The Study On The Development Of The Relationship Between The British Ancient Universities And Industry

The building of the relationship between university and industry was one important part of the higher education reform in Britain after war. It has become the trend of world higher education reform and function initiative in the 21st century, an objective demand to higher education required by the development of the modern science and technology, and an inevitable consequence in modern industrial and knowledge-economic based society.By the study of the historical course of the development of the relationship between British ancient universities and industry,the dissertation,on the one hand,gives a macro-explanation on the details and the main features of the development of the relationship between the British ancient universities and industry,and on the other hand, from the micro-influential elements, explores the possible inner and outer motivations and interactions that would affect such development. It also reveals the social elements and historical background and even cultural nationalities based on which the relationship is set up and developed,together with the interactions and mutual influences between the relationship and the function transform of the higher education,through which the unique style and representativeness of the British higher education development are demonstrated. The internal and external connections between British higher education development and university-industry relationship are searched for so that the successful cases are studied and the lessens are drawn in the hope of benefiting the theoretical study and practical exploration in Chinese higher education development and its university-industry cooperation.The reasons why we choose British universities, esp. the ancient universities on their relationship with industry as our study objective is that they underwent a much longer and more difficult and tortuous way in their relationship with industry than the universities in other countries,which mirrors the difficulties and setbacks during the function transforms in British universities and reflects the features of British ancient universities as well as the unique nationalities and cultural traditions of Britain,which shows a strong typicalness and representativeness of British culture. Just as Zhu Jingren said,“After the war the close link between British higher education and industry became so noticeable, it was because the‘stubbornness’revealed in British academic traditions were seldom seen in other countries’higher education development.”1 The British universities changed themselves from the early professional education needed by church service to gentleman education focusing on humanism and literacy. Such transform is typical and is determined by British cultural tradition and its nationality,which strongly influenced the development of British higher education as well as people’s ideas on the function of university, according to which gentlemen should be trained or educated for many centuries. Up till now, training gentleman is still being regarded as the most unique or different feature in some ancient universities like Oxford and Cambridge.By studying and exploring the historic development of the relationship between British ancient universities and industry,we found that comparing to 800 years history of British university development,the 100 years developing course of its relationship with industry is not a long period but a slow,tortuous and gradual one in which the relationship with industry went through the early isolation or departure and changed gradually to today’s active cooperation. Such changing process has shown that British ancient universities,although overwhelmed by the traditional fetters and cultural influence for a long time, they would finally manage to overcome the difficulties, break and surpass the obstacles or limits,get on the way to meet the needs of social development by linking themselves to industry.However, in this course, the university traditions should not be ignored because it is through a serious of successful attempts and practices,the British ancient universities have realized the breakthrough beyond their limitations,which has proved that university traditions could change , transform , and even overture themselves under certain circumstances or conditions,and the resistance or obstruction of traditions may be changed,transformed,affected,and even surpassed or exploited but with proper political, economic,scientific and cultural factors interacted each other or mutually influenced together. In contrast to British non-ancient universities, the ancient universities developed themselves not so fast in the way to cooperation to industry. However, they has gained outstanding achievements by serving and contributing to society, and at the same time sticking to the university traditions and the spirit of ivory, maintaining the balance of conservativeness and openness, inheritance and creativity, which is the final aim or the highest level dreamed and persuaded by every modern university.From the historical viewpoint and case study, by applying documental method, factor analysis, case study and comparative method, the dissertation manages to analyze the whole developing course and its motivation of British ancient university-industry relationship,and to make a sharp contrast between England universities and Scotland universities in terms of the different features revealed in academic traditions and their relationship with industry. The main studies with its initiatives are as follows:1. A thorough analysis on the whole developing course with its basic features in the relationship between British ancient universities and industry.2. A deep exploration to the internal and external motivations of the development of the relationship between British ancient universities and industry.3. A detailed introduction to the successful relationship and incorporation between Cambridge University and industry.4. A striking comparison between England universities and Scotland universities in terms of their relationship with industry by penetrating the affects,insignificance and limitations of the university (or academic) traditions.5. A profound illustration of the interactions or mutual influence of higher education function transform and the university-industry relationship.