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Department of Education

Xin Xu

Research Fellow

College Affiliation: Kellogg College

Xin Xu (许心) is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), Department of Education, and a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Xin teaches on the MSc in Education (Higher Education) programme, and supervises DPhil and MSc dissertations. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Xin’s research concentrates on higher education and research. She has strong interests in the following research areas:

  • Higher education studies, including sociology of higher education, higher education policy, internationalisation and globalisation of higher education, Chinese higher education and culture, higher education in East Asia.
  • Research on research, including research policy, research evaluation, research incentivisation, research culture, research ethics, humanities and social sciences research, academic profession, global knowledge system, international academic mobility, and international research collaboration.

Projects she currently works on include the ESRC-funded CGHE project ‘the role of research in higher education and research assessment’, SRHE-funded project ‘International academics in mainland China’, and BAICE-funded project ‘Ethical research in international and comparative education during Covid-19’.

Xin is co-editor of Changing Higher Education in East Asia (with Simon Marginson; Bloomsbury, 2022) and author of journal articles and book chapters on the themes noted above. She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Educational Research and Publications, and on the Research Management Committee of the Centre for Global Higher Education. She also convenes the agenda committee of CGHE Oxford.

Xin was previously an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Tsinghua University (First-Class Honours, one-year exchange at Heidelberg University), MA in Higher Education from Peking University (Distinction), and DPhil in Education from the University of Oxford (Clarendon Scholar, Emerald/HETL Outstanding Doctoral Research Award winner, CIES Globalization & Education SIG Dissertation Award winner).

Funded Research Projects:

  • Centre for Global Higher Education: The role of research in higher education and research assessment

    • 2020-2023

    ESRC

  • Transnational academic mobility to global south: an exploratory study of international faculty in China

    • 2020-2022

    Society for Research into Higher Education - Co-Principal Investigator

  • Ethical research in international and comparative education during Covid-19

    • 2020-2021

    British Association for International and Comparative Education

  • The landscape of educational research in the UK (2010-20)

    • 2020-2021

    British Academy / Royal Society

  • A comparative study of higher education curriculum on AI ethics

    • 2020

    Department of Education, University of Oxford - Principal Investigator

  • Internationalising humanities and social sciences in China: tensions, implications and collaboration with UK

    • 2019-2020

    ESRC - Principal Investigator

  • Investigating policy and implementation of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education institutions in China

    • 2019

    British Council China

  • Brexit, Trade, Migration and Higher Education

    2015-2020

    ESRC

Publications:

  • Books

  • Book chapters

  • Journal articles

  • Internet publication

    • XU, X., & Marginson, S. (2022). HE in East Asia – different lenses for different times. LSE Higher Education Blog. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2022/08/24/he-in-east-asia-different-lenses-for-different-times/

    • XU, X., ROSE, H., & OANCEA, A. (2020). Publish Internationally or Perish? Incentive Schemes for International Publications in the Chinese Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). The Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities. https://chineseedmobilities.wordpress.com/2020/02/03/publish-internationally-or-perish-incentive-schemes-for-international-publications-in-the-chinese-humanities-and-social-sciences-hss/

  • Reports

    • Marini, G., & XU, X. (2021). “The Golden Guests”? International Faculty in Mainland Chinese Universities. Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). https://srhe.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SRHE-Research-Report_Marini_Xu_Oct-2021_Final.pdf

    • ROSE, H., McKinley, J., XU, X., & Zhou, S. (2020). Investigating policy and implementation of English-medium instruction in higher education institutions in China. British Council. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/K155_Investigating_policy_implementation_EMI_China_web.pdf

  • Other

    • Cai, Y., Braun Střelcová, A., Marini, G., Huang, F., & Xu, X. (2022). Foreign academics in China. In International Higher Education (Vols. 2022, Issues 111, pp. 29-30). Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. https://doi.org/10.36197/IHE.2022.111.14
      https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:42e8aa53-d075-4134-992e-4c34b65d1fbf

    • OANCEA, A., XU, X., ROBSON, J., McDermott, T., & SCUTT, C. (2021). Educational research in the United Kingdom, 2010–2020. In Research Intelligence (Vols. 149, pp. 26-27). https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/winter-2021-22

    • Marginson, S., & Xu, X. (2021). Moving beyond centre-periphery science: Towards an ecology of knowledge. In Centre for Global Higher Education Working Paper Series. Centre for Global Higher Education. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f139bfcc-1e7b-4fbd-879a-f44732058c21
      https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f139bfcc-1e7b-4fbd-879a-f44732058c21

    • Xu, X. (2020). Impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on global research. In International Higher Education (Vols. 104, pp. 18-19). DUZ Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.36197/IHE.2020.104.09
      https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:efc16fec-61d4-456a-9ab3-b4c49b1b0b62

    • Oancea, A., & Xu, X. (2017). Performance-based Research Funding. Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0182
      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0182

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