Another top Sino-foreign cooperative college was called off! Some start building walls, China is still building bridges

A Sino-foreign cooperative college, which had been in operation for 4 years and had an approved school size of 1200, was suddenly required to be terminated. This time, the one caught up in the geopolitical storm isShandong University andAustralian National University。

In August, the Australian government asked the Australian National University to terminate the joint science college established in cooperation with Shandong University, citing national security reasons,Completely end the cooperation by January 18, 2027 at the latest. At present, hundreds of students participating in the project have been affected, and the follow-up training and placement program is still being coordinated.

The Ministry of EducationAustralian National College of Science, Shandong UniversityQualification

One is China's "double first-class" universities, and the other is Australia's top research universities. The cooperation project has been officially approved by the Ministry of Education of China. The majors cover basic disciplines such as biological sciences, applied chemistry, mathematics and applied mathematics, and applied physics. Students can also go to Australia. Study nuclear science, quantum technology, material science and other directions. Projects like this, in the past, were almostSino-foreign cooperative educationIn the "top". Today, however, it is just as eluding geopolitics.

Over the past few years, fromTsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen College, to Tianjin University-Georgia Institute of Technology Shenzhen, then toShanghai Jiaotong University Michigan College、College of Pittsburgh, Sichuan UniversityA number of Sino-US university cooperation projects that have attracted much attention have successively seen structural adjustments, suspension of enrollment or withdrawal of foreign parties.

These are not projects of poor quality and no one cares about them. On the contrary, most of the Chinese and foreign parties are the head universities of their respective countries, and the cooperative majors are also concentrated in engineering, computer, materials, etc.STEM fields. In the past, "prestigious schools" meant stronger attraction.Now, the more the combination of cutting-edge technology is involved, the easier it is to stand under the spotlight of national security review.

Shandong University and the Australian National University project was called off before, there is an important time node. In July this year, the US Department of Defense updated the 1286 list, and Shandong University, Fudan University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University were included for the first time.

This list is not a simple ban on American universities and Chinese universities, but the impact is very specific: since fiscal year 2026, the US Department of Defense research funds shall not support basic research cooperation involving list institutions.For U.S. research universities, which rely heavily on federal research funding, working with listed institutions means reassessing funding and compliance risks.

In response to the Shandong University project, Australia's Assistant Minister of International Education also specifically mentioned the changes in the evaluation status of Shandong University in the United States. A list drawn up as far away as Washington is affecting classrooms, laboratories and whether students can complete their studies thousands of kilometers away.

Of course,Not all the withdrawal of Sino-foreign cooperative education projects is related to politics.Some projects are due to the continuous decline in enrollment, some are due to insufficient foreign investment, some are due to the natural expiration of cooperation agreements, and a number of projects are themselves the result of the regulatory authorities cleaning up low-quality schools. In 2018, the Ministry of Education issued a document to terminate 234 Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools and projects at or above the undergraduate level in accordance with the law, most of which were substandard in school quality or terminated upon expiration of the agreement.

at the same time that the united states and australia are continually tightening their cooperation with china,On the contrary, China has opened the door to foreign cooperation in running schools even wider, and a number of new science and engineering and artificial intelligence cooperation colleges are being intensively implemented.Universities in the United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Spain, Hungary and other countries have begun to appear more and more in the new round of high-level cooperative education lists. On the one hand, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, advanced materials and other fields are more and more frequently included in the so-called "national security" review; on the other hand, China's newly approved and expanded cooperation projects have not deliberately bypassed these frontier fields. Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Robotics, Integrated Circuits, Advanced Materials, Intelligent Manufacturing,Embodied intelligenceIt is almost the most competitive track in global science and technology today.

For a long time in the past, top universities in the United States have been important targets for high-level international cooperation among Chinese universities. Berkeley, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and other names are themselves important sources of attraction for Sino-foreign cooperation projects. However, local politics is increasingly affecting academic cooperation. No matter how high the school ranks and the history of cooperation is, there is no guarantee that a project will always run stably. At the same time, Chinese universities still need world-class educational resources, and international education will not stop because of the tightening of cooperation in some countries.

The proportion of the United States has declined, and the importance of the United Kingdom, Singapore and other European countries has increased; in addition to traditional business projects, artificial intelligence, data science, robotics and advanced manufacturing are becoming new hot spots for cooperation. In the past, when people judged a Sino-foreign cooperation project, they first looked at the school ranking, major and tuition fees. I'm afraid I have to ask one more question in the future:Can this partnership last for four years, five years or even longer? This is a real risk for students and families.

On a larger scale, when some countries continue to incorporate knowledge, scientific research and talent exchanges into the boundaries of "national security", global university cooperation is also emerging as an increasingly clear fork.Someone started building the wall, China is still building the bridge.

This article is forEOL Education OnlineOriginal article

Author: Yangyang

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