Universities can power new quality growth

With the central authorities placing emphasis on achieving greater self-reliance in science and technology and developing new quality productive forces in the coming years, the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period will be decisive for advancing Chinese modernization.

As key platforms at the intersection of education, science and technology, and talent cultivation, universities shoulder three major responsibilities. They are sources of innovation, nurseries of high-level talent and facilitators of innovation along industrial chains. Their development is therefore directly linked to the country's growth.

For universities, the key lies in aligning more closely with national strategic needs and ensuring that science and technology become the primary force of productivity. This requires innovation in incentive mechanisms and deeper reform of evaluation systems so that national needs are translated into measurable and actionable standards.

For example, the value of academic papers should be assessed not only by journal rankings, but also by whether they address real-world problems and produce tangible outcomes. The long-standing tendency to prioritize publications over application needs to be corrected. The evaluation mechanism should guide research toward novelty as well as usefulness.

Fortunately, many universities have already begun optimizing their research evaluation systems, thanks to the guidance of the central government. Progress has been made in incorporating indicators such as innovation value, industrial contribution and effectiveness in talent cultivation. As a result, a more diversified evaluation framework is taking shape.

Next, greater efforts should be made to establish differentiated and categorized evaluation systems tailored to different types of universities, disciplinary characteristics and research orientations. Basic research, applied research, social services and talent training are different, so a one-size-fits-all approach should be avoided.

Another pressing task is to further improve training systems and address shortcomings in the cultivation of interdisciplinary talent. In the era of big data, nearly all industries are undergoing continuous upgrading and high-end interdisciplinary professionals equipped with capabilities of artificial intelligence and cross-disciplinary knowledge have become a key driving force for high-quality industrial development.

Biomedical research offers a clear example. Medical science and technology have become a focal point of global technological competition. Breakthroughs in advanced medical devices, biomedical materials and AI-assisted healthcare require highly specialized professionals with integrated expertise in medicine and engineering.

However, China faces multiple bottlenecks in cultivating such talent. Compared with the long-standing accumulation in developed countries, training systems for medical-engineering integration started relatively late in China. While training models are diverse, unified standards are lacking and training quality remains uneven.

Traditional medical universities usually have limited engineering capacity due to their disciplinary structures and program layouts, resulting in insufficient cross-disciplinary strengths. Although some comprehensive universities can integrate multiple disciplines to foster high-end talent, their influence and coverage are limited.

The persistent faculty shortage for interdisciplinary medical-engineering programs is another constraint. Data show that only about 12 percent of teachers in this field have both dual-disciplinary and dual-practice backgrounds and are able to independently offer interdisciplinary courses and supervise practical projects. Moreover, compared with the elite-oriented medical education systems in developed countries, China's medical education is transitioning from scale expansion to quality improvement, but gaps remain in per-student investment, funding sources and the share of spending on equipment and practical training.

In this context, it is advisable for relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance and the National Health Commission, to jointly introduce supportive policies to increase funding for interdisciplinary talent training, strengthen the development of cross-disciplinary faculty teams and expand investment in interdisciplinary research.

It is also essential to deepen mechanisms for industry-university-research collaboration and smooth the linkage between university research outcomes and enterprise markets. In many cases, the cooperation between universities and enterprises remains superficial. It is limited to short-term arrangements such as order-based training or commissioned research projects, rather than long-term strategic collaboration rooted in industrial chains.

Enterprises are not sufficiently motivated to participate deeply in university talent training and research planning, while the complementary advantages of academic research resources and market resources have yet to be fully realized. As a result, many research achievements remain confined to laboratories, failing to translate into tangible contributions to industrial upgrading and economic growth.

Therefore, it is recommended that the government take the lead in introducing policies that support universities and enterprises in jointly establishing platforms such as industry colleges and future industry research institutes, thereby promoting deep integration of education, research and industry. Such platforms would enable joint planning of frontier technology research and talent cultivation.

Meanwhile, closer alignment with regional industrial planning is needed, with a focus on regionally distinctive advanced manufacturing and green industries. The establishment of regional technology transfer centers can provide technical support for small and medium-sized enterprises, facilitating the upgrading of regional industrial clusters and fostering more dynamic innovation ecosystems.

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