Analysis On Postgraduates Education System Reform In Chinese Research Institutes From The Prospective Of Governance Theory

"Innovation is the soul of a nation’s progress and an inexhaustible motive power for the prosperity of a nation ". Nowadays the international competition is increasingly fierce, and talents have become the key issues. Essentially, cultivation of innovative talents depends on education, especially postgraduate education as the high-end one. In China, universities and research institutes are the main organizations to cultivate postgraduates. As far as the research institutes are concerned, they have made great progress in cultivation of postgraduates since the founding of the P. R. China in respect of the big capacity, rapid development and balanced distribution. In a word, the research institutes have become key organizations to cultivate high-end innovative talents in China.Nevertheless, with the increasing demand for innovative talents in China, problems of cultivation of postgraduates in research institutes are more obvious: lack of policy support and weakness of institutional guarantee, unsuccessful collaboration between research and education, unsoundness of talents cultivation chain, unsystematic courses of postgraduates, inadequate literal arts education, inadequate education of application, insufficient concerns from the whole society and insufficient candidates of postgraduates, etc..This dissertation systematically analyzes the aforementioned problems and summarizes causes of them. In order to find solutions to the problems, this dissertation focuses on analysis of postgraduate education in research institutes in the United States, Germany, France, Japan, etc. and accordingly summarizes their characteristics and experiences, thereby concluding what Chinese research institutes can learn from them to reform postgraduate education. Based on this, this dissertation elaborates and defines the overall objective and reform principles of postgraduate education in China’s research institutes. With the Governance Theory, this dissertation puts forward practical approaches of institutional innovation of postgraduate education reform in China’s research institutes. Finally, this dissertation makes a proposal of completely integrating postgraduate education in research institutes with cooperative universities by establishing “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education”. Specifically, this dissertation elaborates management system and cultivation mechanism of the Co-constructed Institutes.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:Postgraduate education in China’s research institutes has experienced six stages with different characteristics: initialization, establishment, stagnation, recovery, regularization and innovation. Accounting for approximately 40% of total organizations of postgraduate education in China, research institutes are of effective cultivation mode and management system in spite of a series of problems. From a perspective of Governance Theory, these problems and reasons for them are: lack of policy support and weakness of institutional guarantee and unsuccessful collaboration between research and education is attributable to lack of support of government; unsystematic courses attributable to lack of support of universities; inadequate education of application attributable to lack of support of corporations.Successful international experiences of collaboration between research and education have proved that “integrating research with education for collaborative innovation” is an important concept and advanced mode that follows development trend of the times and development law of research and education, for it can ensure an all-round and multi-level close collaboration between research institutes and universities to achieve win-win development by maximally taking advantages of both sides. There are four points that China can learn from international experiences about reform of postgraduate education: being cooperative and open; reforming education system: the research university being the only organization to cultivate postgraduates; reforming management concepts: multiple interaction management by research institutes and universities; government promoting reform: cooperating with government for policy support and institutional guarantee.Based on the analysis above, this dissertation holds that the overall objective of institutional innovation of postgraduate education in China’s research institutes is to construct a collaborative management system involving multiple parties like government, research institutes and universities; that the focus is to establish “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education” for postgraduate education and management by dividing responsibilities of research institutes and universities, the former being cultivation of research ability and the latter being regular education management. The reform principles include: taking advantages of scientific research; cultivating innovation ability; highlighting cultivation development; underlining the normative education; emphasizing the principles of coordinating governance and cooperating governance under the Governance Theory.With the Governance Theory, this dissertation further puts forward five practical approaches to promote institutional innovation of postgraduate education in China’s research institutes.This dissertation assumes that postgraduate education in research institutes is completely incorporated into the cooperative universities and “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education” is established to realize a substantial integration through “Universal Enrollment, Universal Management and Universal Degree Conferring”.The main innovation of this dissertation is to put forward principles of institutional reform of postgraduate education in China’s research institutes from a perspective of Public Governance Theory, i.e.: taking advantages of scientific research; cultivating innovation ability; highlighting cultivation development; underlining the normative education; emphasizing the principles of coordinating governance and cooperating governance under the Governance Theory. Furthermore, based on analysis of practice of institutional reform of research institutes at home and abroad, this dissertation proposes basic approaches to promote institutional innovation of postgraduate education in China’s research institutes: scientific research shall be the core role of research institutes; management of postgraduate education in research institutes shall be shifted to universities; “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education” shall be established by multiple parties; each party’s role played in “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education” shall be clarified; a collaborative innovation environment for postgraduate education in research institutes shall be constructed as a basic approach. The systematic elaboration of the “Co-constructed Institutes Integrating Research and Education” is the most significant feature of this dissertation, and it is also a practical approach to the reform of postgraduate education in research institutes in the future.