An empirical study of how chinese graduate student

An Empirical Study of How Chinese Graduate Student Mobility

Underpins Research Universities

Nobuyuki [email protected]

Science and Technology Foresight Center, National Institute Science and Technology Policy,

Japan

INTRODUCTION

International student mobility in higher education

• discussed from the aspect of the migration of potential highly skilled workers (e.g. Brooks and Waters 2009, 2011), – relevant to brain drain and brain circulation in the context

of global workforce issues (OECD 2009, 2010).

• Institutional classification in globalising higher education, Marginson (2006) – (1) World market of elite universities,– (2) Exporting national research universities,– (3) Teaching-focused export institutions,– (4) Nationally bound research universities and – (5) Lesser-status national/local institutions.

In this study…

• We shed light on– The Chinese exporting national research universities – which underpin world-class research universities – based upon the empirical analysis on the international

mobility of graduate students in specific fields.

• Sources and data– This article focuses on international graduate student

mobility between institutions, although public statistical data has been insufficient to assess worldwide student mobility between institutions.

SOURCES AND DATA

Sources and data• Biographical notes and author trajectory

– we investigate the authors’ biographical notes that are attached to journal articles.

– Scholarly articles published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),

– which is the largest professional association for electronics-related disciplines,

• International mobility of researchers in specific research domains– Investigates educational trajectories of approximately 7,000

researchers– Biographical notes in journal articles.

Institutions awarding bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and affiliations

Research domains and data1. Robotics– A key research domain underpinning the next-generation industry.– Applications are expanding from conventional fields to new fields such

as welfare, etc.2. Computer Vision– Commodity computers, image devices and the Internet – It is relatively easy to start business on the basis of research outcome.

⇒ startup companies3. Electron Devices– A key research domain underpinning large segments of the electronics

industry

Author data, papers, authors, and researchers

8

Author data

Paper

Author

An identcal researcher

Number of researchers Number of authors

Temporal direction

Analysis of international mobility

Researcher data Author data

Number of papers

Without identical researchersContains the duplication of an identical researcher

Correct duplication

Avinash Jain received the BTech degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1997 and the MS degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1999. Since August of 1999, he has been working as a system engineer at QUALCOMM Inc., where he is working on design and development of the cdma2000 reverse link.

Institutions awarding doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s degrees as well as affiliation

Definition of researcher in this study:Individual authors who published papers in the top ranked journals.

Counting method for internationally moved researchers in educational phase

9

(a) International flow of a researcher on the basis of countries

(b) International flow of a researcher on the basis of institutions

Independently counts outward and homeward movements

Ignore institutional movements within the country

Country A Country B Country C

X Y Z W

Bachelor’sdegree

Master’sdegree

Doctoratedegree

Affiliation

A B C B

Institution

Country

X Y Z W

Bachelor’sdegree

Master’sdegree

Doctoratedegree

Affiliation

A B B A

Institution

Country

Institution X Institution Y

Institution W Institution Z

Country A Country B

Paper publication

RESULTS

Characteristic institutions

• Institutions providing researchers to other institutions abroad– Universities in China typify large outflow institutions that provide

numerous researchers to other institutions abroad in all three domains. – In the computer vision domain, a research institute in China and a

university in Israel are also typical of such institutions. – In the electron devices domain, many researchers from the universities

in South Korea and Taiwan go abroad, indicating that institutions in East Asia tend to provide researchers to various institutions abroad.

• Institutions receiving researchers from abroad– Universities in the United States and Singapore receive many

researchers from abroad, typify large inflow institutions in all three research domains.

– It is noteworthy that both the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore receive as many researchers from abroad as do the top-ranked research universities in the United States.

Peculiarities of research domains 1• Computer vision• Firms represented by

Microsoft can also be considered alternatives to research universities as receivers of many researchers from around the world in the computer vision domain.

• A relatively high number of researchers belong to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) but few belong to University of Science and Technology of China.

Table 2. The number of articles on computer vision by affiliation

Peculiarities of research domains 2• Robotics• No institution in the robotics

domain provides as many researchers to other institutions abroad as do institutions in the computer vision and electron devices domains.

• This result suggests that researchers’ international mobility at the institutional level in the robotics domain is lower than that in the other domains.

Table 3. The number of articles on robotics by affiliationcomputer vision by affiliation

Peculiarities of research domains 3• Electron devices

• The Belgian international collaborative research institute IMEC receives many researchers from abroad.

• Universities are the major institutions in South Korea, Taiwan and China, whereas firms are the major institutions in Japan.

• This in turn suggests that research on computer vision and electron devices is more closely related to industrialization than is robotics research.

Table 2. The number of articles on computer vision by affiliation

Characteristic institutions in China• Concentrating especially on computer vision, we

digitally illustrate the international/inter-institutional mobility of graduate students relating to five major Chinese national research universities.

• All of the following are representative universities sending their holders of bachelor’s degrees to other universities for graduate studies:

1. Tsinghua University, 2. the University of Science and Technology of China,3. Zhejiang University, 4. Peking University, and 5. Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Appendix: Detected researchers as sorted by degree

Doctor Master Bachelor

Tsinghua University

1. Tsinghua University

• Alumni from Tsinghua University provide significant input at other research universities. Many bachelor’s degree holders from Tsinghua University pursued master’s degrees at overseas institutions,

• although the percentage of students who enrolled in the graduate school of that same university is also very high.

• Furthermore, bachelor’s degree holders from Tsinghua University earned doctoral degrees mainly from research universities in the United States.

Figure. 1 Trajectories of 61 authors who earned bachelor’s degrees from Tsinghua University, as obtained from biographical notes with their journal articles on computer vision. The arrow thickness indicates the number of students who moved between institutions.+

A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

2. University of Science and Technology of China

• Many of the authors entered master’s and doctoral programs in the United States.

• Even though a high percentage of authors holding bachelor’s degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China also enrolled in the graduate school of that same university, many others earned their doctoral degrees from universities in the United States.

Figure. 2 Trajectories of 38 authors who earned bachelor’s degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, as obtained from the biographical notes with their journal articles on computer vision. The arrow thickness indicates the number of students who moved between institutions.

A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

3. Zhejiang University• Alumni from Zhejiang

University provide significant input all over the world, not only at research universities but also at research institutions.

Figure. 3 Trajectories of 21 authors who earned bachelor’s degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, as obtained from biographical notes with their published journal articles on computer vision. The arrow thickness indicates the number of students who moved between institutions.

4. Peking University

• Many of these authors entered master’s and doctoral programs in the United States. Even though a high percentage of authors holding bachelor’s degrees from Peking University also enrolled in the graduate school of that same university, many earned their doctoral degrees from universities in the United States.

Figure. 4 Trajectories of 20 authors who earned bachelor’s degrees from Peking University, as obtained from biographical notes with their published journal articles on computer vision. The arrow thickness indicates the number of students who moved between institutions.

A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

5. Xi’an Jiaotong University

• Many of the authors entered master’s and doctoral programs in the United States. Even though a high percentage of authors holding bachelor’s degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University also enrolled in the graduate school of that same university, many others earned their doctoral degrees from universities in the United States.

A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

Figure. 5 Trajectories of 17 authors who earned bachelor’s degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University, as obtained from biographical notes with their journal articles on computer vision. The arrow thickness indicates the number of students who moved between institutions.

Conclusion

• Complementary relationships between the top-ranked research universities and the exporting national research universities such as Tsinghua University etc.

• are concealed behind the university rankings.

And… Discussion

• For further insights to our study,• your valuable comments are

greatly appreciated!

清听感谢• Our research materials are also available at

• Official report (in Japanese)• 研究者国際流動性の論文著者情報に基づく定量分析　－ロボティクス、コンピュータビジョン及び電子デバイス領域を対象として－

• http://hdl.handle.net/11035/932

• Open Access Article• An empirical study of graduate student mobility underpinning research universities• Higher Education• July 2013, Volume 66, Issue 1, pp 17-37,• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10734-012-9586-4