In modern world history, urbanization has been one of the important signs of modernization. A series of development indicators over the past decade suggest that China’s urbanization is entering the 2.0 era.

Urbanization is an important impetus for economic growth and high-quality development, the 2.0 era of which in China will present new features and achieve new objectives based on a comprehensive analysis of various internal and external factors.

The scale, structure and quality of higher education are important metrics of a region’s or a country’s socio-economic development, and the level of higher education will greatly influence the quality and trajectory of China’s new-type urbanization.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should align with the global trends of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, helping to create new engines for national economic growth and innovation, while also assuming greater historical responsibilities in the era of Urbanization 2.0.

Liu Xinghua, a distinguished professor at Tongji SEM and academic member of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy, has recently published an article in Oriental Outlook. The original text is as follows.

China’s urbanization entering the 2.0 era

The Notice of the State Council on Issuing the Five-year Action Plan for Deepening the Implementation of the People-centered New-type Urbanization Strategy (Action Plan) was released shortly after the Third Plenary Session of the 20^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. According to the Action Plan, the implementation of a people-centered new-type urbanization strategy should focus on fulfilling people’s growing aspirations for a better life, with system and mechanism reforms as the driving force. It emphasizes leveraging existing conditions, seizing opportunities, adapting policies to local contexts, and implementing targeted approaches. The goal is to steadily improve the quality and level of urbanization, fully unleash the enormous domestic demand generated by new urbanization, and drive sustained improvements in both the quality and scale of economic growth, thereby providing strong support for Chinese modernization.

New features and new objectives of the era of Urbanization 2.0

In modern world history, urbanization has been one of the important signs of modernization. The era of Urbanization 2.0 in China will present new features and achieve new objectives based on a comprehensive analysis of various internal and external factors.

Firstly, the pace of urbanization will slow down, with population movements increasingly characterized by “city-city movement” and “urban-rural interaction”. Structural adjustments in urbanization will increase significantly, with resources being recombined and reallocated, and the urbanization rate of registered population continuing to rise.

Secondly, urban infrastructure and real estate will transition from quantity-driven expansion to a focus on green, low-carbon, and digital-intelligent construction of new projects as well as renovation, operation, and maintenance of existing projects. This transition will create a series of new occupational areas and job opportunities.

Thirdly, economic growth will shift from being driven by export- and investment-driven to being fueled by domestic demand and consumption, strengthening the resilience and quality of China’s economic growth.

Fourthly, innovation in technology and industry will transition from imitative innovation to integrated and independent innovation, generating substantial new social wealth through advanced sci-tech breakthroughs.

Fifthly, urbanization will evolve from “urbanization of things” to “urbanization of people”. This will involve addressing the education, employment, healthcare, and social security needs of urban permanent residents, further reforming and optimizing urban construction, operation, and governance systems, and creating a more people-centered and modern urban development mode.

Sixthly, economic growth will shift from relying on the demographic dividend to relying on talent quality to promote high-quality development, improving total factor productivity and significantly expanding the middle-income group.

Higher education in China still having a long way to go

The changes and new trends in China’s urbanization will significantly impact the scale, structure, and quality of its higher education, while the development of higher education will, in turn, shape the future of China’s urbanization. Based on the growth trend of population, the total scale of China’s higher education will peak around 2033, underscoring the need to optimize its structure and improve its quality. In this context, higher education should be considered in light of both domestic and international trends, as well as the era of Urbanization 2.0 in China.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area have already formed an emerging “triple-core drive” with numerous favorable conditions. These three regions should align with the global trends of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, leading the country, and becoming more important engines of innovation and growth. Specifically, in higher education, they should play a leading role in China’s strategies for to promote scientific and educational development, workforce growth, and innovation-driven progress. In this regard, efforts can be made in the following aspects:

(1) Leverage institutional strengths: higher education institutions in these three regions should exert their advantages by benchmarking against world-class universities. They should refine mechanisms for setting and adjusting disciplines and majors, and optimize talent development models to train top innovators. This will allow these regions to shoulder main responsibilities for economic development while also playing a leading role in sci-tech innovation and industrial upgrading.

(2) Accelerate talent development: these three regions should accelerate the construction of national high-level talent training bases. Higher education resources should be aligned with the regional needs for talent and industrial development, while also considering nationwide priorities and international cooperation in education and technology.

(3) Proactive discipline planning: these three regions should take a proactive approach to the planning of disciplines and majors urgently needed by sci-tech innovation and industrial upgrading. This includes strengthening foundational, emerging, and interdisciplinary fields, deepening enterprise-led integration of industry, academia and research, and building exemplars of innovation and platforms for gathering talents.

(4) Optimize education resource distribution: these three regions should continue to optimize the hierarchical structure of quality higher education resources. Colleges and universities within the Project 985 and disciplines included in the “double world-class project”, while maintaining their current undergraduate enrollment scales, can moderately expand the graduate education of majors urgently needed by sci-tech innovation and industrial upgrading.

(5) Enhance university-industry collaboration: these three regions should take the lead in opening channels for personnel exchanges among universities, research institutes, and enterprises. They should bring market mechanisms into full play, reform income distribution mechanisms in universities and research institutes, and establish sound systems that allow researchers to focus on their work.

(6) Strengthen industry-education integration: driven by industrial innovation, these three regions should reinforce the industry-education integration, and foster closer university-enterprise cooperation. This includes establishing a network of high-level training bases and R&D centers, and ensuring that education and talent development are closely linked to industry and innovation.

(7) Optimize non-governmental higher education: these three regions should optimize the structure of non-governmental higher education, maximizing the advantages of private higher learning institutions and their complementary role to public educational institutions in terms of educational quality, professional training, and talent cultivation.

(8) Promote international collaboration: to support the integration of education, sci-tech innovation, and talent development, these three regions should attract high-level foreign universities of science and engineering to cooperate with domestic Project 211 universities. They should also explore systems to attract high-tech talent from abroad.

(9) Foster collaborative research models: these three regions should develop new models for organizing technological research, with a focus on joint research in core and cutting-edge technologies. This will facilitate regional coordinated innovation. Furthermore, they should build mechanisms for mutual visits, exchanges, and joint talent development between their universities and research institutes in different regions, promoting cross-regional sharing of large-scale scientific facilities, data resources, innovative talents, and research achievements.