Summary

In August, the Hainan provincial government signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences in Germany to establish a new campus in Hainan’s Yangpu Economic Development Zone. This would be the first independently-operated branch campus of a foreign university in China as well as the first campus run independently by a German public university overseas.

The new campus will offer both undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes following the German applied higher education model, aiming to recruit its first students in 2021. According to reports from Hainan Government its first degree programmes will include Economic Information, Enterprise Economy, Economic Engineering, Intelligent Logistics, Intelligent Technology, Mechatronics, Application Automation, Data Science, Industrial Design and Services, Enterprise Management, and Engineering Management.

The campus will be located in Hainan Yangpu Economic Development Zone, where a Sino-German industrial park is under construction, aiming to provide support for further university-industry cooperation, training and research in the fields of science and technology, transformation of science and technological achievements, and for partner enterprises of German universities.

Analysis

Bielefeld’s Hainan campus will be different from other overseas universities’ campuses in China in that it is fully operated and controlled by an overseas institution. Existing branch campuses in the country are all officially run as partnerships between overseas and Chinese institutions, although the extent to which the Chinese partner is involved in academic delivery varies significantly.

Approval of full branch campuses in China is a very political decision, to a much greater degree than joint institutes or programmes that operate as part of a parent Chinese university. In this case the initiative aligns with the Hainan Free Trade Zone General Plan on “allowing advanced higher education institutions focusing on engineering, agriculture, and medicine, as well as vocational colleges to independently establish branch campuses and set up international schools” as reported by previous IES market news articles. Hainan’s policy on transnational education is more flexible compared to the rest of the country, but Hainan is also significantly less developed than many other Chinese provinces which reduces its attractiveness as a study destination.

The new university aims to deliver German-style applied higher education, with a more vocational focus and closer industry links than existing Chinese HE institutions. Germany’s vocational education system has a very strong reputation in China and education authorities have often described it as a model for the country’s vocational education development.

Sources:

1. http://www.hainan.gov.cn/hainan/tingju/202008/123173eb44b74dec98fc1bf71e70d656.shtml

2. http://jsj.moe.gov.cn/n2/7001/12107/1522.shtml

3. IES news on July 2019: https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/chinas-hainan-province-issues-implementation-plan-its-international-education

4. IES news on December 2019 https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/chinas-hainan-province-moves-forward-international-education-island-plans