6th Japan China Higher Education Forum @Doshisha UNIV. KYOTO, Japan 27.Aug.2013

1. An Empirical Study of How Chinese
Graduate Student Mobility
Underpins Research Universities
Nobuyuki SHIRSKAWA
shirakawa@nistep.go.jp
Science and Technology Foresight Center,
National Institute Science and Technology Policy,
Japan

2. INTRODUCTION

3. International student mobility
in higher education
• discussed from the aspect of the migration of
potential highly skilled workers (e.g. Brooks and
Waters 2009, 2011),
– relevant to brain drain and brain circulation in the
context of global workforce issues (OECD 2009, 2010).
• Institutional classification in globalising higher
education, Marginson (2006)
– (1) World market of elite universities,
– (2) Exporting national research universities,
– (3) Teaching-focused export institutions,
– (4) Nationally bound research universities and
– (5) Lesser-status national/local institutions.

4. In this study…
• We shed light on
– The Chinese exporting national research universities
– which underpin world-class research universities
– based upon the empirical analysis on the international
mobility of graduate students in specific fields.
• Sources and data
– This article focuses on international graduate student
mobility between institutions, although public
statistical data has been insufficient to assess
worldwide student mobility between institutions.

5. SOURCES AND DATA

6. Sources and data
• Biographical notes and author trajectory
– we investigate the authors’ biographical notes that are
attached to journal articles.
– Scholarly articles published by the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),
– which is the largest professional association for electronics-
related disciplines,
• International mobility of researchers in specific research
domains
– Investigates educational trajectories of approximately
7,000 researchers
– Biographical notes in journal articles.
Institutions awarding bachelor’s, master’s and
doctorate degrees and affiliations

7. Research domains and data
1. Robotics
– A key research domain underpinning the next-generation industry.
– Applications are expanding from conventional fields to new fields
such as welfare, etc.
2. Computer Vision
– Commodity computers, image devices and the Internet
– It is relatively easy to start business on the basis of research outcome.
⇒ startup companies
3. Electron Devices
– A key research domain underpinning large segments of the
electronics industry

8. Author data, papers, authors, and researchers
8
Author data
Paper
Author
An identcal researcher
Number of researchers Number of authors
Temporal direction
Analysis of
international
mobility
Researcher data Author data
Number of papers
Without identical researchers
Contains the duplication of an
identical researcher
Correct duplication
Avinash Jain received the
BTech degree in electrical
engineering from Indian
Institute of Technology,
Bombay in 1997 and the MS
degree from the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in
1999. Since August of 1999, he
has been working as a system
engineer at QUALCOMM Inc.,
where he is working on design
and development of the
cdma2000 reverse link.
Institutions awarding
doctorate, master’s and
bachelor’s degrees as well
as affiliation
Definition of researcher in this study:
Individual authors who published
papers in the top ranked journals.

9. Counting method for internationally moved
researchers in educational phase
9
(a) International flow of a researcher
on the basis of countries
(b) International flow of a researcher
on the basis of institutions
Independently counts
outward and homeward movements
Ignore institutional movements
within the country
Country A Country B Country C
X Y Z W
Bachelor’s
degree
Master’s
degree
Doctorate
degree
Affiliation
A B C B
Institution
Country
X Y Z W
Bachelor’s
degree
Master’s
degree
Doctorate
degree
Affiliation
A B B A
Institution
Country
Institution X Institution Y
Institution W Institution Z
Country A Country B
Paper publication

10. RESULTS

11. Characteristic institutions
• Institutions providing researchers to other institutions abroad
– Universities in China typify large outflow institutions that provide
numerous researchers to other institutions abroad in all three
domains.
– In the computer vision domain, a research institute in China and a
university in Israel are also typical of such institutions.
– In the electron devices domain, many researchers from the universities
in South Korea and Taiwan go abroad, indicating that institutions in
East Asia tend to provide researchers to various institutions abroad.
• Institutions receiving researchers from abroad
– Universities in the United States and Singapore receive many
researchers from abroad, typify large inflow institutions in all three
research domains.
– It is noteworthy that both the National University of Singapore and the
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore receive as many
researchers from abroad as do the top-ranked research universities in
the United States.

12. Peculiarities of research domains 1
• Computer vision
• Firms represented by
Microsoft can also be
considered alternatives to
research universities as
receivers of many researchers
from around the world in the
computer vision domain.
• A relatively high number of
researchers belong to the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) but few belong to
University of Science and
Technology of China.
Table 2. The number of articles on
computer vision by affiliation

13. Peculiarities of research domains 2
• Robotics
• No institution in the robotics
domain provides as many
researchers to other
institutions abroad as do
institutions in the computer
vision and electron devices
domains.
• This result suggests that
researchers’ international
mobility at the institutional
level in the robotics domain is
lower than that in the other
domains.
Table 3. The number of articles on
robotics by affiliationcomputer vision by
affiliation

14. Peculiarities of research domains 3
• Electron devices
• The Belgian international
collaborative research institute IMEC
receives many researchers from
abroad.
• Universities are the major
institutions in South Korea, Taiwan
and China, whereas firms are the
major institutions in Japan.
• This in turn suggests that research
on computer vision and electron
devices is more closely related to
industrialization than is robotics
research.
Table 2. The number of articles on
computer vision by affiliation

15. Characteristic institutions in China
• Concentrating especially on computer vision, we
digitally illustrate the international/inter-
institutional mobility of graduate students
relating to five major Chinese national research
universities.
• All of the following are representative universities
sending their holders of bachelor’s degrees to
other universities for graduate studies:
1. Tsinghua University,
2. the University of Science and Technology of China,
3. Zhejiang University,
4. Peking University, and
5. Xi’an Jiaotong University.

16. Appendix: Detected researchers as sorted by degree
Doctor Master Bachelor
Tsinghua University

17. 1. Tsinghua University
• Alumni from Tsinghua University
provide significant input at other
research universities. Many bachelor’s
degree holders from Tsinghua
University pursued master’s degrees at
overseas institutions,
• although the percentage of students
who enrolled in the graduate school of
that same university is also very high.
• Furthermore, bachelor’s degree holders
from Tsinghua University earned
doctoral degrees mainly from research
universities in the United States.
Figure. 1 Trajectories of 61 authors who earned
bachelor’s degrees from Tsinghua University, as
obtained from biographical notes with their
journal articles on computer vision. The arrow
thickness indicates the number of students who
moved between institutions.+
A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

18. 2. University of Science and Technology of China
• Many of the authors entered
master’s and doctoral programs in
the United States.
• Even though a high percentage of
authors holding bachelor’s degrees
from the University of Science and
Technology of China also enrolled in
the graduate school of that same
university, many others earned
their doctoral degrees from
universities in the United States.
Figure. 2 Trajectories of 38 authors who
earned bachelor’s degrees from the
University of Science and Technology of
China, as obtained from the biographical
notes with their journal articles on
computer vision. The arrow thickness
indicates the number of students who
moved between institutions.
A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

19. 3. Zhejiang University
• Alumni from Zhejiang
University provide
significant input all
over the world, not
only at research
universities but also at
research institutions.
Figure. 3 Trajectories of 21
authors who earned bachelor’s
degrees from the University of
Science and Technology of China,
as obtained from biographical
notes with their published journal
articles on computer vision. The
arrow thickness indicates the
number of students who moved
between institutions.

20. 4. Peking University
• Many of these authors entered
master’s and doctoral programs
in the United States. Even
though a high percentage of
authors holding bachelor’s
degrees from Peking University
also enrolled in the graduate
school of that same
university, many earned their
doctoral degrees from
universities in the United States.
Figure. 4 Trajectories of 20
authors who earned bachelor’s
degrees from Peking University,
as obtained from biographical
notes with their published
journal articles on computer
vision. The arrow thickness
indicates the number of students
who moved between institutions.
A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.

21. 5. Xi’an Jiaotong University
• Many of the authors entered master’s and doctoral programs in the
United States. Even though a high percentage of authors holding
bachelor’s degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University also enrolled in the
graduate school of that same university, many others earned their
doctoral degrees from universities in the United States.
A typical university that provides students to research universities in the United States.
Figure. 5 Trajectories of 17
authors who earned
bachelor’s degrees from Xi’an
Jiaotong University, as
obtained from biographical
notes with their journal
articles on computer vision.
The arrow thickness indicates
the number of students who
moved between institutions.

22. Conclusion
• Complementary relationships between the
top-ranked research universities and the
exporting national research universities such
as Tsinghua University etc.
• are concealed behind the university rankings.

23. And… Discussion
• For further insights to our study,
• your valuable comments are
greatly appreciated!

24. 清听感谢
• Our research materials are also available at
• Official report (in Japanese)
• 研究者国際流動性の論文著者情報に基づく定量分析 －ロボティクス、コ
ンピュータビジョン及び電子デバイス領域を対象として－
• http://hdl.handle.net/11035/932
• Open Access Article
• An empirical study of graduate student mobility underpinning research universities
• Higher Education
• July 2013, Volume 66, Issue 1, pp 17-37,
• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10734-012-9586-4