Research On The Access Standard Of Strategic Alliance Of First - Class Universities

With the popularization of China’s higher education, the scale of higher education has been expanding and the level and types of colleges and universities have been diversifying. In order to avoid the homogenization of higher education institutions and improve the quality of higher education, the hierarchical classification system of assessment in higher education is more and more necessary. However, China is still in the exploratory stage on the classification assessment of higher education institutions until today. In this paper, three high-level university alliances:Association of American Universities (AAU), Group of Eight (Go8), The Russell Group, was selected and their evaluation criteria and indicators were studied, to unravel the reasonable factors in them and to provide a reference for the establishment of evaluation criteria of the key universities in China.In this study, these three alliances’ policy texts and actual data were analyzed individually through the integrated use of literature analysis, case and comparative analysis, trying to study their evaluation criteria, indicators and value orientation. Studies have shown that AAU has gradually formed a dynamic and open principle, which combines quantitative and qualitative assessment. And the core membership indicators of AAU are competitively funded federal research support and membership in the National Academies (NAS, NAE, IOM). In the national context of expanding market share of higher education around the world, Go8’s evaluation criteria not only focus on nationally competitive research income, but also industry-funded research income and net assets. In addition to this, special attention is paid to the international level of students. Although the published evaluation criteria are not provided by The Russell Group, whose public documents and principles have shown that this alliance emphasizes its members’ social function, the breadth of discipline system, the ability of leading cutting-edge research, the level of internationalization, the achievement of cultivating high-quality talents for the society and the performance of transforming research results into products.Through the horizontal comparison of these three university alliances’ membership indicators, on the one hand, it is found that knowledge innovation and leading, attracting the most qualified professors and researchers, training highly-skilled talents are set as an important mission and the basic characteristics of a high-level research-intensive university; a higher degree of internationalization is usually found in a high-level research-intensive university and for which undergraduate education is deemed the basis and has the same weight with graduate education. On the other hand, these three alliances have their own characteristics, for example, membership is possible discontinued in AAU according to the condition of competitively funded federal research support and membership in the National Academies and governance is taken into account as well as resources and talent by The Russell Group.Through this study, the following advices can be obtained:firstly, the evaluation criteria of key universities should reflect the characteristics of the university at that level, which should be a comprehensive university, covering multi-disciplines such as liberal arts, science, engineering, and medicine, etc. Secondly, the value orientation of evaluation criteria should be identified so that the key universities of China can be world-class. Thirdly, the evaluation criteria of the key universities must be advanced with the changing times to meet the actual needs. Finally, the scientific and rational nature of the evaluation criteria should be improved.