The Commercialisation of Chinese Universities and its Effects on Research Capacity

This paper analyses the commercialisation of leading Chinese universities and its lasting effects on research capacity and research productivity of these universities in the context of China-in-transition over the past two decades. In the first part, a brief historical review identifies the characteristics of the commercialisation of Chinese universities and its significant impacts on research capacity of the universities. In China, like most post-socialist transitional economies (Freeman, 1982), the R&D institutes to promote industrial technology were separated from the relevant industries; as a result, the productive ‘link ’ between R&D institutes and production enterprises was simply deficient. This caused problems of inefficient transfer of R&D output to industrial users. In order to tackle these problems, a systematic reform of R&D mechanisms was required. As a response to the market-oriented reforms starting in the early 1980s, China’s centrally-planned science & technology (S&T) system began to adopt market-oriented mechanisms. Universities were encouraged to raise funds through commercialisation and industrialisation of research outcome. In order to narrow the gap between China and high-technology frontiers, in

Business · Capacity development · Economics · Environmental resource management · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · Economic Theory and Institutions

• The Evolution of Institutions

  Open Access•G M Hodgson•Constitutional Political Economy•2002

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