Article 37(3) of the Academic Degrees Law serves as a catch-all provision for revoking academic degrees, covering both academic and non-academic grounds. By linking revocation grounds to the conditions required for initial degree conferment, the clause allows any breach of those conditions to potentially trigger revocation proceedings. However, actual revocation is warranted only when the conduct constitutes a “serious violation”. For academic misconduct, a “serious violation” must satisfy all three criteria: (a) the conduct falls within a category that university rules deem disqualifying for degree conferment; (b) the offending research output has been publicly disseminated; and (c) the conduct involves ghost-writing, plagiarism, or other forms of academic dishonesty of comparable severity. Serious non-academic breaches involve violations of the political or moral prerequisites for degree conferment. A serious political breach must constitute a crime of a political nature under the Criminal Law. A serious moral breach must violate either the Criminal Law or the Public Security Administration Punishments Law and be morally reprehensible. Crucially, revocation is justified only when such misconduct infringes upon the legal interests protected by the Academic Degrees Law, as manifested by causing significant negative social impact or seriously damaging the university’s reputation.

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.

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.

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.

China’s talent cultivation models demonstrate typological diversity and complex evolutionary paths. From the dual tension perspective of “local-international” and “traditional-innovative”, the talent cultivation models of Chinese universities can be identified as four ideal types: “international academic inheritance”, “international innovation leading”, “local cultural preservation” and “local innovation priority”. These types have a dynamic, interactive evolution driven by multiple factors such as disciplinary development needs and national policy guidance. Talent cultivation models in Chinese universities should balance global competition and local adaptation, as well as knowledge accumulation and innovative breakthroughs, to achieve the functional and strategic positioning of China’s higher education development.

With the rapid development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) technology, China has entered a new stage of high-quality development. While enhancing production efficiency across industries, the application of GAI has also introduced educational risks. In higher education, the involvement of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) in academic theses has increasingly been criticized for enabling academic misconduct such as ghostwriting, plagiarism, and fabrication. Based on an analysis of GAI’s underlying architecture, generative AI is essentially a logical computing tool devoid of autonomous intent. Research on generative AI should adopt an instrumentalist perspective. In reality, AIGC’s involvement in academic theses does not equate to other person’s writing, but its improper citation practices and inherent flaws may lead to plagiarism and fabrication. Based on the reality of anomie in the integrity of a comprehensive ban, the governance of AIGC should be shifted to standardized use. At the institutional response level, the following measures should be prioritized: strengthen explicit labeling mechanisms for GAI; clarify the verification obligations of degree applicants regarding AIGC; implement strict evaluation criteria by degree review committees to ensure academic integrity.

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.

With the accelerated process of digital transformation in higher education, the tension between traditional university teaching evaluation models and the digitalized educational paradigm has become increasingly prominent, placing higher demands on the construction of teaching evaluation systems in universities. Against this backdrop, fully exploring the functional potential of artificial intelligence in university teaching evaluation has emerged as a crucial pathway for promoting evaluation reform. From the perspective of the “technology-education” relationship, the current application of artificial intelligence in teaching evaluation still faces numerous challenges. The root cause lies in the ineffective mutual construction between technology and education, which in turn limits the effectiveness of evaluation practices. Therefore, this study proposes a practical pathway of “technology-education” co-construction to enhance the practical efficacy of AI-based teaching evaluation in higher education. It seeks to build a process-oriented “teaching-learning-evaluation” system through the dimensions of coordination, synergy, and mutual regulation between technology and education, thereby facilitating the deep integration of artificial intelligence into university teaching evaluation and constructing a system that aligns with the demands of higher education in the new era.

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 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.

The “student-centered” teaching management of undergraduate colleges and universities adheres to the center of students’ development, and promotes the realization of the main value of students, meets the learning needs of students and pays attention to the learning effect of students. Through the “triangular mutual evidence”, the study summarizes it into six dimensions, 29 elemental indicators, and takes the students of eight undergraduate colleges and universities in Jiangsu Province as the object to carry out the survey of “students’ needs in teaching management of undergraduate colleges and universities”, and uses the KANO model to analyze and optimize the method to calculate the Better-Worse coefficients of the corresponding indexes, and disperses the indexes in the establishment of a two-dimensional quadrant diagram. Based on this, it is proposed to solve the “urgency”, prioritize to meet the necessary needs of students for teaching management, pay attention to the “hope”, focus on improving the expectations of students for teaching management, and alleviate the “difficult worries”, and optimize students’ charismatic demand for teaching management in a targeted manner.

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.

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.

As a key area in the new round of institutional reform, institutional reform in universities serves as the fundamental focus for accelerating the modernization of university governance systems and capabilities. To reveal the internal mechanisms of higher education institution reform, this study adopts the grounded theory approach to analyze 40 typical cases of institutional reform initiatives in universities, thereby summarizing and refining the practical logic behind these reforms. The research findings indicate that such reforms are driven by practical issues such as operational inefficiency and excessive institutional expansion. They require systematic implementation through synchronized streamlining of administrative bodies and staffing, strengthening departmental restructuring and integration, centralized management, and digital transformation process redesign. This aims to reduce organizational structures and staffing quotas, achieve systematic and holistic governance, and prioritize risk mitigation, steady progress, job transfers, and faculty governance capacity enhancement as safeguard mechanisms. Consequently, it is necessary to further establish an overall action framework for institutional reform in universities, explore scientific decision-making foundations for institutional streamlining and optimization, and implement a relatively flexible and adaptive organizational reform model through supportive organizational culture and humanistic care.

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.

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.

Relying on artificial intelligence and other technological means, smart education has not only transformed the use of teaching tools in higher education but also revolutionized the entire spectrum of higher education including educational concepts, teaching methods, and even the educational form. However, the rapid development of technology has given rise to a practical dilemma in higher education research where technological advancements outpace the establishment of a clear pedagogical theoretical foundation. This situation manifests in three specific challenges: ideological conflicts between technology-driven paradigms and education-centric principles; integration difficulties in pedagogical model transformation; assessment mechanism hysteresis. This study therefore proposes a theoretical framework integrating cross-disciplinary insights to explore the pedagogical foundations of smart education applications in higher education. We construct a complex ecosystem for smart education that is:philosophically grounded in educational paradigms, operationally implemented through pedagogical models, spatially enabled by learning environments, innovatively driven by research methodologies, sustainably oriented toward green education initiatives. This system provides a theoretical basis for intelligent technologies to realize the educational concept of “large-scale personalization”, the teaching management model of “data-driven instruction”, the learning scenario of “all-time, all-space, and all-knowledge learning”, and the research paradigm of “human-machine intelligent collaborative innovation”, thereby achieving sustained, effective and healthy development of higher education.

In the face of the external pressure of the transformation of the digital society, and the internal requirements of the innovation and development of higher education, UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) launched a digital well-being oriented “Digital Capabilities Framework”. This framework set out professional solutions to improving the digital capabilities for students, teachers, administrators and others in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from both individual and organisational perspectives. To effectively enhance the overall digital capacity building of HEIs, JISC gave full play to the synergistic development of professional development standards and digital competence frameworks, and integrated digital competence development activities into the teaching and learning and administrative management of HEIs. An overview of the introduction and implementation of the JISC digital capabilities framework revealed distinctive features that focuses on the growth needs of all people, while paying attention to the individual needs of stakeholders. In the process of digital transformation, we should build digital capabilities, re-examine the relationship between technology and people, and rethink the integration of technology and education.

While generative artificial intelligence accelerates educational transformation, it simultaneously precipitates urgent legal challenges and ethical dilemmas. The research findings reveal that college students exhibit significant behavioral tendencies toward the improper use of GenAI. This trend has precipitated a systemic crisis in traditional pedagogical models centered on knowledge dissemination, with courses such as ideological and political education and humanities general education experiencing the most significant erosion of their foundational values. The structural imbalance between technological openness and ethical governance, insufficient teacher support coupled with intensified peer competition, and escalating academic pressure alongside proliferating burnout emerge as pivotal drivers of GenAI improper use. Risk perception in technology usage can effectively mitigate opportunistic tendencies under stressful conditions, while substantially enhancing the intervention efficacy of teacher support. The risks associated with the use of GenAI can be mitigated through the following approaches: establishing a new educational model of human-machine collaboration, creating ethical constraints for technology applications, strengthening teachers’ AI-ready leadership, and promoting a paradigm shift in the educational evaluation system.

Based on large-scale student survey data, this study explores the underlying mechanisms by which AI influences college students’innovative thinking within curricular environments characterized by varying levels of “challenge” and “support”. The findings reveal that learning engagement acts as a bridge in enabling AI to foster innovative thinking. Specifically, AI exerts its effects indirectly primarily by stimulating deep cognitive and emotional engagement, and its efficacy is shaped by the curricular environment. The curricular environment exhibits a dual moderating logic of “amplification” and “substitution”: a “high challenge–high support” environment strengthens the “amplification” pathway mediated by learning engagement, whereas environments deficient in either challenge or support highlight the “substitution” pathway. The educational value of AI is not an intrinsic attribute but is co-constructed by the curricular environment through the synergy of challenge and support.

Breaking the “Western path dependence” in cultivating top-notch innovative talents and establishing an independent cultivation mechanism for top-notch innovative talents with Chinese characteristics have become key breakthroughs in achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening. To promote the independent cultivation of top-notch innovative talents in China, it is necessary to further rationalize the theoretical logic of policy support, so as to achieve the enhancement of autonomy from “external introduction” to “strengthening self-sufficiency”, the innovative positioning from “passive catching up” to “leading the sprint”, and the differentiated development from “uniformity” to “precise classification”. However, in the practical process, there are still many difficulties in relevant policy support, including homogenization of support, insufficient attention to the differences among different types of talents; intermittent support, the policy continuity throughout the entire process of talent cultivation needs to be improved; fragmented support, the collaborative education synergy among multiple subjects is insufficient; passive support, the dynamic mechanism of independent innovation is not sound. To promote the adaptation of relevant policies, we must adhere to the thinking of precise governance, and facilitate the diversified development of top-notch innovative talents through classified support, integrated support, collaborative support, and special support.

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.

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.

The digital competency level of university teachers is an important indicator to measure the success of digital transformation in colleges and universities, which is deeply influenced by teachers’ subjective level. Through a questionnaire survey of 853 teachers in 21 universities in 13 provinces, it is found that both formal and informal perceived social support can positively promote the digital competence of university teachers, and the promotion effect of formal perceived social support is more significant. In addition, psychological empowerment and technology acceptance play an important mediating role in the relationship between perceived social support and digital competence of college teachers. In order to accelerate the improvement of digital competence of empowering university teachers, it is suggested to strengthen the overall planning of resources to build a comprehensive “formal support” social network, create an emotional support atmosphere to create a symbiotic “informal” social support ecology, deepen psychological empowerment and accurately support “technologically disadvantaged” university teachers, and improve the transformation efficiency of social support resources.

Research universities are an important component of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in the United States, and its classification method has been continuously improved and refined in various updates. Before the 2021 edition, the classification of research universities was included in the basic category; the 2025 edition renamed the Basic Classification as the 2025 Institutional Classification, while adjusting the classification of research universities to a separate category of Research Activity Designations, with corresponding optimizations and adjustments to the classification methods and standards. The new classification, while retaining the two core indicators of “number of research doctorates awarded” and “research expenditure” to distinguish three types of research universities, has dozens of additional indicators, helping to accurately present the actual development status of each research university from multiple perspectives. It is recommended to scientifically plan the development scale of China’s research universities, thoroughly evaluate the feasibility of core classification indicators such as the number of doctoral degrees awarded and research expenditures, objectively establish basic standards for independent classification, and set up several observation indicators to build a multi-dimensional research university classification system with Chinese characteristics.

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.

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.

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.

With the rise of the group nature of the “Global South”, the global higher education governance system is shifting from the dominance of the north to a new pattern of “joint governance between the Global North and South”. The participation of the “Global South” in the global higher education governance system has mainly gone through four stages: initial participation, regional response, deepening of multilateral cooperation and upgrading of strategic cooperation. In the process, the “Global South” has promoted the institutional innovation of the governance system in the fields of global higher education governance subjects, governance standards, governance certification, and governance sharing through the reconstruction of new rules in the dimensions of quality standards, talent mobility, trade in educational services, and digital education governance. As an important member of the “Global South”, China has played an important role as an exchange negotiator, brand communicator, and experience sharer in the global higher education governance system.

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.

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.

Modern education often pursues “excellence” in a secular sense, neglecting the focus on the “individual” itself. Based on meritocracy theory, this study employs qualitative interviews to reveal how evaluation mechanisms in “Double First-Class” construction universities contribute to undergraduates’ self-alienation. The research finds that meritocracy disciplines students through a three-dimensional system of symbolic governance, tournament allocation, and competitive ethics cultivation, leading to strategic survival performances characterized by passive discipline and active conformity. Through dependent behaviors such as strategic obedience, instrumental survival, and social capital accumulation, students alienate the educational field into a competitive arena for resource acquisition. Under the combined influence of institutional coercion and behavioral alienation, students fall into an existential crisis of subjectivity dissolution, emotional resource depletion, and value nihilism. To break through the institutional predicament of individual alienation, it is necessary to return to the essence of education, optimize the student evaluation system, construct a social cognitive support system, and foster an inclusive growth environment, aiming to promote the free and comprehensive development of students.

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.

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.

The coping strategies of college students towards academic pressure shape the development pattern of their social emotional competence. Based on the survey data of 937 college students, this study explores the mechanism by which academic pressure affects social emotional competence. The research finds that academic pressure has a “double-edged sword” effect: while promoting the development of ability characteristics, it inhibits the improvement of ability tendencies; academic pressure drives college students to seek “digital intimacy”, but this path becomes an invisible barrier to the development of social emotional competence; “real companionship” strengthens the positive impact of academic pressure on ability characteristics, but has limited influence on ability tendencies; academic pressure reflects the “learner’s paradox” in higher education through the dual effects of “ability construction-value dissolution”. To enhance the social emotional competence of college students, it is necessary to reasonably regulate the sources of academic pressure for college students, guide them to use the Internet correctly to cope with academic pressure, strengthen their real interpersonal support systems, and construct a dual-track evaluation system for students under academic pressure.

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.

In the context of the continuous evolution of the intelligent society, universities urgently need to cultivate the artificial intelligence literacy of college students to provide intellectual support and human resources for this intelligent trend. As a world-class university, Carnegie Mellon University takes artificial intelligence knowledge, artificial intelligence emotion, and artificial intelligence thinking as the content, and relies on artificial intelligence general education, artificial intelligence minor and additional major, artificial intelligence scientific research projects to cultivate the artificial intelligence literacy of college students, so as to meet the sustainable development needs of students and the intelligent society. The practical experience of cultivating students’ artificial intelligence literacy at Carnegie Mellon University provides a reference for the cultivation practice and research of college students’ artificial intelligence literacy with its comprehensive, systematic, scientifically forward - looking contents, a cultivation system that implements measurement and training according to different categories, a people-oriented cultivation concept, and an educational ecosystem featuring interdisciplinary cooperation and integration of industry, education, research, and application.