Higher vocational education holds a significant position in China’s educational system, and the high-quality technical and skilled talents it cultivates contribute to economic and social development. Based on data from the Chinese College Graduate Employment Survey (CCGES) and the Statistical Data of Education Funding from 2009 to 2019, this study finds that public education financial investment can significantly enhance the starting salary of vocational college graduates. This conclusion remains valid even after addressing endogeneity by constructing an instrumental variable based on the per-student funding system in vocational colleges established in 2014. The mechanism behind this impact lies in the fact that public education financial investment enriches institutional resources, improves the education quality, and facilitates better major-job congruence for graduates. The increase in public education financial investment particularly benefits graduates from low-economic-capital families and has a more pronounced effect in schools located in financially constrained regions of western and central China. The findings of this study highlight the effectiveness and equity of public education financial investment, as well as its positive implications for promoting high-quality employment.

The unclear talent training positioning of vocational education system hinders its connotation development. Based on Arthur’s Theory of the Nature of Technology, a theoretical framework is built to analyze the technical realization process of occupational goals, clarifying the stratified correspondence among vocational technology, activities, personnel and education. Specifically, secondary vocational education trains operators of individual technology; higher vocational college education trains its improvement personnel; vocational undergraduate education trains the users of domains; master’s vocational education trains its planners; doctoral vocational education trains its improvement personnel. Thus, it’s necessary to consolidate the status of secondary vocational education, clarify the boundary of higher vocational college education, establish the knowledge system of vocational undergraduate education, and explore the practical path of vocational graduate education.

The development of vocational education at the undergraduate level is a significant institutional reform in China’s vocational education system. The attractiveness of vocational undergraduate universities is not only a key factor in achieving the reform objectives but also an important indicator for evaluating its effectiveness. Based on organizational ecology theory, this study applies the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine 50 vocational undergraduate universities, and identifies 4 configuration paths that enhance institutional attractiveness: the school self-enhancement type under low competition, the policy-driven type based on strong organizational capacity, the location-enabled type led by advantageous programs, and the synergistic type of organizational capacity and resource endowment. Institutional type is a necessary condition for attractiveness, while program offerings and organizational capacity are key contributing factors. A compensatory relationship is observed among location advantages, policy support, and competition from other universities. Enhancing the attractiveness of vocational undergraduate universities requires optimizing their spatial distribution and strengthening the development of pilot schools.

Article 40 of the Degree Law establishes an academic review system, while Article 41 stipulates the selection of relief modes for degree review, internal appeals, and requests for relevant authorities to handle them. This formulation has resulted in a disconnect and inconsistency between internal and external relief. Based on historical interpretation, the connection between degree review and external remedies has not been fully clarified from the draft of the Degree Law for soliciting opinions to the draft of the Degree Law and then, resulting in a contradiction between internal and external remedies. This is precisely due to the conflict between the subjective intention of legislation and the objective system. Based on the system interpretation, academic review is defined as final outcome within the school, but there are difficulties in the acceptance subject, behavior type, and institutional function of degree administrative review. Therefore, “degree review appeal” can be developed as the main channel mechanism for review relief and equipped with judicial review. At the same time, a three-level relief linkage system consisting of academic relief, appeal relief, and external relief should be constructed at the levels of organizational law, appeal mechanism, and due process.

Although the cultivation of foreign-related legal talents in Chinese universities has undergone more than 20 years of exploration driven by policies, there are still practical difficulties in the face of the complex environment of international rule system reconstruction and intensified institutional competition in emerging fields, such as insufficient talent supply and a disconnect between professional abilities and strategic needs. This exposes the prominent contradiction that classical training models are difficult to adapt to the practice of foreign-related legal systems in the new era. An empirical study was conducted on the training mode of foreign-related legal talents using 28 designated universities by the Ministry of Education as samples, and it was found that there is a dual dilemma of structural imbalance and Operational Deviation in the current training of foreign-related legal talents. In this context, we should take strategic orientation as the core, establish a hierarchical training system, build a pyramid shaped talent supply mechanism, implement industry demand feedback and regional tactical adaptation strategies, and achieve fundamental improvement in the quality and efficiency of foreign-related legal talent training through the establishment of a full cycle dynamic evaluation system, strengthening the construction of foreign-related teaching staff and the ecological reform path of talent export transformation mechanism.

Inquiry-based teaching is an important means of teaching reform in Chinese universities. The integration of artificial intelligence brings both opportunities and controversies to inquiry-based teaching. The inquiry nature of such teaching is manifested in: the depth of knowledge based on profound knowledge, the problem-oriented approach driven by sustainable advancing questions, and the inquiry process organized in a way similar to scientific research. However, in the era of artificial intelligence, there is a hidden concern of “wound of inquiry”, which is specifically manifested as the shallowness of advanced knowledge learning, the lack of effective problem traction, and the loss of significance in the inquiry process. The cause lies in the invasion of technological culture. The accelerated culture of technology has encroached upon the space for quiet reflection. The pursuit of visibility has created new obstacles to the intellectual freedom. The dominance of technological discourse has severed the connection between research and teaching. Therefore, it is necessary to rationally situate artificial intelligence in research-based teaching, reinforce the foundational purpose of research-based teaching in the era of artificial intelligence, and rebuild research-based teaching based on the inherent requirements of research. Only by fully leveraging the practical wisdom, creativity, and judgment of both teachers and students in the face of technology can high-quality inquiry-based teaching be truly achieved.

The “Double Thousand” Plan is the latest measure to solve the contradiction between the supply and demand structure of college students’ employment and encourage universities to swiftly meet economic and industrial needs. To reduce misconceptions and blind actions in practice, it is necessary to first clarify the objective and practical reasons: Firstly, the dual-edged nature of technology and the rapid evolution of professions exacerbate the skills gap among graduates; Secondly, Mode 4 of knowledge production continues to promote the cultivation of interdisciplinary professionals in universities; Thirdly, open education technology has opened up new avenues for personalized lifelong learning. The interpretation of the connotation of the “Double Thousand” Plan can be traced back to the essence of the curriculum, which has four key characteristics: cutting-edge applicability in direction, cross flexibility in organization, technological integration in implementation, and employment linkage in evaluation. In this regard, universities can conceive and implement a path from four dimensions: planning a closed-loop top-level design of “direction-planning-management-monitoring”, developing a project-based or situational module curriculum system, establishing a collaborative teaching and evaluation mechanism for industry education integration, and using digital technology to empower and strengthen teaching resource investment.

Clarifying whether China’s professional engineering postgraduate education currently faces the dilemma of “emphasizing theory while neglecting practice” is critical to ensuring the quality of talent enhancement. Based on a survey of 3 436 professional engineering postgraduate students nationwide, the findings reveal that both traditional and experiential teaching paradigms significantly promote the development of theoretical knowledge and practical skills in engineering, with experiential teaching showing greater effectiveness. Moreover, professional identity plays a mediating role in this process, while the effectiveness of intelligent teaching is insignificant. However, for engineering doctoral students, intelligent teaching enhances their engineering theoretical knowledge, whereas traditional and experiential teaching show no significant effects. In addition, industry-oriented courses strengthen the effectiveness of both experiential and intelligent teaching. Accordingly, it is necessary to reinforce the application of intelligent teaching in engineering education, optimize the alignment of traditional and experiential teaching in doctoral training, and promote the synergistic integration of experiential teaching, intelligent teaching, and industry-oriented curricula.

Cultivating innovative engineering talents through interdisciplinary approaches represents a critical initiative for universities to optimize disciplinary structures and pedagogical models responding to technological innovation trends. This study conducts a comparative analysis of interdisciplinary engineering programs at four universities, including Purdue University. Findings reveal that driven by environmental, institutional, and student needs, programs develop dual pathways combining predetermined specializations with student-designed concentrations. They construct a curriculum grounded in the principle of sustainability and built around cutting-edge interdisciplinary courses and capstone projects, implement faculty development through departmental or cross-school collaboration, and achieve governance via advising services, committees, and stakeholder institutions. The study proposes that China's Emerging Engineering Education (NEEE) initiative should promote sustainable interdisciplinary development based on emerging technologies and reshape learning boundaries through holistic engineering perspectives.

Part-time industry-based faculty represent a pivotal force for deepening industry-education integration and fostering breakthrough innovation. This study employs Natural Language Processing to measure breakthrough innovation, using a sample of listed companies to investigate the impact and underlying mechanisms of appointing such faculty. The findings reveal that part-time industry-based faculty have a significant and positive influence on breakthrough innovation. This effect is mediated through three channels: enhancing the depth of industry-university-research collaboration, strengthening a firm’s technological R&D orientation, and improving talent attraction. Furthermore, the relationship is positively moderated by the availability of university-industry cooperation resources and a firm’s organizational absorptive capacity. The promotional effect is more pronounced in firms located in central and western regions of China and in state-owned enterprises. The study suggests leveraging the bridging role of these faculty members to build a holistic breakthrough innovation system, while implementing differentiated strategies tailored to regional endowments and firm characteristics to promote coordinated innovation.

Promoting the reform of faculty employment systems in Chinese universities is not only an essential institutional requirement for the connotation-based development of higher education, but also an imperative in building a modern university system. This paper analyzes the academic and professional attributes of university faculty, clarifying the conceptual foundations of faculty employment systems and emphasizing the central role of tenure. Tracing the development of China’s university faculty employment system through four stages—incubation, initiation, promotion, and development—the study draws on theories of new institutionalism, academic career lifecycle, motivation, and stakeholder engagement to explain the logic behind the evolution and implementation of these systems. It also identifies a trend of value distortion in current practices, driven by excessive emphasis on instrumental rationality and performance metrics. To restore the normative values of China’s faculty employment system, the paper proposes a multifaceted strategy: upholding the threefold goals of identification, motivation, and safeguard; improving five interrelated subsystems—position structuring, recruitment, evaluation, incentives, and exit mechanisms; defining three institutional standards—contract duration, ranks, and recruitment boundaries; and clearing two governance pathways—democratization and legal safeguards.

In the global transition of teacher education toward professionalization, China has developed a distinctive model with notable achievements, yet still faces key challenges: unclear positioning of training institutions, a relative decline in teachers’ academic standards, and uneven teacher distribution. Research indicates international consensus on the strategic importance of teacher education. A correlation exists between the status of the teaching profession and that of normal universities. Institutional level outweighs institutional type in importance, and normal universities remain irreplaceable within China’s system. Cultivating high-quality teachers at scale while ensuring equitable distribution remains a worldwide challenge, yet it is central to China’s teacher education approach. This feasibility stems from active state intervention under CPC leadership, which combines national strategic guidance with efficient market-based resource allocation. To strengthen the system, China should promote participation of “Double First-Class” construction universities in teacher education, maintain and enhance normal universities, expand targeted support programs, increase directed enrollment in teacher training, and improve teacher status and compensation to boost the profession’s appeal.

The development of an original philosophy and social science textbook system with Chinese characteristics is an inevitable requirement for accelerating the construction of high-quality textbook and high-quality education systems, is an era demand for achieving a systematic leap from a large country to a leading country in education. The proposal of original philosophy and social science textbooks and textbook system with Chinese characteristics is underpinned by contemporary, historical, and practical logic. Accentuating “Chinese characteristics” is the defining feature of the new era philosophy and social science textbook system. Highlighting originality is a hallmark of high-level philosophy and social science textbooks in the new era. The essence of original philosophy and social science textbooks with Chinese characteristics is distinguished innovative textbooks characterized primarily by independent and original innovation. To achieve a systematic leap towards an original philosophy and social science textbook system with Chinese characteristics in the new era, it is necessary to grasp the overall direction of ideological leadership, practice orientation, innovation drive, and systems integration.

The attribution of academic theses implicates multiple legal and ethical domains, including the Degree Law, Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (Part on Contracts), Copyright Law, and academic ethics. Due to the structural imbalance of power among students, supervisors, and institutions, students often lack genuine autonomy when signing copyright agreements concerning their theses. The current Contract Law framework provides limited remedies for such “non-voluntary” agreements, necessitating administrative guidance and regulatory intervention. Contrary to prevailing practices, Copyright Law analysis reveals that, under certain circumstances, academic theses may qualify as works made for hire, commissioned works, or joint works. The protection of the thesis author’s moral and intellectual interests should be ensured through the requirement of a “mutual intention to create jointly” for joint authorship, and universities should be allowed discretion in this regard based on their educational objectives. Given the limitations of Copyright Law in addressing disputes such as authorship order, academic ethics serve as an indispensable complementary framework. Existing deficiencies in the current system call for localized authorship guidelines, promotion of written authorship agreements, improved mediation and arbitration mechanisms, and the supplementary supervisory role of academic journals.

The cultivation of foreign-related legal talents is the forerunner and main force of the practice-oriented cultivation mechanism of law schools. Practice-oriented is the first clear orientation of goal in the cultivation of foreign-related legal talents, providing a stable and flexible concept for guidance. Currently, the practice-oriented cultivation of foreign-related legal talents faces three challenges: the lack of precision in the degree setting of universities, the lack of identification of practical needs, and the lack of synergy in the collaborative innovation bases for foreign-related legal talents. In this regard, firstly, a series of appropriate uniform standards should be set up for the mechanism, with the situation of an all-round, multi-level cultivation of foreign-related legal talents in the country. Secondly, colleges and universities and practical departments should fully study the practical demand, utilizing local advantages with regional characteristics for the cultivation of foreign-related legal talents. Finally, rewards and incentives should be set up for practical experts. The “two teachers in one class” mode should be optimized by strengthening the practical qualities of teachers in colleges and universities.

In the era of Big Science, interdisciplinary doctoral training driven by collaboration among diverse knowledge producers has emerged as a critical trend in U.S. research universities’ educational reform. Through cross-boundary integration of independent entities, U.S. research universities and national laboratories have built a fractal innovation ecosystem based on knowledge production mode Ⅲ have developed synergistic organizational frameworks underpinned by innovative partnerships. These frameworks emphasize the co-creation of interdisciplinary platforms and resource-sharing mechanisms for talent, funding, and infrastructure. Key practical strategies include integrated collaborative training programs, rotational training models spanning multiple institutional phases, and project-driven research practicums. Together, these approaches forge an interdisciplinary doctoral education paradigm distinguished by its fusion of theoretical rigor and applied practice. The U.S. experience provides instructive lessons for China. Guided by the national reform agenda integrating education, science, and talent development, China should advance the convergence of research and education to establish institutionalized collaboration mechanisms between elite research universities and national laboratories, thereby accelerating the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents.

To seek a solution to the problem of delayed graduation of doctoral students, this paper analyzes the trend and influencing factors of delayed graduation of doctoral students in China and the United States from an international comparative perspective. The results show that both the rate of recent doctoral students’ postponement and the cumulative postponement rate in China have been rising slowly. Nearly one-third of the current doctoral students are postponement doctoral students, and it is estimated that over 60% of the graduating doctoral students will be postponement doctoral students. The duration of study for doctoral students in the United States has remained at a high level, but it has slightly declined in recent years. From the perspective of influencing factors, the transformation of knowledge production models and the misalignment of the logic of doctoral student training, as well as the expansion of doctoral student enrollment and the imbalance of the training environment in departments and colleges, have shaped the macro background. The disintegration of students with academic culture, relationship networks, and departmental systems has constructed the micro picture. The above factors jointly induce a deviation between the training of doctoral students and the laws of advanced knowledge production, and thus lead to a gradual increase in the rate of delay. To alleviate the current situation of delayed graduation of doctoral students, China urgently needs to improve in the reform of the academic system, the construction of the diversion mechanism and the academic support for doctoral students.

Based on the Triadic Reciprocal Determinism, the innovative ability of doctoral students is the result of the interaction among academic subjects, research practice, and the academic ecosystem. The elements of academic subjects include cognitive foundation, thinking traits, and psychological capital; the elements of research practice cover exploratory behavior, design behavior, and implementation behavior; and the elements of the academic ecosystem involve material support, cultural guidance, institutional incentives, and mentor guidance and support. In the interactions among these three aspects, the interaction between the academic ecosystem and research practice generates guiding elements, the interaction between research practice and academic subjects strengthens behavioral elements, and the interaction between the academic ecosystem and academic subjects shapes an innovative atmosphere. Through these interactions, the innovative ability of doctoral students is jointly shaped and enhanced. The cultivation of doctoral students’ innovative ability should be systematically advanced from three dimensions: individual empowerment, practice construction, and ecosystem optimization, to promote the coordinated development of innovative subjects, cognitive levels, behavioral patterns, and the external environment, and effectively stimulate the innovative potential and academic creativity of doctoral students.

Promoting high-level comprehensive university systems to participate in teacher education is a strategic action to optimize the national teacher supply. However, it faces institutional tension in policy implementation, theoretical paradoxes in discipline construction, and organizational coupling dilemmas in the field of practice. Based on the extension of Burton Clark’s conceptual framework of higher education system, a double helix coupling model of “instructional knowledge integration” and “embedded power game” is constructed. Knowledge integration is carried out through regulatory, guiding and empowering instruction systems, and power games are embedded in specific fields such as resource allocation, curriculum dominance and personnel appointment. The interaction between the two generates four ideal types of coupling mechanisms: absorption, confrontation, negotiation and iteration, which evolve dynamically according to university governance structure, discipline culture and external pressure. Therefore, in building a teacher education system, high-level comprehensive universities must transcend the single instructional thinking and zero-sum game of power, and use differentiated coupling mechanisms according to local conditions to form a self-improving and continuously innovative generative teacher education ecology.

China is constructing young research universities. Whether or not those young research universities established in different continents, countries or regions have similar developmental status and models? The paper selects 19 samples with a history of no longer than 50 years from the global top 100 young research universities under the common constraints. It applies quantitative statistics and comparative methods, and makes teaching, research, citation, industry income and international outlook as analysis dimensions. The paper studies on the developmental status of world young research universities between 2019 and 2023, and generalizes the developmental models and their features of world young research universities. The seven universities present the barn-shaped model with a relative balanced in analysis dimensions and obvious changes in university operation; the twelve universities present the spindle-shaped model with the preferences in citation and internationalization, and relative stability in their developments.

This study focuses on the synergistic development of research aspiration and participation behavior among undergraduate students enrolled in the Strengthening Basic Disciplines Plan (SBD Plan). Based on identity theory and employing a mixed-methods approach, we conducted empirical research on SBD students enrolled in a pilot university of the SBD Plan from 2020 to 2023. Compared to regular admission students, SBD students exhibit a higher proportion of the “cohesion” type and a lower proportion of the “dual deficiency” type. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the SBD Plan’s selection process and early research intervention. However, a significant 40% of SBD students fall into the “participation without aspiration” type, higher than the 35% observed among regular admission students, indicating a disconnection between their research aspiration and participation behavior. Disciplinary heterogeneity manifests as follows: natural sciences students often instrumentalize research due to postgraduate pressure; engineering students are constrained by rigid training programs; humanities students participate passively driven by peer competition. Based on these findings, we propose recommendations including establishing a process-oriented assessment system, implementing discipline-specific “interest-project” matching mechanisms, and strengthening faculty value guidance.

Based on data from undergraduates questionnaire, this paper examines the relationships between socio-emotional skills, high-impact educational activities, and undergraduates’ clarity of career planning. The results indicate that professional learning and entrepreneurial practice activities are significantly associated with the clarity of career planning for non-“Double First-Class” construction universities undergraduates. Social practice activities positively correlate with undergraduates’ career planning clarity from “Double First-Class” construction universities’. Among non-“Double First-Class” construction universities undergraduates, emotional regulation and engaging with others skills are significantly related to their clarity of career planning, while collaboration and open-mindedness skills show a negative relationship. The Shapley value decomposition method further reveals that the combined contribution rate of the two types of factors to the clarity of career planning exceeds 52%. Among them, socio-emotional skills are the most influential factor for undergraduates from non-“Double First-Class” construction universities, whereas high-impact educational activities are most influential for those from “Double First-Class” construction universities.

As a primary programmatic vehicle for cultivating top-notch innovative talents in basic disciplines in China, the Plan for Strengthening Basic Disciplines manifests diverse policy implementation practices. Through constructing an integrated analytical framework of “institutional logics-organizational resources” and conducting qualitative research at a pilot university, this study reveals that departments implementing the Plan generally adopt multiple strategies: promoting undergraduate research system innovation through experimental approaches, negotiating integrated training transitions via flexible adaptation strategies, exploring curriculum integration through selective implementation methods, and refining talent cultivation programs through strict compliance approaches. However, when confronted with high institutional logic conflicts or insufficient organizational resources, these departments face implementation dilemmas including diminished innovation, goal displacement, suspended execution, and mechanistic compliance. Future reforms should focus on four key improvements: Enhancing university governance structures and optimizing organizational resource allocation; Expanding policy implementation frameworks while establishing collaborative supply mechanisms; Reconciling institutional logic tensions alongside innovating resource integration mechanisms; Promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration through building dynamic iterative mechanisms.

This paper assesses the effectiveness and changes in the selection and cultivation of “Top-Notch Talent Cultivation Program” over time. Results show that the “Top-Notch Talent Cultivation Program” has produced initial effects, which have shifted as the policy evolved from version 1.0 to 2.0. At the input stage, the top-notch students show slightly increased heterogeneity and improved overall competencies; at the process stage, students perceive an optimized institutional environment and greater academic freedom, yet face excessive workload and unmet individual needs; at the output stage, the proportion of graduates pursuing overseas study has dropped significantly, with greater gains in cultural literacy and collaboration but reduced gains in research literacy, thinking ability, and interest. Restricted-sample analysis indicates that from 1.0 to 2.0, the scale of “Top-Notch Talent Cultivation Program” expanded, yet the resource advantages and effectiveness of the elite universities may have been diluted. Future efforts should focus on high-quality faculty development, improved academic assessment, and personalized cultivation to improving the quality of talent cultivation.

Evaluation and quality assurance in higher education play an important role in promoting quality awareness, clarifying quality concepts, reinforcing quality norms and promoting quality construction. However, it is also faced with the tension between uniformity and diversity, normativity and autonomy, authority and utilitarianism that comes with standardisation. Its roots lie in scientism and its cult of quantification. In response, there has been a postmodern turn towards de-indicatorisation of evaluation, with a focus on the integrity, diversity and development of the object of evaluation, a look at the life activities of the object of evaluation itself, and an emphasis on the building of a culture of educational evaluation and quality assurance. The excellent tradition of Chinese educational evaluation is instructive for the postmodern turn in higher education evaluation and quality assurance, which should be creatively inherited and innovatively developed.

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.

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.

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”.

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.