Against the macro backdrop of building an educational powerhouse and advancing Chinese modernization, the interaction between universities and regions has been endowed with new significance in the current era. Based on national strategic needs and the current state of higher education development, this article systematically analyzes the issues of regional “imbalanced and inadequate development” in China’s higher education. It elucidates the functional positioning of universities as the pivotal hubs for “cultivating talent, driving innovation, and leading cultural development”. The article proposes that universities need to deepen their symbiotic relationship with regions through three major pathways: “structural reform, transformational change in models, and systemic reform”. This involves further optimizing educational evaluation and internal governance to stimulate endogenous motivation. Looking ahead, more universities should progress from?“grounding locally while aspiring globally”?to?“trailblazing uncharted territories”,?serving national strategies through deep integration into regional development and contributing the wisdom and strength of Chinese higher education to the world.

The classified development and evaluation of higher education institutions represent the top-level design for high-quality development in China’s higher education sector, as well as a major initiative in the reform of the governance system and mechanisms. The classification-based evaluation of higher education institutions exerts a strong guiding influence on their classified development, necessitating a logical congruence between the two. This article begins by interpreting the concepts of classified development and classification-based evaluation of higher education institutions and introducing their policy background. It then analyzes the logical congruence between classified development and classification-based evaluation, supplemented by a case study of practical experiences in the United States. By elaborating on the value logic and open logic of the reform in classification-based evaluation, and through discussions on the effectiveness evaluation of “Double First-Class” construction universities and the evaluation of general higher education institutions, this article proposes key development directions for the reform of classification-based evaluation that are conducive to the classified development of higher education institutions in the new era. These directions include value guidance, framework construction, theoretical innovation, and the refinement of evaluation indicators.

As the core combination point of technology as the primary productive force, talent as the primary resource, and innovation as the primary driving force, universities are deeply embedded in the overall national strategy and serve as a key hub supporting the construction of an educational powerhouse. The “15th Five-Year Plan” is a crucial period for building a strong education country. The development strategy of universities should anchor the goals of building a strong country and national rejuvenation, deeply rooted in the century-old gene of “saving the country, rejuvenating the country, and building a strong country”. Through the symbiotic evolution of historical position and the mission of the times, the dynamic balance of law cognition and strategic adaptation, the integration and innovation of digital intelligence empowerment and the essence of education, the development paradigm should be systematically reconstructed. The development of universities requires interdisciplinary integration to solve the “bottleneck” technical problems and build an independent knowledge system; Guided by cultural values, deepen mutual learning among civilizations and enhance international discourse power; Guided by social demand, improve the precision service mechanism and enhance service efficiency. The university will achieve a strategic leap from “adapting to the environment” to “leading transformation” by serving the self-reliance and self-improvement of science and technology, fostering new quality productive forces, and building an innovative country, thereby providing core strategic support for Chinese-style modernization.

Strategic planning in higher education institutions constitutes a pivotal institutional arrangement for steering the high-quality development of higher education, characterized by a composite structure integrating formal and informal institutions. Empirical evidence derived from a survey of 2995 administrators and frontline faculty members across 65 local universities reveals that both formal and informal institutions have a significant positive role in promoting planning implementation and governance efficiency, with the informal institutions demonstrating a more pronounced facilitating effect. Planning implementation serves as a partial mediator between formal/informal institutions and governance efficiency. Core resource allocation positively moderates the relationship between formal institutions and planning implementation, yet exhibits no significant moderating effect on the relationship between informal institutions and planning implementation. Based on these findings, local universities should adopt a multifaceted approach by: strengthening institutional synergy to construct a complementary planning institution integrating formal and informal mechanisms; optimizing planning implementation through strengthening the transformation, incentive constraints, and dynamic adjustment mechanisms of the institutional implementation; and leveraging resource differentiation to unleash the advantages of institutional cultural resources.

The academic committee system is a critical measure for comprehensively deepening reform in Chinese higher education and advancing the modernization of internal university governance. Drawing on the relative autonomy of secondary colleges, the ambiguity of institutional implementation paths, and goal conflict, this study classifies the implementation of the academic committee system into four modes: exploratory experimentation, selective compliance, political bargaining, and symbolic performance. Through a qualitative inquiry into case universities, it verifies these four implementation types and analyzes their generative logic. Influenced by managerial and professional logics, colleges leverage governance consensus, rigid rules, scarce resources, and external legitimacy. By employing strategies of full empowerment, limited delegation, bargaining, and practice decoupling, they shape the results of the “embeddedness” or “suspension” of the academic committee system. To promote the implementation of the academic committee system, it is necessary to improve a good-governance-oriented institutional supply system to balance rigid constraints and flexible spaces; perfect pluralistic governance structures and cooperation mechanisms to avoid power anomie and coordination barriers; and cultivate an organizational culture of shared governance to shape value norms and governance identity.

Cultivating top-notch innovative talent in foundational disciplines is a strategic task in building a strong education nation, and academic aspiration is vital to top-notch students’ development. Using Q methodology, this study examines the aspiration types and their formation among 23 top-notch students. We identify three types: an interest-first, intrinsically driven type; a reality-oriented, goal-integrative type; and a hesitant, passively sustained type. They conrrespond to the veritists, pragmatists, and strugglers. Differences in program-application logic, academic and research experiences, and attitudes toward external evaluation and competition jointly shape these patterns. Accordingly, tailored support is needed to help students sustain growth that serves both long-term personal development and national strategic needs.

The Pilot Reform Program of Enrollment for Fundamental Disciplines represents the inaugural and culminating point of a comprehensive initiative designed to facilitate the entry of highly qualified and innovative individuals into pivotal scientific research domains that address the country’s most critical strategic requirements. The program has been demonstrated to markedly enhance students’ research career intentions. Among the factors influencing students’ research career intention, curriculum resources exert the greatest influence, followed by learning autonomy, academic activities, and an innovative environment. Research self-efficacy plays an intermediary role in the process of the Pilot Reform Program of Enrollment for Fundamental Disciplines affecting students’ research career intentions, with career value beliefs exerting a slightly higher intermediary effect than research self-efficacy. The persistence dimension of grit further mediated research self-efficacy, while the passion dimension mediated both research self-efficacy and career value beliefs. Therefore, it is recommended to expand the coverage of the Pilot Reform Program of Enrollment for Fundamental Disciplines, optimize curriculum resource development, enhance research self-ef?cacy and career value cognition, and introduce grit cultivation modules to strengthen the research career aspirations of Pilot Reform Program of Enrollment for Fundamental Disciplines students.

This study examines the role of gatekeeper courses and non-cognitive traits in the onset and transformation of under-achievement among STEM undergraduates from the 2020 cohort at a “Double First-Class” construction university in China. The findings are as follows. First, over 13% of STEM students experienced academic difficulties, which can be classified into four distinct patterns: early-onset, persistent, late-onset occasional, and late-onset stable. Second, students with academic difficulties consistently underperformed in mathematics and physics—two critical gatekeeper courses—compared to their peers. Difference-in-differences (DID) analysis reveals a widening performance gap, and regression models further confirm the pivotal role of gatekeeper course performance in the onset of academic difficulties. Third, while the transformation of under-achievement is not associated with gatekeeper course grades or family background, it is significantly linked to non-cognitive traits. Students who overcame early difficulties exhibited non-cognitive profiles—such as perseverance and a focus on personal growth—similar to their non-struggling peers, rather than to other struggling students. These findings highlight two key intervention strategies: improving performance in gatekeeper courses is essential to prevent the onset of academic difficulties, while fostering non-cognitive skills—particularly goal-setting and perseverance—plays a crucial role in facilitating recovery once under-achievement have emerged.

Teaching motivation and teaching engagement are two key factors influencing teachers’ professional development and students’ learning outcomes. Based on survey data from 7 996 teachers across 134 undergraduate institutions nationwide, this study applied latent profile analysis to examine the profiles, effects, and distribution characteristics of teaching motivation and engagement among Chinese university teachers. The results identified five distinct profiles: low motivation and low engagement, relatively low motivation and low engagement, high motivation but low engagement, low motivation but high engagement, and high motivation and high engagement. Each profile was influenced by environmental factors, and their distribution varied across demographic variables. The study deepens the understanding of teaching mechanisms among Chinese university teachers.

China prioritizes high-quality and full employment for graduates by deepening the industry-education integration. Using data from the 2024 annual quality reports of 1 003 higher vocational colleges, this study finds that such integration significantly improves graduates’ employment quality, with effect sizes following the order: job quality > wages > employment opportunities. Specifically, it demonstrates a clear “cumulative advantage effect” effect on overall employment quality and job quality, a distinct “compensatory effect” effect on employment opportunities, and a mixed effect on wages. Colleges that are in the central region, public, and out of the “Double High-Level Plan” benefit more in overall employment quality and job quality. Colleges that are in the western region, private, out of the science, engineering, agriculture, and medical fields, and out of the “Double High-Level Plan” benefit more in employment opportunities. Colleges that are in the eastern region, private, out of the science, engineering, agriculture, and medical fields, and in the “Double High-Level Plan” benefit more in wages. To effectively leverage the positive impact of industry-education integration, it is necessary to build a multi-collaborative promotion mechanism, establish a tiered and progressive practical model, and implement context-specific support policies.

Program accreditation plays a pivotal role in safeguarding and enhancing the quality of skilled talent cultivation in higher vocational education and in promoting industry-education integration. However, existing accreditation systems often struggle to respond effectively to rapid industrial and technological iteration, exposing a pronounced “time-lag” problem. Slow standard development, lengthy formulation cycles, and delayed improvement mechanisms create persistent tensions with the rapidly evolving demands of industry for technical and skilled personnel, thereby undermining the validity and practical value of accreditation. The concept of agility—aligned with accreditation in terms of values, methodologies, and organizational culture—offers a promising pathway for reform. This study introduces agile principles into the quality assurance framework of higher vocational education and proposes an agile model for vocational program accreditation. The model is structured around three core components: a dynamic standards repository, modular micro-credential units, and a data-driven dashboard, enabling talent cultivation to remain synchronized with industrial transformation. Nonetheless, translating the agile model from conceptual design into practical implementation presents notable challenges. These challenges can be addressed through the establishment of collaborative governance mechanisms to overcome governance constraints, the deployment of technological empowerment and institutional incentives to mitigate cost pressures, and the adoption of compensatory policies to ensure equity.