World-Class Universities: Towards a Global Common Good and Seeking National and Institutional Contributions

In the era marked by globalization and its profound impacts on individuals, societies, states and markets, world-class universities need to position themselves in the forefront of seeking conceptual and practical solutions to daunting challenges by paying greater attention to their roles in serving local society and contributing to global common goods. Based on the findings of the Seventh International Conference on World-Class Universities, World-Class Universities: Towards a Global Common Good and Seeking National and Institutional Contributions provides updated insights and debates on how world-class universities will contribute to the global common good and balance their global, national and local roles in doing so.

Yan Wu is Assistant Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She was responsible for the Global Research University Profiles (GRUP) project, which started in 2011 and has been developing a database on the facts and figures of around 1200 research universities in the world.

Qi Wang, Ph.D. (2008), University of Bath, UK, is Assistant Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and research fellow at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College.

Nian Cai Liu, Ph.D., Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada, is Professor and Director of the Center for World-Class Universities and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests include world-class universities and research universities, university evaluation and academic ranking, research evaluation and science policy, globalization and internationalization of higher education. Professor Liu has published extensively in both Chinese and English.