Study On The Construction Status Of Think Tanks In Research Universities In China

The diversification of public interest appeals and the complexity of social issues pose certain challenges to the scientificization of current government decisions.Due to the limitations of knowledge,the government must break the inertia of traditional decision-making and borrow external intelligence to improve the rationality of public decision-making.The university relies on abundant talents and knowledge reserves to better fulfill its mission of the times in serving government decision-making and solving social problems.In recent years,the state has issued a series of policies for the construction of new types of think tanks with Chinese characteristics.Among them,the construction of think tanks based on the rich resources of research universities has been highly valued.Through literature search,it is found that the research on the construction status of research-based university think tanks is relatively weak.Therefore,the topic of this paper is determined based on social needs,policy hotspots and literature review.On the basis of literature review,this study defines the meaning of research universities and university think tanks,proposes research ideas based on pluralism theory,social network theory and good governance theory,and researches on four aspects: development history and structural characteristics,development model and governance structure,social relationship and evaluation system.First,using the survey research method,with the help of the Shanghai Institute of Social Sciences Think Tank Research Center for the study of active think tanks in China,and the China think tank report released in 2017,we select 80 research university think tanks as research objects,it is studied from the aspects of university distribution,regional distribution,subject structure,construction history and personnel training structure.Furthermore,this paper further analyzes the development model and governance structure of the research-oriented university think tanks in China.The research finds that the research-based university think tanks in China can be divided into university-independent,government-university-co-building and enterprise-university co-construction;the governance structure mainly includes the director(president)responsibility system,the director(president)responsibility system under the leadership of the council and the director(president)responsibility system under the leadership of the committee;researchers have basically formed a concentric structure management system from the inside to the outside like “ full-time research team-part-time professor-project research team”;funds are mainly raised throughgovernment appropriations.Secondly,using case analysis and social network analysis,the three high-end university think tanks published in the National High-end Think Tank Construction Pilot Work Program are selected as research objects,and their social relationships is studied.The study finds that the social relations of high-end university think tanks show the characteristics of "relying on university think tanks,taking inter-university cooperation as the core,and taking media as the communication means,and interacting with the government,media,enterprises,universities and other social subjects in an all-round,multi-field and long-term and stable manner".From the perspective of individual network,high-end university think tanks and the government show the interactive characteristics of "connecting the central government as the core";it presents the characteristics of "real-time interaction between traditional media and new media" with the media.The interaction features with enterprises are "shallow level dominated by Internet and financial industry",and with universities are "deep level oriented by American first-class universities and focusing on domestic double-first-class universities".Thirdly,using the comparative research method to analyze the evaluation system of the research-oriented university think tanks in China,the research finds that the evaluation of China's think tanks is mainly based on third-party evaluation;the evaluation methods are mainly qualitative evaluation,supplemented by quantitative evaluation,and hierarchical classification evaluation is carried out.The evaluation index system presents a diversified trend,and a pattern of coexistence of the results evaluation index system and the system evaluation index system has been formed.Finally,based on the above research,it analyzes the problems existing in the construction of think tanks in research universities in China,and proposes effective solutions.