Bi Tianshu: Integration and Symbioses to Promote School-Enterprise Collaborative Education
The Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes to promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation. As a vital force in building a leading country in education, universities with industry-specific characteristics urgently need to deepen collaborative education between schools and enterprises. By highlighting their operational features and enhancing their capacities within the integration of industry and education and the convergence of science and education, these institutions can truly achieve the deep integration of the chains of education, talent, science and technology, and innovation, thereby providing human resource support for the construction of a powerful nation.
The Value and Significance of Deepening School-Enterprise Collaborative Education
From the implementation of the major strategy of high-quality development to the upgrading of industry quality and efficiency, and further to the "Double First-Class" construction [1] of universities, the building of an organic community can be achieved by using school-enterprise collaborative education as the key node for value alignment. This community—guided by the goal of building a leading country in education and aimed at high-quality development—features the deep interaction and mutual support of national strategic development, industrial upgrading, and university "Double First-Class" construction, thereby strengthening the supporting role and contribution of higher education in serving national development.
Shared mission: Anchoring the strategic orientation of a leading country in education. In building a leading country in education, higher education plays a leading and pioneering role. Its core mission lies in cultivating socialist builders and successors with an all-round development in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education, and in providing comprehensive support for high-quality economic and social development. The improvement of industrial quality and upgrading is a key catalyst for promoting high-quality development and is a vital practical theater for building a leading country in education. The effectiveness of becoming a leading country in education must ultimately be reflected in the actual results of serving industrial development and guaranteeing national strategies. As universities are the primary front for talent cultivation and the source of scientific and technological innovation, and leading enterprises serve as the "chain masters" [2] of the industrial chain, both parties must jointly anchor themselves to the responsibility and goals of high-quality development to form a collaborative mechanism of shared mission. By constructing a closed-loop system of "national strategy—industry demand—school-enterprise synergy—talent supply," we can achieve the precise docking and deep integration of talent cultivation and scientific research innovation with national strategies, making collaborative education the core support for serving major national strategies and allowing higher education to truly become the talent engine for national development.
Alignment of responsibilities: Clarifying the practical path toward a leading country in education. Along with the accelerated evolution of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, all industries have entered a critical stage of quality improvement and upgrading. Issues such as the application of emerging technologies and the restructuring of industrial systems urgently require technological breakthroughs and talent support. This presents a practical proposition and broadens the practical path for building a leading country in education. The traditional talent cultivation model, characterized by its disconnect between theory and practice, can no longer adapt to market demands under the new situation. There is an urgent need to interface with industry demands, deepen school-enterprise collaborative education mechanisms, and form a virtuous cycle where "industrial demand drives talent cultivation, and talent cultivation supports industrial upgrading." Universities must integrate frontier industrial dynamics, technological bottleneck requirements, and occupational practice standards into the entire process of education. Through joint scientific research, the co-construction of platforms, and the joint formation of teams, they should cultivate high-quality talents who possess both solid theoretical foundations and practical capabilities. This ensures the precise docking of talent supply with industrial demand, allowing the construction of a leading country in education to take root in industrial practice and serve real-world needs.
Advancing in tandem: Consolidating the operational support for a leading country in education. The "Double First-Class" construction of universities is the core vehicle for becoming a leading country in education. Its key lies in whether an institution has the capacity to deeply bind its operational characteristics to the needs of the country and resonate at the same frequency as industrial development. School-enterprise collaborative education has become a key lever for optimizing professional structures, improving faculty standards, and enhancing scientific research strength. Through deep cooperation with industry leaders, universities can accurately grasp industrial trends, adjust the layout of disciplines and majors, and promote the extension of traditional advantageous disciplines into emerging fields. Relying on corporate resources, universities can enhance the engineering practice capabilities and research targeting of teachers, transforming corporate needs into research topics and educational vehicles. This achieves a dual empowerment of scientific research output and talent cultivation. Within this synergy, students' practical abilities and innovative spirit are strengthened, cultivating more industry leaders and young scientific talents who meet the requirements of a leading country in education, ensuring that "Double First-Class" construction becomes a solid support for the nation's educational goals.
The Conceptual Reconstruction of School-Enterprise Collaborative Education
With the changes of the times and the development of industrial practice, advancing with the times to update educational concepts is the intellectual precursor to continuously deepening school-enterprise collaborative education. Both schools and enterprises need to use a forward-looking vision, systems thinking, and an awareness of innovation to break down collaborative barriers and pool the dual educational forces of the talent and industrial sectors.
Establish the concept of strategic synergy and make forward-looking, long-term layouts. We must abandon short-term behaviors such as "project-based cooperation" or "order-based recruitment" [3] and instead build deep cooperative relationships based on long-term strategic consensus. We should establish multi-level, normalized communication and coordination mechanisms to promote the upgrading of school-enterprise cooperation from fragmented project docking to all-round strategic synergy. Both schools and enterprises should achieve a high degree of alignment in development goals, resource allocation, talent cultivation, and scientific research innovation. They should focus on frontier fields representing the future development of the industry, carrying out joint problem-solving and talent reserves, and building a long-term mechanism of "shared responsibility, shared interests, and shared risks."
Establish the concept of integrated symbiosis and build a systematic ecosystem. To resolve problems in traditional school-enterprise cooperation such as "hot schools and cold enterprises" [4] or fragmented resources, we must establish the concept of "integrated symbiosis," treating schools and enterprises as an interdependent organic whole. We must break down barriers in systems and mechanisms, resource flow, and personnel mobility to achieve "shared faculty, interconnected resources, and shared results." Corporate experts should enter campuses to participate in teaching and serve as mentors, while university teachers should go deep into enterprises to participate in project practice. Scientific research platforms should be open to enterprises, and production bases should become internship and training sites. The results of joint scientific research should both serve industrial upgrading and be transformed into educational resources, forming a "1+1>2" synergistic effect.
Establish the concept of innovation-driven development and co-create multi-dimensional value. With innovation at the core, we must move away from the mindset of "adaptive cultivation" and instead establish an orientation toward "leading cultivation." In talent cultivation, we should build a system that focuses on "broad foundations, heavy practice, strong capability, and the pursuit of innovation," fostering innovative literacy through project-driven work, research integration, and practical training. In scientific research cooperation, we should focus on "bottleneck" [5] technical problems, assembly cross-disciplinary teams, and explore task-based research management models. In mechanism building, we should innovate models such as "Party building + business" and "international cooperation" to inject continuous impetus into collaborative education, meeting current industry needs while leading future development directions.
The Practical Direction for Deepening School-Enterprise Collaborative Education
Adhering to a future-oriented and practice-aligned approach, we must coordinate the needs of national strategy, industrial development, and university construction. We should promote an all-round leap in the educational system, the cooperative landscape, and value pursuits, providing a path of reference for deepening school-enterprise collaborative education and boosting the construction of a leading country in education.
The transformation of the educational system: From "discipline-oriented" to "strategic demand-oriented." Universities with industry-specific characteristics should break out of traditional disciplinary frameworks and build a disciplinary system with industry characteristics centered on national strategies and the needs of industrial upgrading. They should expand into emerging disciplinary directions and form a continuous educational system spanning undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. The educational system should achieve a triple transformation: the training goal should shift from "qualified professional talent" to "strategic innovative talent," emphasizing national sentiment and strategic vision; the curriculum system should shift from being oriented toward disciplinary knowledge to being oriented toward industrial capability, incorporating actual cases and technical standards; and the cultivation path should shift from "theory + internship" to an integration of "theory—training—combat—incubation," promoting the deep integration of talent cultivation with industrial innovation and national strategy, guiding students to achieve the unity of knowledge and action [6], and to apply what they have learned.
The upgrading of the cooperative landscape: From "single-point cooperation" to "ecosystem-based synergy." Industry-specific universities must break through the limitations of "point-to-point" cooperation and build an ecosystem-based collaborative landscape covering the entire industrial chain. This involves building core cooperation platforms and establishing multi-level cooperation systems with industry leaders, key local enterprises, and scientific research institutes. We must achieve a diversification of cooperative subjects to form an educational community with multi-party participation. The fields of cooperation should be all-encompassing, covering the entire chain of talent cultivation, scientific research breakthroughs, the transformation of achievements, and faculty construction. The cooperative mechanisms should be systematic, establishing long-term mechanisms for strategic docking, resource sharing, profit distribution, and assessment and evaluation, upgrading collaborative education from project cooperation to the joint construction of an industrial ecosystem, and making the integration of industry and education a vital ecological support for building a leading country in education.
The sublimation of value pursuits: From "serving industry" to "leading national competitiveness." Industry-specific universities should focus on the core goal of building a leading country in education, serve high-level self-reliance and self-strengthening in science and technology, and promote the upgrading of the value pursuits of collaborative education. In technological innovation, they should jointly tackle core technologies, pushing core industrial technologies to lead the world and providing technical support and practical scenarios for the construction of a leading country in education. In terms of exporting standards, relying on the joint construction of the "Belt and Road," they should promote the "going out" of advantageous technologies and standards, enhancing the nation’s discourse power and participation in rule-setting within international industry fields. This will demonstrate the cultural soft power and industrial influence of a leading country in education. In terms of talent reserves, they should cultivate internationalized professional talents who are proficient in international rules and possess a global vision, providing support for enterprises to participate in global competition and for the country to enhance its core competitiveness. This makes collaborative education a vital carrier for enhancing national core competitiveness and fortifying the foundation of a leading country in education, allowing higher education to realize its proper value in the service of the overall national development.