The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has exposed a certain predicament of the traditional university education model. Although many universities have introduced AI-related courses, and some have made them compulsory, these courses are still often taught through standardized pedagogies inherited from the industrial age. As a result, knowledge marked by generation, openness, and nonlinearity is delivered through an industrial framework shaped by linearity, uniformity, and control. This contradiction may be described as the paradox of AI education, or, metaphorically, as “horse-drawn carriages pulling steam engines.” Student silence, disengagement, and absenteeism are outward signs of this deeper problem. What higher education now needs is not simply more AI instruction, but a new paradigm of human–AI coexistence: one in which students are recognized as agents of learning, teachers become designers of future learning environments, and education moves from “teaching AI” to “learning with AI.” Only through such a shift can higher education respond to technological change while preserving its humanistic purpose. While AI will undoubtedly transform educational concepts, teaching methods, and assessment, the fundamental mission of the university education remains unchanged. Only is this way can university education truly fulfill its fundamental mission in the AI era.

Promoting the classification reform and development of universities is the core agenda for building a leading country in education. From the perspectives of history, academia, and society, classification development is the inevitable trajectory of higher education evolution. The differentiation of knowledge forms determines the rational basis for the categorized reform and development of universities, and the three attributes of education require categorized development to meet the national strategy and people's expectations. We must promote the classification reform of universities with a systematic thinking, establish a categorized university system, reform the university evaluation system, improve the university incentive system, strengthen the university supervision system, create a policy environment and social atmosphere, and facilitate the implementation and effectiveness of the classification reform and development of universities.

The fundamental orientations of research universities, application-oriented universities, and skill-based universities, along with their specific positioning regarding educational levels, service directions, disciplines, and specialties, do not exist in isolation or fragmentation. Instead, they form an inherent unity grounded in knowledge. Unfolding and interacting according to the order of knowledge structure, they assume different roles and fulfill distinct responsibilities and missions within the division of labor in knowledge inheritance, production, innovation, and application. Currently, various forms of “academic drift” pose challenges to university orientation. The underlying causes lie in the hierarchical understanding of knowledge structure, traditional dependency in development paths, identity-driven resource allocation, and a homogenized evaluation system. To overcome this predicament, it is essential to adhere to the principle of knowledge unity. This involves restructuring the categorized evaluation system, establishing goal- and contribution-oriented resource allocation, reshaping the organizational culture of the knowledge division of labor, and constructing a value narrative centered on diverse forms of excellence, thereby achieving differentiated, distinctive, and high-quality development within the higher education system.

Evidence-based decision-making ability is the ability of decision-makers to consciously engage in a series of cognitive, behavioral, and other activities centered around valid evidence during the decision-making process. Currently, the scientific transformation of decision-making in universities has put forward new requirements for the evidence-based decision-making ability of middle-level leaders in universities. By conducting in-depth interviews with 27 middle-level leaders from 6 universities, an “Evidence-Based Decision-Making Ability Influencing Factors Model for Middle-Level Leaders in Universities” was constructed. The study found that the subjective traits and objective differences of middle level leaders in universities jointly constitute individual factors, which directly determine their level of evidence-based decision-making ability; The availability, scientificity, and applicability of evidence in evidence-based decision-making in universities constitute technical factors, which indirectly affect the evidence-based decision-making ability of middle-level leaders in universities by influencing the effectiveness of evidence in evidence-based decision-making. Organizational characteristics, institutional rules, power allocation, and organizational support collectively constitute organizational factors. On the one hand, they indirectly influence the awareness and willingness of middle-level university leaders to make evidence-based decisions by shaping organizational culture; on the other hand, they regulate the practice of evidence-based decision-making by providing decision-making conditions. Based on research findings, it is necessary to enhance the internal driving force of evidence-based decision-making through the construction of subject capacity, carry out high-intensity evidence construction based on the triple characteristics of evidence, deepen the reform of the internal governance system of universities based on organizational characteristics, and promote the improvement of evidence-based decision-making ability of middle-level leaders in universities.

Universities are an important part of the national innovation system, and a concentrated intersection of education, science and technology, and talent, it is imperative to promote the integrated development and reform of education, science and technology, and talent in universities. Promoting the construction of new R&D institutions in universities is conducive to promoting the cultivation of practical and innovative talents through industry-academia-research collaboration, advancing organized research and boosting commercialization of scientific and technological achievements efficiently, facilitating the accumulation of top talents, stimulating the vitality of talents, and promoting the integrated development of education, science and technology, talents in universities. In response to the challenges in promoting the construction of new R&D institutions in universities, it puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions in order to better promote the integrated development of education, science and technology, and talents in universities, such as strengthen the top-level design clarify the strategic role of the construction of new R&D institutions in the development and reform of universities; deepen the reform of cultivation mode of postgraduates, and build a highland for cultivating top-notch innovative talents and outstanding engineers; establish support mechanism, incentive mechanism and control mechanisms to promote the professional construction and marketization construction of new R&D institutions; facilitate the flow of innovative resources between universities and new R&D institutions, and promote institutional and cultural innovation in universities.

Interdisciplinary construction serves the integrated development of education, science and technology, and talent by fostering innovative talent and strengthening the national innovation system. Adopting this integrated perspective, the study builds an analytical framework of collaborative mechanisms—problem co-governance, resource co-construction, process co-cultivation, and outcome co-sharing—to examine practices at China’s top-tier C9 universities. The findings reveal that C9 universities have gained resource-agglomeration and first-mover advantages: they align interdisciplinary agendas with national strategic needs, leverage major research platforms for breakthroughs, embed real-world scenarios throughout talent cultivation, and facilitate collaboration through benefit-sharing exploration. Yet they still face multiple challenges, including unfocused co-governance, sluggish co-construction, disembedded co-cultivation, and absent co-sharing mechanisms. Accordingly, the study proposes building a strategy-led, multi-stakeholder consensus mechanism, a resource investment and factor integration-based resource allocation model, a synergistic talent cultivation model that integrates research and innovation with dual-track drivers, and contribution-oriented, multi-equivalent benefit distribution rules, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of interdisciplinary.

Against the backdrop of global talent competition and “big science” collaboration, this study takes 3363 recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in STEM fields from 1994 to 2020 as the research sample. Using CV analysis and complex network analysis, it constructs three-stage city-level mobility networks—education, postdoctoral training, and employment—to examine the stage-specific characteristics, spatial structure, and disciplinary heterogeneity of high-level scientific talent mobility. The findings show that the mobility trajectories of Distinguished Young Scholars exhibit a clear stage-based pattern of “domestic cultivation–international embeddedness–domestic return.” The education stage is dominated by domestic mobility, the postdoctoral stage is characterized by the highest level of international mobility, and the employment stage is mainly marked by transnational/cross-border return mobility, gradually forming a hierarchical structure with Beijing and Shanghai as dual cores, and cities such as Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Xi’an as major receiving nodes. Mobility networks at different stages differ significantly in scale, density, and connection strength, indicating that the allocation of high-level scientific talent is strongly stage-specific. In addition, clear disciplinary heterogeneity exists between basic research fields and applied research fields in terms of modes of international embeddedness and domestic receiving structures. Accordingly, policies for high-level scientific talent should place greater emphasis on whole-career support, while taking into full account the logic of talent agglomeration, disciplinary differences, and conditions of organizational embeddedness, so as to enhance the sustained innovative capacity and long-term contribution of such talent.

The construction of an autonomous knowledge system of Chinese pedagogy is an academic proposition arising from a specific spatiotemporal perspective. This constructive process adheres to a macro spatiotemporal vision that integrates Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern perspectives, and proceed as a whole with the development strategy of integrating diverse ideological resources from both China and the past and present, highlighting Chinese characteristics in the tension between local educational realities and global educational civilizations. It achieves inheritance and innovation through cultural development and responses to contemporary issues, and comprehensively promotes innovation in the disciplinary, academic, and discourse systems of pedagogy within the unity of self-discipline and open integration. Ultimately, it shapes an autonomous knowledge system of Chinese pedagogy that possesses both theoretical grounding and an open disciplinary vision, as well as autonomous expression and extensive dialogic capacity.

Early- and mid-career university faculty in China are at a pivotal stage of research productivity and teaching development. The persistent high-pressure work environment and related health risks they face have become critical yet often overlooked challenges in the pursuit of high-quality higher education. Drawing on data from the 2023 National Survey on Faculty Career Development and focusing on 2,521 university faculty members under the age of 45, this study employs multiple linear regression analyses based on the “Job Demand–Control–Support” model, to examine how multidimensional work stress influences faculty health. The findings reveal that overall stress levels among early- and mid-career university faculty are high, exerting significant negative effects on health. Meanwhile, faculty members generally report positive job satisfaction, which not only directly enhances their health but also plays a partial mediating role between perceived stress and health outcomes, uncovering the psychological mechanism through which stress affects well-being. This study thus proposes policy implications including optimizing faculty evaluation systems to alleviate excessive pressure; developing targeted health support strategies for high-stress and health-vulnerable groups; and enhancing job satisfaction by strengthening faculty members’ sense of control and institutional support, thereby reducing health risks.

This study constructs a structural equation model incorporating the interdisciplinary education environment, interdisciplinary learning engagement, and creative thinking to examine the impact of the interdisciplinary education environment on the development of creative thinking among top innovative talents. The findings show that interdisciplinary courses have both significant positive direct effects on creative thinking and indirect effects through curricular and co-curricular interdisciplinary learning engagement. Student-centered teaching has no significant direct effect on creative thinking, but exerts a positive indirect effect by enhancing co-curricular interdisciplinary learning engagement. Organizational support—including emotional support, innovation support, and personality development support—demonstrates differentiated direct and indirect effects on creative thinking. These findings suggest the need to strengthen the alignment between interdisciplinary curricula and teaching approaches, promote the integration of formal and informal learning contexts, and establish a multidimensional and differentiated support system to facilitate the high-quality cultivation of top innovative talents.

With fierce employment competition for college graduates, artificial intelligence technology has intensified the uncertainty of the job market, and it has become increasingly difficult for graduates to match their majors with employment positions. Based on the employment data of graduates from 19 universities and research institutes across the country in 2023, this paper analyzes the impact of major mismatch on their initial employment and explores the solution paths in the “Artificial Intelligence +” era. The empirical results show that: major mismatch has a significant negative impact on initial employment; college students with major mismatch can promote their employment by improving their information search ability through AI application; “Artificial Intelligence +” technology presents a complementary effect, reducing the negative impact of major mismatch on employment; university second classrooms and refined employment support can alleviate the impact of major mismatch. It is suggested to improve the linkage mechanism between discipline and major adjustment and labor market demand, strengthen guidance on major diversion, enhance graduates’ information search ability and AI literacy, strengthen the construction of second classrooms, and provide refined support to help them achieve high-quality employment.

The extraterritorial application of the education law refers to the process by which a country applies education law with extraterritorial effect to persons, objects, and acts outside its territory. This includes two aspects: legislative organs formulating education law that possess extraterritorial effect, and judicial and administrative organs giving effect to the extraterritorial validity of education law. The extraterritorial application of education law originates from the practical weakening of the principle of territoriality in education. It not only conforms to the development trend of the expanding effect of regulatory legal norms, but also aligns with the basic principles of international law. At present, China has not formulated a unified and specialized legislation on the education law, nor has it established a systematic institutional framework for the extraterritorial application. Relevant foreign-related provisions showing a distinct feature of fragmentation. The extraterritorial application of education law has not obtained systematic and explicit confirmation. The extraterritorial application of education law cannot adopt a unified legislative model. In terms of content, it should focus on higher education and vocational education, properly handle the coordination among different norms, and pay attention to the potential legislative effects. In terms of the structure, a three-tier system should be established, featuring guidance from the basic principles of the Education Code, refinement of specialized legislative rules for extraterritorial application, and implementation of specific enforcement mechanisms.