The Role of the Higher Education Sector in China's Research and Development System
Since 1978 science and technology (S&T) have been officially seen as the motors of future growth and modernization of the Chinese economy. Much effort has been devoted to the formulation and implementation of policy to reform the S&T sector to ensure that it will contribute much more than it has in the past to social and economic development. One objective of the reforms has been to mobilize under-utilized resources to expand research and develop ment (R&D) activities. It is in this context that policy-makers in China started to focus their attention on the higher education sector (HES). The sector's potential role as an important R&D performer has been progressively articulated over time in breadth and depth as policy-makers’ concerns have expanded, to examine the relationship between training S&T personnel and scientific research in the context of the rapid changes wrought by the “new technological revolution” (xin jishu geming).