The global research and the “world-class” universities

Abstract

The global research university and world-class university are terms frequently used to indicate the new developmental trends in international higher education. In the knowledge-intensive society, they have been considered as the key for social and economic development. But in research, there are confusions concerning the differences between global research university and the world-class university, between the global research university and traditional research universities, and between the global reach of research universities and the global research of teaching universities. This chapter first tries to address those differences and then provides some discussions on the development of “world-class” policies and the possible tensions in building the world-class universities.