's first off-site school to suzhou. so far, suzhou, the "strongest prefecture-level city", also has 4 "double first-class" universities (campuses).
in this year's college entrance examination, beijing institute of technology (zhuhai) won the highest admission score among universities in guangdong province in its first enrollment, which highlighted zhuhai's higher education strength. in fact, although zhuhai's economic scale in the province is far inferior to that of shenzhen and guangzhou, the number of "double first-class" universities (campuses) in zhuhai is second only to guangzhou and shenzhen. as early as 2000, the construction of sun yat-sen university zhuhai campus began. subsequently, beijing normal university and beijing institute of technology moved south to zhuhai, and jinan university, a university in the province, followed. zhuhai actually topped the list of the number of "double first-class" universities (campuses) in prefecture-level cities earlier than suzhou.
different from the "two-way rush" model of the above-mentioned cities that introduce famous universities to set up schools in other places, the gathering of first-class universities in xiongan new area is mainly due to the top-level design of relieving beijing's non-capital functions.
since the beginning of this year, five universities including beijing institute of technology, beijing university of aeronautics and astronautics, beijing language and culture university, north china electric power university, and communication university of china have announced that they will build xiongan campuses to relieve the pressure on xiongan new area. prior to this, the xiongan campuses of beijing jiaotong university, beijing university of science and technology, beijing forestry university, and china university of geosciences (beijing) were already under construction. in the near future, xiongan new area will have at least 9 "double first-class" universities (campuses), becoming the "fourth city of 'double first-class' universities" in the country after beijing, shanghai, and nanjing.
(this article comes from china business network)
