Knowledge Innovation and the Entrepreneurial University Conference Zhejiang, 3-4 April 2007

In early April Zhejiang University hosted an international conference on ‘Knowledge Innovation and the Entrepreneurial University’. The conference was co-organised and co-funded by WUN, the College of Education at Zhejiang University, and the National Institute of Innovation Management at Zhejiang University. We are extremely grateful to Professor Yang Wei (the President of Zhejiang University), Professor Wu Xiaobo (Director of the National Institute of Innovation Management at Zhejiang University), Professor Xu Xiaozhou (Deputy Dean of the College of Education at Zhejiang University), and all their colleagues and students for their warm welcome and generous hospitality.

The conference opened under the expert chairmanship of Professor Wang Yibing. Professor Xu Xiaozhou then welcomed us to the conference before handing over to the President of Zhejiang University, Professor Yang Wei, who gave us a fascinating introduction to the history of the university and the city of Hangzhou. Professor Wu Xiaobo then gave the first paper in which he outlined the way in which undergraduates at Zhejiang University are taught entrepreneurship. He later showed us around the National Institute of Innovation Management of which he is Director, as we marvelled at Zhejiang University’s stunning new campus. Over the conference as a whole, all the delegates from abroad learned a great deal about developments in higher education in China and received lasting impressions of the beauty of Hangzhou.

The conference closed under the skilled chairmanship of Professor Wang Libing, Deputy Head of the Department of Education at Zhejiang University. Professor KaHo Mok, Director of the Centre for East Asian Studies at Bristol, offered a very stimulating summary of the papers and discussion as a whole. On behalf of WUN, Ian Wei thanked Professor Xu and his colleagues and students for their kindness and the way in which they had generated a tremendous spirit of friendship. One final set of lasting impressions was created when we were taken on a boat trip in the Xixi National Wetland Park and then a final walk along the Su causeway as the sun set over Hanzhou’s West Lake.

Significance of the Academic Debates on ‘Ideas and Universities’

The conference marked an important stage in the WUN’s ‘Ideas and Universities’ project. Its international video seminar programme was launched in January 2007 to consider the theme of ‘the purpose of universities: ideals and realities’. It was a great pleasure for many of the participants in that programme to meet in person, and the conference confirmed beyond doubt the value of video seminars: discussions at the conference began at a much more advanced stage because of the previous interaction. Papers were given by speakers from the universities of Bristol, Delhi, Wisconsin-Madison, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, and Zhejiang.

The conference was designed to continue discussion of the theme of the video seminar programme by exploring what universities are for, and the relationship between the ideals which people articulate and what actually happens in practice. More specifically, it was intended to focus on two related issues that are of fundamental importance in terms of contemporary policy-making in higher education: innovation and entrepreneurship. On the one hand, it was argued that universities should prepare students to become successful entrepreneurs, and that universities should themselves do more to profit from their innovative work by acting entrepreneurially. The conference was given fascinating insights into recently developed practices in a range of universities. A series of critical perspectives was also presented. Some speakers stressed the danger that teaching and practicing entrepreneurship was creating an international homogeneity which constituted a form of Western cultural hegemony, and that universities needed to show greater awareness of and respect for cultural difference. Evidence was also presented that business leaders wanted universities to teach students how to think, and that they believed that this was best done through traditional academic disciplines. Other speakers considered the wider social role of universities during periods of transition towards a more entrepreneurial culture, and argued that a critical stance had been an important factor in stimulating innovation in entrepreneurial practices.

Post-Conference Publication Plans

The proceedings of the conference are to be published separately in Chinese and English, and they will present the academic community with precise formulations of key problems that need to be addressed, examples of different contemporary solutions to those problems, and a range of theoretical and critical perspectives that should inform the process of policy-making. An edited volume in English has the working title ‘The Quest for Knowledge Innovation and the Entrepreneurial University: Critical Reflections’. Selected papers will be published in Chinese as a special issue in Exploring Education Development, a national core journal published by the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences in China. Professor Ka Ho Mok and Ian Wei from Bristol University are coordinating the publication projects.

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