Academic Career Development for International Faculty in Chinese Universities

Establishing an academic career as Establishing an academic career as ( (W igu W igu r n r n) in Mainland China: International ) in Mainland China: International faculty's relocation and engagement in Chinese research faculty's relocation and engagement in Chinese research universities universities Xin Xu, Centre for Global Higher Education, Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK OX2 6PY xin.xu@education.ox.ac.uk Giulio Marini, Centre for Global Higher Education Institute of Education University College London (UCL), 20 Bedford Way London UK WC1H 0A g.marini@ucl.ac.uk

Presentation Scientific/academic foreigners in China Project design First evidence Dimensions of analysis

The topic Non-Chinese scientists working in higher education institutions are essential to increase Chinese reputation and sustain global competition (e.g. Rankings) Foreigners are per se a signal of polarisation and quality China is surprisingly backward in attracting non-Chinese talents, if comparison is set to recent achievements We aim at understand what does prevent/ incentivate China to attract foreigners in Chinese universities Actually we now nothing about this specific topic

A tentative quick understanding of the topic Stage 0 to be autonomous from foreign technological transfer Stage a to open country to outflow Stage b to incentivise Chinese to come back Stage c to attract foreign Talents with policies Stage d to attract foreigners without policies

The project Secondary data extraction from official research-intensive website (i.e. staff directories) [census of foreigners in 4 universities, so long] Diffusion of a short questionnaire to collect some further information plus consent to qualitative interview (via getting email address) [in progress] In depth interview in China [yeah, we got funding for this!]

Qualitative phase: Dimensions of analysis for investigating what brought some foreigners there in mainland China Geographical distance Language barrier Academic culture Political-ideological traditions Family/personal/environmental factors Resources (research/financial/talent programmes, etc.) Other

Some numbers (secondary data source) China probably has around 0.1% of staff with non-Chinese nationality/passport in its higher education system, excluding: Transnational branches Post-docs Doctoral students Languages experts The UK has around 30% In Italy is around 1.1%

Sex and year of appointment in China

Origin: PhD attainment US UK Germany France Japan South Korea Switzerland Australia Italy Canada China Russia Singapore Spain 65 16 11 9 9 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 39.39 9.70 6.67 5.45 5.45 2.42 2.42 1.82 1.82 1.21 1.21 1.21 1.21 1.21 The Netherlands Belarus Finland Germany/US Hong Kong Ireland Italy/Switzerland Netherland Poland Sweden 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.21 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 Total Missing 145 20 87.88 12.12

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