After the construction of New China, there was still a snubbing / hostile policy against intellectuals until the end of the Cultural Revolution, and Chinese universities were sluggish. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, particularly in accordance with the progress of the reform and opening-up policy followed by the development of economy, Chinese universities have started to develop. Now, the number of students at the universities in China is the world's largest, and a large number of the students from China are studying at famous universities or graduate schools all over the world. In addition, with the recall policy for excellent scientists and researchers staying abroad, the technological innovation capability of the universities in China have gradually improved, and the level of top universities is approaching to that of American and European universities.
Although there are approximately 2,000 universities in China, the authors decided to focus on top-level universities in terms of technological innovation capability, as the objects of survey this time. Then, based on the data of Thomson Reuters and the data in China, the following four universities were chosen: Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Zhejiang University.
As the methods of survey, the authors carried out preliminary investigation based on HP of each university, successively interviewed involved persons by visiting the local campuses, and evaluated / analyzed the results.