Information literacy is a significant ability in digital society. Information literacy of university students is directly related to the future talent development of the country. In view of the lack of accurate and normative research on China’s university students’ information literacy due to the complex situation, firstly this study analyzes and summarizes the concept, connotation and evaluation standards of information literacy based on the research at home and abroad. This paper then explores the new requirements of university students’information literacy and the general basis and method of constructing the evaluation standards. On this basis, taking Shanghai as an example, this paper constructs the theoretical framework of university students’ information literacy evaluation standard with regional characteristics. The research results hope to provide reference for the research and practice of university students’ information literacy.

As an important part of the personnel reform at higher education institutions in China, the implementation process of the “up-or-out” system has been accompanied by disputes and even doubts. The uncertainty of the nature of the “up-or-out” contract leads to significant differences in judgments. In the dimension of the relationship with teachers, higher education institutions are not authorized by laws and regulations. They and teachers are civil subjects with equal legal status, and the “up-or-out” contract does not have the public nature. Therefore, the “up-or-out” contract disputes can not be solved by administrative litigation, but by civil litigation. Based on the legal nature of labor disputes, we should abide by the system of “one mediation, one arbitration and two trials” in the procedural arrangement.

Revitalizing higher education in western China is the strategic mission for the high-quality development of higher education in western China in the new era. Optimizing the discipline layout of universities in western China in the new era is a national strategy to serve the major strategic needs of the country, empower the economic transformation and development of western China, and leverage the geographical advantages of traditional disciplines. However, the current development of disciplines in universities in western China is faced with such practical difficulties as weak coupling with regional economic development, insufficient radiation and guidance of disciplines, and the lack of outstanding advantages and characteristics of disciplines. The internal driving force and development vitality of disciplinary construction in universities in western China require strong institutional supply, focusing on activating the internal driving force of disciplinary teams, promoting the cluster development of universities and disciplines, building disciplinary innovation platforms to deepen the integration mechanism of industry and education, and relying on regional advantages to guide the distinctive development of disciplines.

Academic undergraduate education has been developed into a set of undergraduate education system with the main goal of cultivating research-oriented talents, which has the characteristics of non-functionality, interdisciplinary integration and sustainable development. It pays more attention to basic theory teaching, scientific research method training and innovative ability cultivation. Practical undergraduate is one of the basic modes of talent training in modern higher education, with the main goal of training applied talents. Practical undergraduate has the characteristics of focusing on practice-based purpose, technology orientation and specialty education, which pays more attention to technical education and training, cultivation of ability to solve practical problems, and cultivation of engineering technology awareness and professional ethics. Vocational undergraduate is a sub category of the practical undergraduate, which is an education to cultivate vocational high-level technical talents. Its characteristics mainly include: vocational orientation, complexity of technical skills training, and connection between teaching and production. Vocational undergraduate education pays more attention to cultivation of vocational advanced ability, on-site practical teaching and cultivation of vocational quality.

Vocational education is a unique type of education, and the research on teaching theory with “type characteristics” of vocational education is of great significance. The vocational didactics，a discipline of “how to teach persons for industrial occupations”, is the basic subject of vocational education teacher training suggested by UNESCO. This paper discusses the basic concepts and characteristics of the vocational didactics, and examines the relevance of the basic principles of general didactics to vocational education. Vocational education should create more opportunities for learners to learn independently, while maintaining the basic characteristics of learning as a collective activity of community of practice; it should realize the integration of workplace learning and school learning, and ensure that learners become the main subject of the teaching-learning process through comprehensive interdisciplinary learning tasks in different learning places. The development of modern society not only shapes a new learning paradigm of vocational education, but also endows vocational learning with rich social significance. How to take into account the development of personality and social needs in high-quality vocational education, is an important task of vocational didactics research.

Macro theories on higher education have strong local, political and developmental characteristics, and have a unique position and role in the construction of an independent knowledge system of higher education theories. Since the reform and opening, the development of macro theories of higher education in China has gone through the process of creation, reconstruction and development, and has achieved historic accomplishments and accumulated important experience, but it also has obvious deficiencies. With the goal of constructing an independent knowledge system and furtherly promoting the innovation of macro theories on higher education, we should correctly handle three major relationships, furtherly deepen the study of the Party's century-old education history and the Sinicization of Marxism theory on education, strengthen the coordinated endeavor in solving major theoretical and practical issues, and optimize the system and mechanism of macro theory research.

“Four Substitutions” is the main appearance and problem of academic evaluation in Chinese universities, which seriously affects the ecology and ethos of academic research in China, hinders the progress of science and technology in China and the cultivation of talents in universities. ?This paper discusses the problems of simplification and fragmentation in academic evaluation of colleges and universities in China, which are embodied in “citation substitution”, “publication substitution”, “quantity substitution” and “scientific research substitution”. The dispute between quantification and qualification of academic evaluation in Chinese and foreign universities is discussed, summarizing the international proposition of focusing on quality and complementing quantification. In the end the ideas and methods are proposed to break the “Four Substitutions”.

The dilemma of the VUCA era not only brings a sense of embodiment to higher education for passive response, but also requires higher education to actively make strategies for change. At present, there are security risks in both traditional and non-traditional fields, the trend of anti globalization is rising, global economic development and recovery are weak, the fourth industrial revolution is sweeping the world, digital transformation is also promoting the reform of governance system, and so on. Such a dilemma of the times requires higher education to make a positive response, and it is also reshaping the form of higher education. Facing the future, the action choice of China’s higher education institutions should be to realize high-quality development, coordinated development, digital transformation and modernization of governance ability of higher education through innovative connotation construction, structural optimization, digital element renewal and multiple collaborative governance, and to look for breakthrough strategies and development opportunities in external changes.

The Ministry of Education’s “Further Strengthening the Work of Rule of Law in Colleges and Universities” describes the blueprint of the work of rule of law in colleges and universities from five key organizational systems and ten key content levels. The construction of administrative rule of law in colleges and universities in the new era is the core of the work of rule of law in colleges and universities. The logical basis is to implement the autonomy of running a school as the starting point, to achieve good governance and fairness and justice, and to complete the five missions of colleges and universities in socialist countries. The risk structure is mainly reflected in the legal disputes caused by the unclear laws and school rules, which can be summarized into four categories: the adequacy of the subject’s authority, the legitimacy of the purpose of the behavior, the satisfaction of procedural justice and the remedy without loopholes. We should improve the ability of colleges and universities to prevent and resolve legal risks, improve the system and mechanism, promote the modernization of the governance level of colleges and universities by means of the rule of law, and strive to achieve the goal of the 14th Five-Year Plan（2021-2025） to strengthen education.

The “application-assessment” system has become the general method of the admission of doctoral students in China. It is necessary to figure out the core competence in the doctoral entrance examination to select high-quality doctoral students. This study analyzes the 2021 “application-assessment” enrollment policy text of 42 first-class universities of the world, using an analysis software, Nvivo 11, based on the grounded theory to construct the core competence framework of academic doctoral students. In conclusion, the core competency framework of academic doctoral students includes 3 dimensions, 5 core literacy and 29 basic requirements. Specifically, professional and general knowledge is the foundation, political attitude, academic interest and ambition are the directions, and scientific research ability and innovation potential are the core. The enlightenment for future academic doctoral student enrollment lies in: First, quantitative indexes are not the only and absolute criterion to evaluate research ability, while more attention should be paid on soft power assessment of academic interest, character and potential; Second, cooperative research is an important internal motivation to academic innovation, thus the evaluation of cooperation ability of doctoral students should be emphasized; Third, the evaluation of interdisciplinary ability of doctoral students should be strengthened as the training of interdisciplinary talents is a trend.

This study constructed a structural equation model of interdisciplinary training environment, interdisciplinary engagements, and interdisciplinary abilities of doctoral students based on the survey data of 4 373 doctoral students from 37 “Double First-class” construction universities. The results showed that doctoral students were less satisfied with interdisciplinary resources and courses and more satisfied with the interdisciplinary training provided by supervisors. Doctoral students’interdisciplinary engagements were insufficient, and their interdisciplinary abilities and reflective behavior levels had a large room for improvement. Interdisciplinary engagement completely mediated the relationship between interdisciplinary resources and interdisciplinary ability; it also partly mediated the relationship between interdisciplinary courses and interdisciplinary ability as well as the relationship between interdisciplinary training provided by supervisors and interdisciplinary ability. Moreover, interdisciplinary background positively moderated the effect of interdisciplinary courses and interdisciplinary engagement on interdisciplinary ability, and negatively moderated the influence of interdisciplinary resources and interdisciplinary training provided by supervisors on interdisciplinary ability. Therefore, the training institutions should strive to create a good interdisciplinary training environment, enhance the enthusiasm of doctoral students in interdisciplinary engagement, and improve the interdisciplinary training system according to the interdisciplinary background of doctoral students.

Policy, as an environmental element of top talent education, plays a supporting role in the cultivation of top talents. Taking the 144 policy documents from 1977 to 2022 as the object, the historical evolution of policy changes in China’s top-notch talent education can be divided into four stages: the exploration and initial stage, the gradual expansion stage, the rethinking stage, and the rational innovation stage. On this basis, the policy content quantitative analysis method is adopted to explore the evolution of China’s top-notch talent education policy and its direction from the levels of basic facts and values. Based on the results, it is recommended that efforts should be made to raise the policy attention to the education of top-notch talents, construct a pattern of top-notch talents with multi-agent collaborative participation, strengthen the research on the localized experience of China’s top-notch talents education, condense the programs and modes with Chinese characteristics, and clarify the orientation of top-notch talents education policy to strengthen the synergy of the policy.

When the CPC Central Committee’s General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Renmin University of China, he raised high expectations for the high-quality development of higher education in China. We should learn deeply and take root in China, and then turn them into the power to run high-level universities. In order to realize the high-quality development of local universities, we need to find the orientation of running universities based on the new development pattern. We need to uphold the leadership of the CPC, strengthen the guidance of CPC’s building, and pool synergy for development. It is necessary to adhere to the missions of the universities and to develop talents based on three principles which include virtue first, integrate and mastery and follow the rules. It is necessary to enhance the ability to serve national major strategies and regional economic and social development to fulfill its responsibilities. We should focus on discipline construction, strictly enforce teachers’ ethics, gather high-level talents and improve the development mechanism to build a contingent of high-quality and professional teachers.

Postgraduate textbooks are the fundamental basis for teachers to teach and students to learn in the process of postgraduate course teaching, and their quality determines the quality of postgraduate teaching, which in turn affects the quality of postgraduate training. Senior teachers in colleges and universities are the main body of textbook compilation and selection for postgraduates in the United States. Textbook publishers, college teaching and learning centers and project plans assist first-time college teachers in the compilation and selection of textbooks. In the process of compiling and selecting postgraduate textbooks, four factors, including teacher appointment, curriculum development, teaching evaluation and institutional regulations, ensure the academic quality of American postgraduate textbooks. Based on this, combined with the current practice of postgraduate textbook construction in China, a system for the compilation, management and use of postgraduate textbooks for colleges and universities that reflect the characteristics of higher education in China should be established and improved; Colleges and universities coordinate the construction of postgraduate textbooks and ensure that postgraduate textbooks are politically and academically related; improve teachers’ teaching quality and give full play to teachers’ autonomy in selecting postgraduate textbooks; implement the work of incorporating teachers’ participation in postgraduate textbook construction into the teacher assessment and evaluation system; pay attention to the guiding role of institutional norms and strictly control the quality of postgraduate textbooks.

Based on panel data of 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China from 2003 to 2018, this paper examines the impact of human capital of graduate and innovation-driven on economic growth. The empirical results show that both human capital of graduate and innovation-driven have a significant positive effect on economic growth, but the interaction of the two has a negative effect on economic growth. Further analysis shows that there is a significant positive correlation between the economic growth within the regions and the spatial correlation coefficient is about 21.23%. After taking spatial correlation into account, the human capital of graduate and innovation-driven still have significant effect on economic growth in local regions, but the promotion effect is declined to some extent. It is suggested that on the basis of expanding the scale of graduate student enrollment and increasing the investment in innovation, the problem of human capital of graduate and innovation-driven coordination mechanism should be emphatically solved.

In the context of “Double First-Class” construction, the building of high-level post-doctoral quality assurance system has become an important issue for improving the governance of higher education. At present, there are some problems in China’s post-doctoral quality assurance, such as governance system with segmentation of “strong trap and weak block”, imperfect quality assurance system, deviation from the cultivation orientation as well as inefficient use of resources. All these in a large part are attributable to the leading of institutional discipline, the carrier of project support, and the means by institutionalized technical governance. To solve the dilemma of post-doctoral quality assurance, it is urgent to break the management model of the segmentation of “strong trap and weak block”, and build a comprehensive quality assurance system for post-doctoral fellows with flexible governance order, high efficient assurance process, and multiple governance culture based on the idea of “integration of the segmentation” and collaborative governance.

In order to cultivate high value-added talents in vocational fields, the South Korean government attaches great importance to the construction of professional degree graduate education, so as to meet the needs of the labor market and provide sufficient human capital for the development of the country. By systematically arranging the history of the establishment and adjustment of professional degree graduate education categories, projects and scales in South Korea, and starting from the two key elements of driving mechanism and framework features. This study analyzes and concludes that the driving mechanism lies in the process of mutual game, adjustment and cooperation between the government, the market, and universities. The characteristics of the establishment and adjustment of the framework are legally standardized, relatively autonomous, and dynamic and flexible. This provides a useful reference for promoting the standardized, independent, dynamic and characteristic development of professional degree graduate education in China.

Based on Jane Knight’s theory on the rationale of internationalization of higher education, this paper analyzes the rationale and influencing factors of the internationalization of higher education from the perspective of full-time faculties, one of the most direct stakeholders of higher education, by using random sampling, questionnaires and statistical tools. This paper finds that some sample characteristics of full-time faculties have different effects on rationale; the overall negative impact is much smaller than the overall positive impact; the consistency of some factors reflects the positive development of internationalization of higher education. This paper puts forward that there should be a relatively unified understanding of internationalization among full-time faculties within the department; full-time faculties should be encouraged to promote the internationalization of universities from a more diversified perspective; special attention should be paid to the benefits gained by full-time faculties from the development of internationalization of universities; and it is necessary to stimulate the driving force of internationalization of full-time faculties and make adaptive adjustment, etc.

Influenced by the New Public Management Movement and the New Administrative Law, the development trend of rule of law in higher education in five countries such as Britain, the United States, Germany, France and Japan has shown an obvious trend of functionalism, and “governance effectiveness” has become an important criterion for the measurement of rule of law, which is mainly manifested in: the legal nature and objectives of universities are corporatized, market-oriented and professionalized; the relationship between government and universities is equalized, contracting and performance-based; the internal governance of universities is hierarchical, externalized and cooperative. However, the rule of law tradition and overall legal order of the five countries constitute a systematic control of functionalism, which enables the overall balance between rights and obligations of teachers and students in colleges and universities and obtains substantial protection, which is mainly manifested in the rights and interests of teachers, the rights of student participation and the rights of students to succeed in learning. In the process of promoting the rule of law in education governance, we should, on the one hand, build a “law of governance” and highlight the effectiveness of legal norms and institutes; on the other hand, we should insist on the “governance of law” and provide systematic guarantee of law and order for the rights and interests of teachers and students in colleges and universities.

张华峰是我在清华大学教育研究院曾经指导过的博士生。他即将出版的《中国大学生主体性学习:本土特色与转型》一书是他撰写的博士论文《超越中国学习者悖论——中国大学生主体性学习研究》的修改版。细读这一书稿时,华峰准备和写作博士论文时的情境不时在我脑中闪现。这可能是曾经的学生写书请自己的导师作序时通常会遇到的情况:知根知底的导师会由此书联想到其前身,包括已经被枪毙或自杀过几回的题目；没准还会揭你的老底,让崇拜你的学生觉得原来你读博时的处境和他们差不多:在选题和研究过程中也曾倍受焦虑和困惑的摧残。另外,对学生期待甚高的导师还会由此书联想到其后世:不仅希望是学术新秀之作,还要求有学术大家的定位,所以总会鸡蛋里挑骨头地苛求。当然,

New generation information technologies and digital innovations have brought unprecedented opportunities to the development of higher education. The technology-enabled smart education paradigm today, is an inevitable trend, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and ease of use of technologies. It is at its early stages, with exponential expected growth in the near future. On this backdrop, we aim to transform higher education in China, by analyzing potential future tendencies of smart education, followed by identifying bottlenecks and challenges of current educational developments influencing the future of smart education. We then propose a novel scheme for adaptive smart education centered around the concept of holistic cultivation of the mind. This can be viewed as a modern sustainable higher-education reform focused on value creation, knowledge cultivation and practical innovation, for the purpose to realize “Activation” of the mind. This “Activation” occurs at the interplay between social education, diffusion of knowledge, and wisdom of teaching and learning. “Activation” is operationalized by erecting the four pillars of a literacy graph, a knowledge graph, an abilities graph, and a quality graph, which united, would support the new higher-education ecology and empowered education. The new ecology would foster a social environment that is conducive to the derivation of knowledge so as to promote comprehensive changes in the content, means, modes and systems towards the cultivation of human-centric talents. Consequently, the wisdom process of contemporary higher education would entail seeding wisdom in people, integrating wisdom in campus, and strengthening wisdom in country.

Based on the analysis of Faculty Instructional Development Index of Chinese Higher Vocational Colleges (released in 2020), the current situation of faculty instructional development of Chinese higher vocational college is analyzed in this research. It is found that the overall structure of faculty instructional development is not good, the regional and provincial imbalance is significant, and the difference between schools is obvious et al. In addition, this research also found that there are four kinds of faculty instructional developing forms in provinces, namely, single type, biased type, Semi-developmental type and balanced type. Some governance proposals are presented, which includes strengthening the accuracy of regional faculty instructional policies; strengthening the cooperation and participation of multiple subjects; promoting the classified management of key and general vocational colleges; and advocating the diversified assessment of faculty instructional status in higher vocational colleges et al.

As the latest measure for the selection and training of top-notch innovative talents in basic disciplines, the Plan for Strengthening Basic Disciplines shoulders the multiple missions entrusted by the state. It has been fully implemented by the government, actively cooperated by universities and generally recognized by the academic community, showing a trend of “hot”. Although the Plan for Strengthening Basic Disciplines has a good start overall, there is also a phenomenon of “cold” enrollment in some pilot universities, which affects the expected results of the system. Based on the analysis of the baton effect of the examination system, it can be seen that the reason for the “cold” of part of the Plan for Strengthening Basic Disciplines is that the selection threshold is high, the interest and competitiveness have not yet been highlighted, and it is not relatively unique and exclusive. In order to get rid of the “cold” phenomenon, the government should expand the scope of trials and the weight of school examinations; colleges need to implement training programs to demonstrate the superiority of the system; students should strengthen their academic career ideals.

The multiple universities with the same legal person system which is design and implementing in the third cycle of the National University Corporate Reform have significant advantage. The multiple universities with the same legal person system maintain the independence and characteristics, and integrate education and research resources of each university, meanwhile, it also coordinate regional industry-university cooperation. This system focuses on improving the research capabilities of Japan’s national universities and create diverse talent training models and collaborative research mechanisms. This system is aimed at stimulating the vitality of regional economic development and enhance the international competitiveness of national universities. This system reflects the Japan’s government’s introduction of the concept of “competition through cooperation” in national universities, and the integration of the strengths of national universities to achieve regional revitalization and the dual strategic goal of world-class universities. This innovation provides useful experience for China to construct a high-quality modernized higher education system and achieve the aim of high-quality development of higher education.

Improving the evaluation and certification standards for “double-typed qualities” teachers is of great significance to deepening the reform of education evaluation in the new era and promoting the high-quality development of vocational education. The article collates and analyzes the policy texts of “double-typed qualities” teachers evaluation and accreditation in 6 provinces, and finds that the policy elements of the provincial-level “double-typed qualities” teachers evaluation and accreditation policy relatively complete, policy objectives tend to be clear, certification scope is wide, teacher job certification classification, evaluation certification standards are more diversified. At the same time, the threshold of “double-typed qualities” teachers evaluation certification standards set in some regions is too low, and the certification and evaluation subject is relatively single, supervision mechanism is imperfect and so on. In the future, it is necessary to improve the national, provincial and college level “double-typed qualities” teachers identification methods, build an evaluation and identification system involving multiple subjects of education administration, enterprises, industries, and higher vocational colleges, and set up scientific and reasonable evaluation and identification standards and at the same time establish a sound and effective supervision mechanism to maximize the effect of the policy.

Talent training is the foundation of a university, and the talent training model is the core competitiveness of a university. Driven by the modernization of university governance and the connotative development goals of higher education, the sustainable development of university talent training mode is an important task for Chinese higher education at present. By constructing a theoretical model of university talent training mode, this research connects four typical talent training models in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, and clarifies the advantages and disadvantages of different talent training models. Based on the analysis of the talent training model of global universities, and based on the existing disciplines, departments and talent training characteristics of Tsinghua University, this article proposes a strategy for integrating Tsinghua University’s discipline layout and talent training. This article aims to explore the university talent training model that takes root in China and integrates Chinese and foreign countries, integrate major national strategic needs into talent training and discipline layout, and provide all-round talent support for the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education.

Whether online learning technology keeps pace with the times to meet the diverse needs of students is very important for college students to continue to participate in online learning. Based on the survey data of 100801 college students from 258 universities in China, the paper uses the integrated technical acceptance model (TAM) and task-technology fit (TTF) as the analysis framework to systematically investigate the effect and mechanism of task-technology fit on college students’ intention to continue using online teaching. The results showed that the task technology fit is in the upper middle level, but still needed to be further improved; Task-technology fit has the greatest effect on the willingness to use online teaching, which is a key variable that can not be ignored; Through the mediating role of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and use attitude, task-technology fit has a significant positive impact on college students’ willingness to continue using online teaching. The study suggests that in order to promote the continuous participation of college students in online learning, we should further improve the technical support, fully understand the needs of college students, optimize the platform construction, strengthen technical training, and improve the quality of online teaching.

The statistical analysis of higher education research papers produced by universities in China in 2022 shows that the distribution of higher education research paper production is uneven among institutions, with public undergraduate colleges and universities contributing far more than other types of institutions. Among them, the majority of research papers produced by “Double First-Class” construction universities. Universities in the eastern region of China show a much higher level of participation in higher education research and paper production compared to those in the central and western regions, as well as the northeast region. The proportion of joint signing of papers is higher than the single, indicating that team collaboration is becoming the mainstream. Higher education research papers show a balance of traditional, policy and social issues as research themes with interaction effect.

Informatization teaching is an important dimension reflecting the development quality of higher vocational colleges in the digital era, and also an important starting point to promote digital transformation. This study used a questionnaire survey method to investigate 6 973 teachers from 226 vocational colleges in 28 provinces across the country. And the purpose of this paper is to explore the achievements, problems and reasons of informatization teaching in higher vocational colleges under the background of digital transformation. Research has found that the “innovation power” of the current informationization teaching scene in vocational colleges, the “support power” of informationization infrastructure, the “guarantee power” of informationization teaching environment, and the “development power” of informationization teaching practice have significantly improved. However, there are issues such as “integration cold” behind “technology hot”, “lagging behind” in the use of digital educational resources, and obvious “shortcomings” in teachers’ information-based teaching abilities. Therefore, higher vocational colleges need to promote the shift of information technology equipment from “built” to “used”, focus on the co-construction and sharing of digital education resources, practice the concept of “new infrastructure”, and enhance teachers’ information technology teaching ability, so that to realize the digital transformation of vocational education with high-quality development of information-based teaching.

The interaction and symbiotic development of universities and cities/regions has a long history. Compared to the higher education (HE) hubs in Knight’s theoretical narratives, the practice of regional HE integration and internationalization in China has been accompanied by the coupling and tension between macro-strategies, local policies and practical needs. In terms of regions/city clusters such as the Yangtze River Delta, their large geographical scale and the differentiation of development models of cities within the region have led to a “double-layered structure” pattern in the formation of HE hubs, i.e., several city-level hubs with their characteristics together form a region/city cluster-level hub. It is necessary to analyze the construction mode of city-level HE hubs in the Yangtze River Delta while paying attention to the overall development of the region, so as to deepen the understanding and to propose a discussion of the appropriateness between HE internationalization theories and local practices.

With the expansion of the scale of doctoral education and the implementation of the flexible educational system, the number of married or parental doctoral students in China is increasing. It is worth paying attention to whether marriage and childbearing will hinder the academic training of doctoral students. Based on the survey data of doctoral students in a first-class university, the differences in academic experience and achievements of doctoral students with different marriage and childbearing statuses are analyzed. The results showed that doctoral students with children reported higher scores in supervisor guidance, program involvement, and course learning compared to other doctoral students, especially unmarried doctoral students, as well as higher growth in research capability and overall satisfaction. One possible explanation is that doctoral students with children have increased efficiency in teacher-student communication, program involvement, and course learning, which enhances their research capability and overall satisfaction. In addition, there is no significant gender difference in the relationship between the marriage and childbearing status and the academic experience and achievement of doctoral students. The research results fail to support the view that marriage and childbearing will inevitably hinder academic training for doctoral students. Future research can explore the relationship between the marriage and childbearing status and academic training performance by considering other indicators.

The transparency obligation is a fundamental obligation of trustworthy artificial intelligence, a constituent element of technological due process, and a key responsibility mechanism for achieving the goal of visual justice. As a transition from artificial narrow intelligence to artificial general intelligence, ChatGPT has the ability to generate structured content. While improving academic capabilities, it can also mask academic dishonesty, posing an unprecedented threat to academic integrity. In order to ensure academic integrity in the era of artificial intelligence, it is necessary to establish transparency obligation, apply academic integrity norms and trustworthy AI guidelines, and jointly regulate ChatGPT’s intervention in academic paper creation activities to ensure academic integrity, academic fairness, and academic responsibility. The academic community’s views on whether ChatGPT can be used in the creation of academic papers, such as open use, fair use, and prohibited use, as well as the subject, object, and dual creative subject theories on the copyright of ChatGPT generated content, have a direct impact on the fulfillment standards, fulfillment methods, and forms of responsibility for transparency obligation. The density standards for fulfilling transparency obligation include the “fishbowl transparency” mode and the “reasoned transparency” mode. Regardless of which concept, doctrine, and model is chosen to fulfill transparency obligation, its content depends on the purpose and use of the academic paper, its system depends on academic norms, and its procedure is for visual justice.

To further promote the construction of world-class universities, it is necessary to define the international consensus on the future development of higher education and the focus of China’s innovation. UNESCO has held three World Higher Education Conferences with the themes of “Quality”, “Quality assurance” and “Reshaping ideas and practices in higher education to ensure sustainable development”. Innovation is the international consensus for the future development of higher education. The focus of China’s innovation is to deepen the transformation of New Engineering Education, New Medical Education, New Agricultural Education and New Liberal Arts Education, to implement the 2.0 Version of “Outstanding Talents Training Program”, to implement the 2.0 Version of “Top-Notch Students Training Program in Basic Disciplines”, to promote the revitalization of higher education in central and western China, and to build a national platform of “Smart Education of China Higher Education”.

The paper developed its argument based on one of the main characteristics of universal higher education - the expanding variance of student body. It examines the variance of student body in regards of its history and status quo, social-culture background, and region and individual dimension. It suggests that universities should focus on increasing the provision of courses, enriching curriculum types and reforming program. This paper then analyzes the paths for universities to deepen educational reform, in particular how the reform of program will bring challenges to teaching and management in higher education. Also, it addresses the significance and value of reforming program to cultivating innovative talents and promoting students’ personalized development.

The demand for scientific and technological talents has increased the importance and urgency of engineering degree graduate education in an era of big country competition, but coordination between the training system and social needs is still insufficient. How to realize supply and demand coordination is a “bottleneck” proposition that must be addressed as soon as possible. To begin, the hourglass model of supply-demand theory is built on the demand side’s positive triangle model of “teaching scientific research practice” and the supply side’s inverted triangle model of “labor, capital, and technology”. The paper then constructs an empirical model from the two levels of system design and system implementation using multi case comparison. Finally, match the theoretical model to the empirical model and explain the internal logic of policy supply and demand using the two-dimensional framework of “supply-demand” and “theory-practice”. According to the findings, the governance reform of engineering degree graduate training can achieve breakthroughs in five areas: management team, tutor team, training base, governance mechanism, and training scheme, as well as form a new pattern of industry education integration and improve the governance basis of digital governance of graduate education.

Strengthening the independent cultivation of talents is the fundamental way to realize national independent innovation, and accelerating the independent cultivation of doctoral students is a top priority. It is necessary to stimulate endogenous motivation, guide doctoral students to enhance scientific research autonomy, improve the scientificity of tutor guidance, and strengthen the main responsibility of university cultivation; it is necessary to optimize the ability structure, and improve the ability to raise questions, logical thinking, and theoretical construction; it is necessary to improve evaluation methods, and highlight quality orientation, peer review, and process evaluation; it is necessary to improve the learning system mechanism, continuously advance in the learning support system, improve the diversion exit mechanism, and strengthen the system of academic communications and practical activities.

In May 2022, the UK released the results of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. It was launched in January 2019 and lasted three years.?Based on the experience of the REF 2014 and new characteristics of scientific research development in recent years, REF 2021 attaches more importance to the social impact of scientific research achievements and cross-disciplinary evaluation. It carries out systematic reforms in the calculation of personnel and achievement, expert selection and recruitment, and overall planning of the consistency of discipline evaluation standards.?The new round of REF might provide some references for the reform of research evaluation in China in expanding the scope of evaluation objects, changing the orientation of results, optimizing the structure of experts and exploring the way of disciplinary collaboration.

The study selects 12 engineering institutes of flagship universities inside China and at other parts of the world as samples, using the data of papers in InCitesTM database from 1991 to 2017，and a framework established by the authors, to explain the relationship and the possible logic of mutual transformation between quality and quantity of papaers as research output. The major findings are the following: first, the quantity and quality of papers as research output are not opposite, and there exists a transformation logic in certain conditions. Second, international cooperation plays a notable role in regulating the quantity and quality of papers in some cases. Thirdly, the mutual transformation of quantity and quality in 12 samples can be roughly summarized into four forms: independent type with more quantity and higher quality, cooperative type with less quantity and higher quality, independent type with less quantity and lower quality, and cooperative type with more quantity and lower quality. MIT represents the first type that has more papers with higher quality; Tsinghua University and Seoul National University are the examples to show that the relationship of quantity and quality of papers can be changed at different stages. The core argument of the paper is that the connotative development of papers as research output should emphasize both quantity and quality with the basic theoretical framework of quantity breeding quality and the interaction between quantity and quality.

The new round audit evaluation is not a new start, the program is compiled with the wisdom of all parts concerned on the basis of summing up the experience and lessons of the formal performance level evaluation and the previous round of audit evaluation according to the new stage and new mission of China’s higher education reform and development, with a number of outstanding characteristics, distinctive features and highlights. In short, the new program has the characteristics of directional, objective and feasibility, includes features of classified evaluation, hierarchical responsibility of implementation, online and offline evaluation, and combination of construction and reform, highlighting bright spots of quality assurance audit, online evaluation, “trilogy” of rectification, “one school one policy” and “Excellent Undergraduate Education and Teaching Demonstration School”.

The reform of university-run enterprises in China is an important proposition to build the innovation system and improve the innovation ability of universities. From the perspective of system design, university-run enterprises have experienced four stages: policy encouragement, system encouragement, system supervision, administrative separation and cleaning up. At the same time of achieving the reform results in each stage, university-run enterprises are still facing poor integration of governance and management system, and enterprise behavior is difficult to regulate and how to design the new era monitoring system. The reform of university-run enterprises in the future will focus on the following aspects: (1)return to the main business, integration mechanism, give full play to the power of university-run enterprises, and promote the overall development of science and technology industry in Colleges and universities; (2)value endowing, clear rules, standardized the behavior of university-run enterprises, and stimulating the synergy of university innovation system; (3)performance oriented, iterative information, to build a new era of university-run enterprises with Chinese characteristics supervision system.