The Industry-University Collaboration (IUC) mechanism serves as a critical to alleviate the structural contradictions in talent cultivation between supply and demand. Based on a mixed-methods research utilizing AI-driven large language models, this study systematically explores the current situation and restrictive factors of enterprises’ deep engagement in IUC. It finds that a structural contradiction lies in the asymmetry of IUC engagement. Qualitative text analysis finds that, this contradiction primarily stems from four restrictive factors: systemic delay of teaching and research productivity in university, absence of protection for industries’ rights, inadequacy of incentive mechanisms, and information flow bottlenecks. Quantitative analysis confirms that the above factors exert significant cooling effects on enterprises’ engagement in IUC. Addressing these challenges, it is necessary to break the constraints of the higher education evaluation system, clarify the enterprises’ rights and responsibilities in IUC, establish multi-dimensional incentive mechanisms, to stimulate enterprises’ enthusiasm and promote effective IUC.

Based on panel data from 56 institutions involved in the first round of China’s “Double High-Level Plan” from 2020 to 2023, this study employs a fixed-effects model and interaction-effect analysis to examine the enabling and inhibiting effects of digital transformation on industry-education integration. The findings indicate that digital transformation significantly enhances integration effectiveness through technological efficiency and resource consolidation; however, the marginal benefits exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship, where excessive digitization can result in resource redundancy and weakened collaboration. The dispersion of professional structures and delays in technological infrastructure represent primary inhibitors, undermining the enabling effects through resource fragmentation and organizational inertia, respectively. Significant regional heterogeneity is observed, with institutions in the central and western regions displaying prominent “late-mover advantages”, while eastern institutions show diminishing returns. Therefore, digital initiatives should adhere to an optimal threshold to avoid the risks associated with over-digitization, coordinate technology investments with dual-qualified faculty training, and leverage enterprise collaboration and capability iteration to strengthen the technology-human synergy. Furthermore, professional structures should be dynamically optimized, infrastructure upgrades accelerated, and differentiated regional strategies adopted to establish complementary gradients and mitigate constraints stemming from resource fragmentation and organizational inertia.

In the era of digital transformation, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has become an important tool for enhancing research efficiency; however, its specific impact on research output remains underexplored. Based on survey data from the 2024 national doctoral graduate survey, this study investigates the effects of GenAI on the research output of doctoral students using propensity score matching and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment methods. The results indicate that GenAI usage increases doctoral students’ total research output by 6.5% and international publications by 6.9%. The effect is particularly prominent for publications in top-tier journals, with a net effect of 16.5%. However, factors such as gender and age constitute major barriers to GenAI adoption, limiting some doctoral students from reaping the full technological dividends. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis reveals that the benefits of GenAI use vary significantly across different disciplines and academic environments. For doctoral students with insufficient mentor guidance, although GenAI promotes the output of the total number of papers and international publications, it fails to yield significant benefits for top-tier journal publications. Accordingly, this study recommends the systematic integration of GenAI into doctoral training systems, the development of intelligent resource-sharing platforms, and the strengthening of ethical norms and fairness safeguards. These measures aim to promote the rational application of the technology and the equitable sharing of digital dividends, thereby fostering the high-quality and sustainable development of doctoral education.

After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, our country pays more and more attention to data governance, and the chief data officer system has achieved remarkable results. In the digital transformation of higher education, the concrete practice of university chief data officer as an organizational method of data governance has become the key to university data governance, but this system is still in its infancy in China. It is found that the chief data officer of colleges and universities originates from enterprises and then extends to the government and colleges and universities. It provides solutions to the data governance problems of colleges and universities in four aspects: data value mining, data analysis and application, data security guarantee and cross-department data collaborative governance. The realization of its functions follows three layers of logic: organization status from unclear positioning to authoritative construction; power allocation gradually deepens around data security, data value and data culture; management system tends to be refined by perfecting selection and appointment and communication coordination mechanism. In view of this, the introduction of the system of chief data officer in colleges and universities in China needs to determine the organizational status, formulate the list of rights and responsibilities, perfect the management system, finally construct a set of scientific university data governance system and improve the efficiency of university data governance from three dimensions of standardization, legalization and refinement.

The Education Powerhouse Development Plan (2024-2035) explicitly advocates advancing university reform through classified governance. As core pillars of national strategic scientific and technological capabilities, universities’ performance in basic and applied innovation directly shapes the trajectory of achieving scientific and technological self-reliance. Leveraging panel data from 75 universities directly administered by the Ministry of Education from 2012 to 2020, this study examines the heterogeneous effects of vertical (government-funded) and horizontal (industry-funded) research expenditures on ambidextrous innovation (basic and applied innovation). Key findings reveal that vertical funding significantly enhances basic innovation and demonstrates a stronger positive effect on applied innovation compared to horizontal funding. In science and engineering-oriented universities, vertical funding promotes both innovation types, with a more pronounced effect on basic innovation. In comprehensive universities, both vertical and horizontal funds positively influence applied innovation. Vertical funding exhibits a stronger marginal effect on ambidextrous innovation in less-developed regions relative to developed regions. Horizontal funding’s positive impact on applied innovation displays structural heterogeneity at higher quantiles.

“Local policies” are a common form of policy manifestation in the governance practice of higher education.According to the analytical framework of “performance attraction - policy ambiguity”, local policies are classified into four types: active exploration type, layer upon layer accumulation type, symbolic coping type and procedural void transformation type. And it is analyzed in detail by combining four cases in the governance of higher education, namely the comprehensive reform of higher education, the performance assessment of academic research in colleges and universities, internationalized education, and the construction of university charters in local colleges and universities. The performance of the four types of land policies varies slightly in terms of policy goal fit and policy implementation effectiveness, but they can achieve dynamic transformation under specific conditions. From the perspective of the generation logic of local policies, the flexible policy boundary is its generation space, that is, local policies arise from the power boundary between the central and local governments and universities, from the interest boundary where multiple subjects coexist and compete,and from the structural gap in the normative boundary.

Institutional opening-up is an important direction for China to promote a new round of high-level opening-up to the outside world, and its connotation has gradually expanded from the traditional economic and trade fields to key areas such as education, and higher education is becoming an important breakthrough in institutional opening-up. This paper focuses on the Free Trade Zone (Port) as a pilot area of institutional opening-up, and explores its unique practice and mechanism innovation in the field of higher education. Through combing the typical experiences of international FTZs in promoting the opening-up of higher education, it summarise the multi-dimensional pathways from five aspects: institutional foundation, regulatory mechanism, policy support, personnel mobility and innovation ecosystem. The study further analyses the institutional exploration of China’s FTZs (Ports) in the field of higher education, including policy experimentation, rule docking and two-way opening-up mechanism, highlighting their experimental and exemplary role in institutional opening-up. On this basis, it puts forward policy suggestions such as optimising the top-level design, improving the regulatory system, strengthening policy synergy and building an ecology of industry-education integration, so as to promote the continuous improvement of the path of institutional opening-up of higher education with Chinese characteristics, and to help the in-depth integration of opening-up of education to the outside world and high-quality development.

The concept of ademic status encompasses both scholarly classification of individuals within the academic community and the institutional stratification imposed by the state. Through case studies of national talent programs, this paper innovatively incorporates academic status into understanding China’s national academic governance, to examine how academic status influences the needs, motivations, and behaviors of university faculty through competitive selection criteria, interwoven recognition mechanisms, stepwise advancement processes, and comprehensive incentive systems. It shows that national talent programs are institutional designs that focus on the cognitive processes, decision-making psychology, and behavioral patterns of governance subjects. By shaping individual needs, motivations, and behaviors, these programs aim to achieve governance objectives through non-coercive, low-cost interest-driven and meaning-oriented approaches. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the diverse and continuous dynamic mechanisms shaping individual cognition and behaviors, while offering insights for the practice of academic governance.

As top academic talents, the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have strategic value in promoting scientific progress and fostering global academic networks. Based on Social Network Theory, this paper traces the transnational mobility trajectories and international research collaboration networks of 51 academicians, from their doctoral studies to their pre-election periods, using a mixed-method. The study reveals the dynamic processes of social capital accumulation and transformation, supported by several cases studies. The findings show that these academicians primarily follow two transnational mobility patterns: the “compound flow” type and the “international infiltration” type. A geopolitical hierarchical structure has emerged, dominated by the “U.S. core” and the “European core”. From a social capital perspective, their networks have undergone a dynamic evolution: from an initial emphasis on strong, mentor-apprentice relationships to weak ties facilitated by structural holes, and eventually maintaining strong international connections through their students. The paper suggests that to enhance China’s scientific and technological competitiveness, talent policies should remain flexible, emphasizing the network-expansion role of weak ties, and fully leveraging the role of academicians as transnational bridges.

This study takes “Double First-Class” construction universities as the research objects and employs the grounded theory method to reveal the actual decision-making process of optimization and adjustment of degree authorization points in universities. The study finds that the decision-making paths，within the framework of national regulation and provincial coordination, adhere to the principles of serving needs, promoting innovation, highlighting strengths, and ensuring quality. The institutional system exhibits an overall characteristic of primarily national regulation with school-based characteristics as a supplement.Additionally, universities establish a quality management mechanism characterized by “rigid constraint, flexible safeguard and dynamic feedback” effectively linking dynamic monitoring and evaluation results to support decisions. Based on the existing practical issues, the study proposes optimization strategies targeting “institutional improvement” “balance of interests” “disciplinary integration” and “data empowerment” from four dimensions “vertical integration” “horizontal collaboration” “networked resonance” and “foundational support”.

With the implementation of the Degree Law and the construction of National Institute of Outstanding Engineers, applying for degrees based on practical achievements is becoming a key direction for reform in postgraduate engineering education. This study empirically examines the characteristics of dissertation in practice centered on practical outcomes and their mechanisms of influence on the development of engineering talents. The findings show that dissertation in practice significantly enhance the practical skills, innovative capacity, transferable skills, and digital literacy of engineering master’s students, thereby improving their employment quality. This effect is evident in both professional and academic engineering master’s programs. Mechanistically, dissertation in practice are characterized by alignment with real industrial demands, integration into enterprise R&D projects, collaborative supervision from academia and industry, and the application of digital twin technologies. These features promote the integration of scientific research with engineering practice, thus empowering the cultivation of high-level, excellent engineering professionals.

The continuous analysis of vocational education research papers and hotspots over a decade provides important support for accelerating the high-quality development and construction of independent knowledge system of Chinese vocational education. A statistical review of research papers published in 27 education journals reveals that public undergraduate universities contribute a significantly higher proportion of publications than public vocational (junior college) institutions. “Double First-Class” construction universities and “Double High-Level Plan” colleges stand out as major contributors to vocational education research performance. In terms of regional distribution, the eastern region demonstrates a significantly higher volume of publications and greater institutional research participation than other regions. Research hubs have gradually formed, along with influential institutions and research communities with strong academic leadership in the field of vocational education. The research hotspots in vocational education exhibit a degree of continuity and show dynamic interactions with national policies, social issues, and higher education research. Based on a comprehensive analysis of keyword frequency, this study identifies the top ten academic hotspots in vocational education research for 2024 and provides an in-depth examination of the research progress, key perspectives and future research trends.