The Social Capital Of University Research

The administration institution of Chinese higher education has changed significantly since 1980s. Nowadays colleges and universities don't completely rely on the government any more. Comparing with the fast enlargement of the scale of higher education Chinese government's investment into its higher education lags behind. Currently the lack of funds is the major bottleneck for the development of Chinese higher education. As a matter of fact, the phenomenon that the government reduces its investment into higher education has spread in the world. Consequently it is of great importance for each university to study how to obtain the maximum operating capital. There are various kinds of capital; similarly, as an institution a university may make use of sorts of capital. Besides material capital and manpower capital social capital plays an important role in the development of a university. Therefore it has strong practical and theoretical sense to study and explore the invisible resource, the social capital of a university. In 1980 a French scholar, Pierre Bourdieu, first referred to the concept 'social capital' which has attracted the attention of many scholars in different fields. We have got fewer achievements in the research of social capital in the field of education than in the field of sociology, economics, politics, culture, etc., and opinions on its definition vary. AH things considered, it is necessary to put forward the concept 'social capital' based on the previous study and a review of the word 'society' in etymology and to analyze the connotation, structure and feature of a university's social capital. When we explore the progress of a university's social capital abroad and at home from the angle of its relative network and the angle of informal institution, it is easy to understand that the amount of a university's social capital changes along with the development of the university. Actually, a university's social capital is indispensable in fostering talents, advancing science, serving society, financing socially and promoting harmony at unvierstiy. On the other hand we admit that as one form of capital social capital also bears some negative impacts just like material capital and human capital. However, it doesn't change the capital nature of a university's social capital. The accumulation of university's social capital is a complex process, which needs the joint participation of many factors such as university autonomy, formal institution, academic freedom, academic responsibility, president of university and mass organizations. It is necessary and feasible to accumulate and operate university's social capital in the current practice of reformation and development of higher education in China. Our universities need strengthen their linkage with the factors outside and promote the integration inside and achieve the balanced development between the formal and informal institution in the construction of institution so that they can accumulate their social capital continuously and operate it well.