^aHopkins-Nanjing Center, Johns Hopkins University, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA. E-mail: kmohrman@jhu.edu

Abstract

The Emerging Global Model is the blueprint for China's leading research universities to become internationally respected institutions. Government leaders and campus administrators seek universities with the research intensity and global perspective of the best European and North American institutions. International ranking systems provide additional impetus for reform as they highlight the characteristics of institutions considered to be the best worldwide. In addition, China has shifted from an elite to a mass system of tertiary education, now enrolling more than 23 million students, diversified funding patterns and new relationships between government and individual institutions, moving away from top-down control toward greater state supervision using evaluation and accountability mechanisms from the West. China faces particular challenges in the demand for institutional autonomy and academic freedom in a system that has traditionally been controlled tightly by the central government.