Artificial intelligence technology poses fundamental challenges to the traditional teacher-student centered educational structure and urgently requires the construction of new educational models. The five element education model of “teacher-student-AI-environment-culture” proposes that the educational logic in the intelligent era should shift from traditional binary teaching between teachers and students to a multi element collaborative interactive network. The five element education model is student-centered with AI at its core. By reshaping learning methods, teaching methods, environmental ecology, and cultural atmosphere, it cultivates students’ core competencies of the “eleven abilities”—such as innovation and creativity—that enable them to master and surpass AI. Based on the previous exploration of Beijing Institute of Technology, this model provides an effective practical path for cultivating top-notch innovative talents in the era of intelligence.

As a vital component of China’s higher education system, local high-level universities shoulder multiple missions, including serving regional economic and social development, cultivating high-quality applied talents, and facilitating the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. This paper begins with an exploration of the evolution of China’s higher education management system, analyzing the origins of development issues faced by local universities. It then examines the current status and challenges encountered by local high-level universities. Based on case studies, the paper proposes strategies and recommendations for their construction and development. The research indicates that, compared to centrally administered universities, local high-level universities lag in policy support, talent attraction, and resource aggregation; however, they possess distinct advantages in creating regional characteristics and serving local development. To build local high-level universities, it is essential to clarify their strategic positioning and proactively align with regional development needs; dynamically adjust disciplinary and professional structures to establish mechanisms closely linked with industrial chains; develop collaborative innovation models integrating government, industry, academia, research, and application to achieve resource sharing and mutual benefits; balance the relationship between serving local interests and pursuing excellence, thereby forming comparative advantages in distinctive fields. Ultimately, local high-level universities should strive for leapfrog development through regional service and realize their value within national strategies and regional growth.

Building a leading higher education country requires a self-reliant and excellence-oriented higher education system as its institutional foundation, with sound development of local high-level universities as a new growth engine. To address typical challenges in local high-level universities—disciplinary bottlenecks, faculty constraints, suboptimal student quality, and academic exchange difficulties—it is imperative to reconsider the tractive role of doctoral education through a new “subordinate function” positioning. A new approach to advancing local high-level universities through doctoral authorization mechanism reform encompasses two key adjustments: transitioning from “single-track authorization”(first-level discipline authorization) to “dual-track authorization”(opening first and second-level discipline authorizations), and shifting from “single standard”(academic qualifications) to “comprehensive standard”(academic qualifications and knowledge transformation). The objective is to establish a “second strategic echelon” in higher education development, foster specialized and diversified growth in local universities, and enhance overall higher education system dynamism and vitality.

Amid China’s “Double First-Class” construction and regional coordinated development, local high-level universities have become key drivers of regional innovation and diversification in the national higher education system. Drawing on international experiences, this study develops an analytical framework based on institutional positioning, organizational capacity, and adaptability. It examines the development paths of four representative regional universities—The University of Manchester (UK), Michigan State University (USA), the University of Alberta (Canada), and Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan)—emphasizing their dual orientation of “local embeddedness” and “global connectivity”. Through comparative analysis of Chinese cases such as Ningbo University, Southern University of Science and Technology, and Shanghai Institute of Technology, the study identifies the evolving logic and institutional features of the “Chinese model”. The findings reveal three defining characteristics of local high-level university development: organizational differentiation, multiple service missions, and adaptive institutional space. The paper concludes with strategic recommendations to enhance institutional resilience, optimize governance, and strengthen regional integration, offering theoretical and policy insights into the diversified structure of China’s higher education and the role of local universities in a global context.

Organized interdisciplinarity is an important approach for research universities to effectively address national strategic needs and foster innovative knowledge production. However, there exists a tension between efficiency and vitality, which constrains the outcomes of interdisciplinary knowledge innovation and integration. This study selects three research universities—Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and ETH Zurich—as case studies, employing a “micro-analysis” technique to deconstruct the specific processes of organized interdisciplinarity. The findings reveal that: Building on the disciplinary foundation of research universities, the “organized approach” in interdisciplinary efforts should be regarded as an efficiency pathway rather than a meaningful goal, and both organized and free exploration paths should serve to construct a disciplinary ecosystem; Research universities primarily advance organized interdisciplinarity through practical strategies such as resource support, organizational adaptation, and cultural guidance; Multiple mechanisms, including advantage activation, resource balancing, and ecological empowerment, contribute to achieving a dynamic balance between organizational efficiency and ecological vitality in organized interdisciplinarity in research universities.

Institutional openness serves as a critical pathway toward high-level opening up. The institutional openness in higher education entails not only aligning domestic institutional mechanisms with international norms but also actively engaging in and influencing the evolution of the global governance system, characterized by comprehensiveness, systematicity, and stability. The institutional openness embodied in the “Erasmus+ Programme” in higher education is reflected in four dimensions: rules openness, regulations openness, management openness, and standards openness. The institutional development of “Erasmus+ Programme” is shaped by institutional environment, rules system, interactive system and feedback system. To advance institutional openness in higher education, China should focus on building a “resilient ecosystem”, promoting “holistic governance”, and exploring a path toward its gradual “maturation and institutionalization”.

Western China faces dual challenges of talent outflow and declining momentum. Through policy text analysis, binary Logit regression, and Tobit regression, this study investigates characteristics of talent policy instruments in Western China from 2012 to 2022 and their impact on the mobility of graduates from “Double First-Class” construction universities. It is found that the policy instruments exhibit three imbalances: between “hard input and soft support” on the supply side, “macro strategies and micro-implementation” on the environmental side, and “internal cooperation and external leverage” on the demand side. Among these instruments, infrastructure, talent development, regulatory control, tax incentives, and industry-academia-research-government cooperation are strongly predict of graduates staying to work in their hometowns, while government procurement, public services, and financial support instruments significantly attract talents. Ahead, the supply side should optimize educational resource allocation and the development of digital platforms; the environmental side should strengthen legal safeguards and the targeting of strategic measures; and the demand side should establish an industry-academia-research-government collaborative innovation system and a targeted government procurement mechanism. A dynamic policy closed-loop of “digital-intelligent optimal allocation, effective implementation, demand chain traction”will promote rational talent flow and regional innovation interaction, resolving Western China’s talent development dilemma.

This study focuses on pre-tenure early-career faculty in science and engineering disciplines. Using purposive sampling and qualitative research methods, it examines the real-life situations and academic behavioral strategies of 17 young academics amid personnel system reforms. The findings reveal that while the “tenure-track” system aims to stimulate independent research and innovation among young faculty, it also introduces issues such as six-year time constraints (the six-year assessment period), homogenized evaluation criteria (overemphasis on first-author research outputs), and ambiguities in the evaluation process (relative assessment and subjective evaluations by academic peers). These issues create significant tension with the inherent diversity and natural progression of scientific research within the university as an organic system. The study indicates that the system has a limited effect on promoting independent innovative research and collaborative efforts among pre-tenure faculty. Instead, it accelerates the rapid output of research achievements, which deviates from the steady and deliberate academic style that should ideally characterize scholarly work.

Based on panel data from 2012-2022, this study investigates the impact of higher education development on the agglomeration of scientific and technological(S&T) talents. The results indicate that higher education development drives S&T talent agglomeration, with “innovation ecosystem optimization-talent attraction enhancement” serving as a key transmission mechanism. This driving effect exhibits a threshold characteristic of increasing marginal benefits both intrinsically and through government support, and it spreads to geographically adjacent regions via spatial spillover effects. The driving effect is significant in eastern China, insignificant in central China, and exhibits a “failure paradox” in western China.. Accordingly, a gradient optimization strategy for “input-process-output” should be implemented to fully unleash the marginal benefits of higher education; the allocation system of regional innovation factors should be improved with higher education as the hub to promote the transition of S&T talent agglomeration from “scale-driven” to “ecosystem-absorptive”; and spatial linkage awareness should be strengthened, adopting a “flying geese pattern” to guide regionally differentiated development.

Top innovative talents are the core force underpinning national original innovation capacity and high-level technological self-reliance. At present, China’s integrated cultivation of top innovative talents is mainly led by secondary schools, with limited exploration extending downward to primary education and insufficient mechanisms effectively linking upward to higher education. Universities generally remain in a “post-hoc receiving” role within the talent selection and cultivation chain. Taking the role transformation of universities in integrated cultivation as a point of departure, this study draws on the cases of the United States, Germany, and Singapore to systematically examine their institutional designs and operational mechanisms in early identification, curriculum articulation, research practice, and teacher development. Based on the practical challenges facing China, the study proposes targeted suggestions: universities should shift away from a “relay-style” logic of education and reshape their mission within the national talent ecosystem; they should build tiered cooperation mechanisms to enhance the capacity of ordinary secondary schools; they should take the lead in establishing professional support systems for teachers engaged in cultivating top innovative talents; and they should strengthen their hub function to construct cross-stage collaborative governance platforms for talent cultivation.

Law combines a complete theoretical framework, rigorous logic, and a strong practical orientation. Globally, legal education faces a persistent tension between theory and practice, while Germany, through more than a century of exploration, has developed a “dual logic” that integrates the two. Using the method of the “hermeneutic circle,” this study finds that Germany has achieved a deep embedding of academic and professional communities through reforms of the state examination system, the integration of faculty roles, the consolidation of curricula, and the academicization of judicial reasoning. These reforms have fostered a bidirectional circulation between theory and practice. By contrast, the disjunction in China between legal education and practice stems largely from the pressure of the institutional environment, the weak academic research atmosphere, and a lack of mutual trust within the professional community. Future reform should focus on gradual institutional adjustments and paradigm reconstruction: cultivating dual-qualified faculty in education, establishing mechanisms for the academic transformation of guiding cases in the judiciary, and developing diversified standards in academic evaluation.

Doctoral student funding is an important guarantee for the high-quality development of doctoral education. This study analyzes 86 central and local government policy documents of doctoral funding issued from 2012 to 2025, revealing both consistency and divergence between central and local government policies. This demonstrates the authority of central policies, strong interaction between central and local governments, and relatively high efficiency in policy diffusion and implementation. However, local policies exhibit insufficient autonomy and innovation. These characteristics stem from reforms in the administration and management of higher education since the era of reform and opening-up, particularly adjustments in the financial cost-sharing mechanisms between central and local governments. Nevertheless, the division of responsibilities in doctoral education and funding between central and local authorities remains inadequately defined. Consequently, a new funding system and support framework for doctoral education must be established, granting local governments greater autonomy in doctoral education while allocating funding according to national strategic priorities.

Tracing the genesis of self-contained knowledge in China’s vocational pedagogy, its vitality, dissemination, and efficacy are fundamentally rooted in the autonomous practice of vocational education with Chinese characteristics. In the context of building a leading educational nation, the key to constructing a logical, systematic, and endogenous self-contained knowledge system for vocational pedagogy in China—and to leveraging its role in serving and supporting independent practices in vocational education—lies in strengthening the development of vocational pedagogy as a discipline in the new era. Self-contained knowledge serves as the logical core of this system. Accordingly, three epistemological frameworks have been established: one focusing on autonomous practice and knowledge in Chinese vocational education, another on the forms, content, and purposes of self-contained knowledge in vocational pedagogy, and a third on independent vocational education philosophies, theories, and knowledge points. Using these as the basis for knowledge production, a disciplinary framework for vocational pedagogy centered on the “production-dissemination-application” of self-contained knowledge has been developed. This paper further proposes systematic pathways through which the discipline of vocational education can empower the construction of an self-contained knowledge system for vocational pedagogy in China.