News Talks podcast: Is China’s Greater Bay Area the next global HE hub?

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Shenzhen and other cities in China’s Greater Bay Area are leveraging the higher education prowess of neighbouring Hong Kong in an effort to develop their own world-leading universities.

Prestigious Hong Kong institutions have set up a series of branch campuses in cities including Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan, which the Chinese authorities hope will propel the region into the top echelons of global higher education.

Times Higher Education’s Asia-Pacific editor John Ross visited one of these youthful institutions, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-SZ). Just 12 years after its launch it already boasts 13,000 students studying across eight schools, with ambitions to grow to 25,000 students when its new medical school – currently under construction – opens.

On this week’s episode of News Talks, Campus editor Miranda Prynne asks John about his impressions of Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area of China – and gets a colourful description of the CUHK-SZ campus.

They discuss the Chinese authorities’ ambition to develop a regional higher education offering across the Greater Bay Area in line with its economic and technological advancement, the role that Hong Kong’s globally recognised institutions are playing in this effort and whether Shenzhen and neighbouring cities will ultimately take over as a global hub for higher education.