Responding to the new research assessment reform in China: the universities’ institutional hybrid actions

In recent years, China has issued a number of high-level policies aimed at reforming research assessment to establish its own research evaluation approach and replace the emphasis on quantitative performance measures that has persisted for decades. This study presents a landscape of institutional responses to the new research assessment reform in China. Drawing on theories of institutional complexity, we employ in-depth document analysis to analyse how national policy requirements are implemented at the university level. Our findings demonstrate that Chinese research universities have adopted blended hybrid strategies to address institutional complexity caused by the interplay of state, market, management, and academic professional logics. These strategies have enabled universities to incorporate their own attributes to negotiate complexity and have helped universities maintain their legitimacy and competitive advantage. The findings highlight both the progress and challenges in building a new research evaluation system in China.