High-Quality Coordinated Development of Regional Higher Education: An Analysis Based on Multiple Institutional Logics

Abstract

The coordinated development of regional higher education has become a strategic foundation for building a leading country in education and advancing regional modernization. Promoting the coordinated development of regional higher education is a complex and often contradictory process shaped by multiple institutional logics. The Chinese central government demonstrates a dual approach by promoting regional connectivity and cooperation while encouraging local competition. Local governments strive to maximize their own interests, oscillating between cooperation and competition. Public higher education institutions (HEIs) are constrained by the centralized higher education governance system, lacking sufficient motivation to engage in regional cooperation. To achieve high-quality coordinated development of regional higher education, it is essential to address local government competition and reform government-HEI relations. This requires institutional innovation in governance at the central-local and state-society levels. Key pathways for promoting the coordinated development of regional higher education include incorporating such development into the performance assessment metrics for local governments, enhancing the coordination mechanisms of the central government for regional higher education cooperation, expanding the operational autonomy of public HEIs to increase regional cooperation opportunities, and encouraging social entities to actively participate in the coordinated development of regional higher education.

Keywords

leading country in education / regional modernization / coordinated development of regional higher education / high-qulity development / multiple institutional logics

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Higher Education Press