JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY (HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES)

浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版)


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	JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY 2026 Vol.56 Number 4
	2026, Vol.56 Num.4
	Online: 2026-05-15

	Article

Article

	5	Wei Bin, Pan Zhenghao

		A Study of Rights Protection Path of Generative Artificial Intelligence Training Data ^Hot!
		To stimulate further productive potential of data, China proposed a framework of foundational data rules in December 2022. It is a property-right-based framework, consisting of data circulation, revenue distribution, and security system. Nevertheless, technical logic is inconsistent in the process of data collection, machine learning, and content generation associated with the development of large language models compared to the logic in those foundational data rules. Consequently, the current legislative framework is incapable of resolving numerous data rights and interests disputes due to this logical contradiction. Moreover, the unique attributes that training data requires also make the legal disputes they trigger more complicated and more worthy of research.To counteract the legal risks following this cutting-edge technology, China has promulgated the “Interim Administrative Measures for Generative AI Services” and is actively engaged in legislative movements about AI. To ensure the development of this technology is more suitable for human safety and morality. It is essential to establish a governance framework that incorporates specific regulations protecting the rights and interests involved in training data. Meanwhile, risk management strategies and other measures must be added to construct a stable and sustainable technological ecosystem. First, the incentive theory provides an interpretation: the rights and interests of training data authorized to be owned can motivate developers to take effective measures to protect them. This can help to address the issue of missing native training data for large-scale model development worldwide, thus relieving the logical conflict between training data development and foundational data rules. Second, according to Locke’s labour theory of property, if the ownership is guaranteed, it can be seen as a recognition of the labor value of model developers. How the value of training data is ascertained is in accordance with how the value of civil property rights is confirmed in legislation.In the construction of this new type of right, the subject should be the developer who adopts certain algorithms for model training based on the training data. The object of the right should be the training data that satisfies the requirements of legitimacy and originality. On the one hand, the content of the right should also encompass the four powers of traditional rights: holding, using, benefiting, and disposing. On the other hand, the regulatory framework of a new type of rights differs from traditional property rights due to the non-exclusivity, scalability, and iterativity of training data, and it heavily relies on technological enforcement. Once the fundamental framework has been established, the right should be aligned with multiple interests, including public interests, personality rights, and patents to build up internal consistency within the legal system and maximize external social utility.Ultimately, based on the right that has been established, it is necessary to construct a domestic open-source data standard system for large-scale models, ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of all participants and preventing the monopolization and misuse of training data in open-source sharing.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 5-17 [Abstract] ( 9 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 753KB] ( 12 )

	18	Luo Zhimin, Hong Yifan

		Construction of Regulatory Sandbox for Generative AI ^Hot!
		The rapid development of generative AI has brought both technological revolution and multiple security risks. How to balance risk regulation and innovation incentives has become an important issue. Regulatory sandbox, as an innovative regulatory tool, responds to the requirements of inclusive and prudential regulation and the concept of agile governance. However, domestic research on regulatory sandboxes mainly focuses on the field of Fintech, and there is no research on regulatory sandbox for AI, especially for generative AI. This study aims at exploring the effective regulation and innovation incentives for generative AI through the construction of the regulatory sandbox for generative AI.Existing regulatory models, whether “command-and-control” or “development first, governance later”, have difficulties. The introduction of inclusive and prudential regulation and the concept of agile governance has become inevitable. Based on it, regulatory sandboxes for generative AI have feasibility in China. The regulatory sandbox for AI has been applied in more and more extra-territorial countries. Some countries are also exploring the construction of the regulatory sandbox for generative AI. The domestic regulatory sandbox has also accumulated a certain amount of experience, and the generative AI industry is also accelerating. It should be noted that AI involves innovative projects in different scenarios and fields, which means that a single, undifferentiated regulatory sandbox for AI may be more inappropriate. What’s more, the expression “regulatory sandbox” is more appropriate for regulatory sandbox for generative AI. In terms of governance effects, the construction of a generative AI regulatory sandbox is beneficial to multiple actors, reducing risks for innovators, improving regulation, and protecting consumers.The path to implementation of regulatory sandbox for generative AI is discussed next. To ensure that the regulatory sandbox has a legal basis, the plan to flexibly implement the contents set forth in laws, administrative regulations and departmental rules through experimental legislation within the reform pilot zone is permissible. Instead, the following two options should be adopted to make the regulatory sandbox legally enforceable. One is to make a decision by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee, and the second is to formulate a unified Artificial Intelligence law and write it into the regulatory sandbox. At the micro level, the entire regulatory process should be designed. First, at the application stage, the entry threshold should be determined and three categories and six principles should be constructed, namely, “substantial innovation”, “tilting towards small and micro enterprises”, and “risk regulation needs”, “project maturity”, “public interest principle” and “domestic market application principle”. Secondly, in the testing phase, clear exemption rules and effective communication are required to build exemption rules based on time, application scenarios and user types, as well as a mechanism for disclosure of information during the whole process and effective communication between regulators and innovators. Third, in the exit phase, planning the exit conditions, regulators need to make two types of five judgement results for different situations; after exit, regulators should require innovators to complete their exit obligations, properly handle data and personal information, and jointly prepare regulatory sandbox exit reports. It is important that we continue to explore and improve the regulatory sandbox for generative AI in practice so that generative AI can better promote China’s economic and social development.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 18-33 [Abstract] ( 6 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 788KB] ( 11 )

	34	Deng Huihui, Pan Xueting, Zeng Qingge, Yu Lu

		Urban Morphology and Regional Innovation Development: A Perspective Based on Complex Knowledge Flows ^Hot!
		Knowledge has become a strategic resource at the heart of regional innovation and economic upgrading in the 21st Century. As global competition for innovation intensifies, a region’s long-term competitiveness increasingly depends on its ability to continuously generate, diffuse, and recombine complex knowledge. While existing literature has extensively examined knowledge accumulation and R&D investment, relatively little attention has been paid to how the physical structure of urban space affects the quality, particularly the complexity, of knowledge. Addressing this gap, this paper investigates how compact urban spatial forms influence the production and diffusion of complex knowledge across Chinese prefecture-level cities.Drawing on a comprehensive panel dataset spanning 1992 to 2020, we construct city-level knowledge complexity indicators based on patent applications, complemented by data on research and development(R&D) intensity, patent citation velocity, intra-city patent collaboration, and product export diversity. To more accurately capture urban spatial configuration, we introduce a novel methodological framework that replaces conventional Euclidean distance with a network-based approach integrating Delaunay triangulation, breakpoint detection, and Dijkstra’s shortest-path algorithm. This allows for a more precise assessment of urban compactness by reflecting the intricate interactions between built form, infrastructure connectivity, and internal accessibility.Our empirical analysis reveals that compact urban forms significantly enhance knowledge complexity, with stronger effects observed in cities characterized by low technological diversity or well-developed digital infrastructure. We identify three primary mechanisms underpinning this relationship. First, spatial compactness fosters high-tech firm agglomeration, intensifying market competition and stimulating R&D investment. Second, geographic proximity improves both local and global channels of knowledge diffusion, facilitating the transmission of complex, often tacit knowledge through face-to-face interaction and knowledge spillovers. Third, compact urban structures reduce collaboration costs, thereby increasing the likelihood of localized knowledge partnerships and enabling more effective recombination of diverse knowledge components.Beyond these mechanisms, we further examine the micro-foundations of knowledge complexity through the lens of firm-level product diversity. Using industrial firm records and customs export data, we find that compact spatial forms significantly enhance firms’ product diversity—serving as an observable external manifestation of knowledge complexity. This effect is particularly pronounced among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), non-state-owned firms, and foreign-invested enterprises, underscoring the role of compact cities in fostering flexible, innovation-oriented enterprises.The findings offer important policy implications for urban development and innovation governance. First, cities should shift from extensive spatial expansion toward intensive spatial optimization to improve efficiency and facilitate knowledge flows. Second, differentiated innovation ecosystems must be constructed in accordance with a city’s development stages, strengthening physical agglomeration in emerging regions while expanding digital infrastructure and virtual clustering in land-constrained cities. Third, greater efforts are needed to build local knowledge platforms and link them with global innovation networks, accelerating the circulation and recombination of innovation factors to enhance urban competitiveness in the knowledge economy.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 34-57 [Abstract] ( 4 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1463KB] ( 11 )

	58	Zhou Sizhao

		Debate Between Positive Aesthetics and Negative Aesthetics in Contemporary Environmental Aesthetics ^Hot!
		There are two opposing aesthetics positions in the field of contemporary environmental aesthetics, namely, positive aesthetics represented by Allen Carlson and Holmes Rolston, as well as negative aesthetics represented by Arnold Berleant and Emily Brady. Since 2010, there has been a fierce debate between the two regarding the aesthetic characteristics, aesthetic values, aesthetic approaches, aesthetic judgments, sublime of nature, and so on, which has become an important academic event in the field of environmental aesthetics.Firstly, positive aesthetics expands the scope of natural aesthetic view by using the concept of aesthetic characteristics and provides a dialectical interpretation of natural ugliness from the perspective of aesthetic value, emphasizing that all nature is beautiful, which greatly expands the scope of natural appreciation. However, this approach has been questioned by negative aesthetics. Arnold Berleant and Emily Brady emphasize that natural ugliness is real and that positive aesthetics beautifies nature, failing to take nature as it is seriously.Secondly, positive aesthetics and negative aesthetics differ in answering whether all nature is beautiful due to their different approaches to the appreciation of natural beauty. Positive aesthetics argues that natural appreciation is based on scientific cognition, as scientific knowledge includes the consideration of the goodness of aesthetics and the function of transforming ugliness into beauty in ecosystems, which results in the opinion that all nature is always aesthetically good. Negative aesthetics, on the other hand, emphasizes that senses and imagination are the foundation of natural appreciation, thus natural aesthetic experience is diverse and cannot always be positive.Thirdly, the dispute over the approaches to natural appreciation involves deeper issues of whether aesthetic judgment precedes or follows aesthetic experience. Positive aesthetics, under Parsons’ revision, has become a priori proposition with aesthetic judgment placed before aesthetic experience, so positive aesthetics is not a conclusion but a premise, which stipulates that people must make positive aesthetic judgments about nature to ensure that all nature is inevitably beautiful. Negative aesthetics, on the contrary, argues that aesthetic experience precedes aesthetic judgment, hence negative aesthetic experience cannot be excluded, which proves the reality of negative aesthetics.Finally, sublime is also an important discourse resource for both positive aesthetics and negative aesthetics. Positive aesthetics shifts the evaluation standard of sublime from humans to natural ecosystem, in which death in nature is part of the ecosystem and can be transformed into ecological sublime, thus dissolving natural ugliness into positive experience of ecological sublime. Negative aesthetics, in contrast to that, proposes negative sublime, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and environmental pollution, which does not contain positive aesthetic experience but only evokes fear, and cannot be transformed into positive aesthetic experience.Positive aesthetics is a relatively radical proposition that emerged in the early stages of environmental aesthetics, while negative aesthetics timely corrects the radical stance of positive aesthetics. The essence of their debate is how to properly appreciate nature on its own terms? In the face of this fundamental problem, the “Great Beauty” claim of Zhuangzi offers us more than just the enlightenment to wander between positive aesthetics and negative aesthetics, as Peng Feng does, but it inspires us to transcend the dispute between positive aesthetics and negative aesthetics. The dispute over the beauty and ugliness of nature is caused by “viewing nature from humans’ perspective”. In the viewpoints of ecological aesthetics, humans, as the core of the universe, are the aesthetics agents of nature. Humans not only have the ability to engage in aesthetic activities as the human species, but also have the possibility of engaging in aesthetic activities representing other species. That is, people can “speak on behalf of mountains and rivers” and achieve cross-species aesthetic appreciation, reaching the realm of “viewing things as things” to ultimately transcend the dispute over the beauty and ugliness of nature, and embracing the great beauty of nature.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 58-72 [Abstract] ( 3 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 785KB] ( 14 )

	73	He Ganshuo

		Interpretation of “Jing” in Pre-Qin Taoist Philosophy ^Hot!
		In previous studies of Daoist philosophy, “xu” (虚, often translated as “void”) and “jing” (静, often translated as “tranquility”) have typically been presupposed as a pair of interrelated concepts. This perspective has been helpful in analyzing the philosophical expressions of Daoism, but it has also tended to confine us within the internal system of its philosophical concepts, thereby overlooking the creative interpretations Daoist philosophy made of earlier thought from the perspective of intellectual history. In other words, there is still room for further exploration regarding how the category of “xujing” (虚静) is philosophically constituted and what breakthroughs it represents relative to the earlier thought. These issues all point to the interpretation of “jing” in the pre-Qin Daoist philosophy. In the pre-Philosophers period, the character “jing” was used to depict ideal governance. This function was achieved through its association with a state of stability and the well-being of the people in ritual contexts. “Jing” was closely linked to “mingde” (明德, luminous virtue), and its political and social efficacy was manifested both in maintaining a state of equilibrium and in acting as a pacifying force. This “jing”, which operated within ritual contexts, can be labeled as “zhengjing” (正静, the tranquility of correction). During the era of the Philosophers, this expressive logic remained highly influential and was widely used as a discourse for maintaining order and promoting virtue. However, in Daoist philosophical texts, the elaboration of “jing” underwent a holistic transformation and often revealed a complex attitude, reflecting the tension between philosophical thinking and ritual background. In the context of Daoist philosophy, a form of “jing” emerged that can be characterized as “xujing”. Here, “xu” serves as a redefining term for “jing”. On one hand, “xujing” still relies on the expressive form of “zhengjing”, while on the other hand, it incorporates “not knowing” (不知) and “inner guarding” (内守) as its theoretical features, thus representing an interpretation of “zhengjing”. The concept of “xujing” is inseparable from the paradigm of mind-nature.The crux lies in the gradual internalization of the outwardly manifested theoretical form of “mingde” implied by “zhengjing”, transforming it into a state and practice of inner cultivation, desirelessness, and unknowability, characteristic of mind-nature theories. The emergence of the “xujing” concept is closely related to the historical process of the decline of the Kingly Way during the transition from the Zhou to the Qin Dynasties. The collapse of ritual and music meant that “mingde” could no longer function in the political world in the form of “zhengjing”. The problem consciousness and intellectual direction provided by the mind-nature paradigm of “xujing” are quite diverse. It often integrates with the form of “zhengjing”, as ancient philosophers’ reflections on the “inner” often pointed to solutions for “outer” problems, transforming them into expressions of political order. Therefore, “xujing” in Daoist texts appears both as an individual practice of mind-nature, and through the mind-nature interpretation of “zhengjing”, presents a new possibility for political order. In this process of interpreting the concept of “jing” in the early thought, pre-Qin Daoist philosophy played an irreplaceable role.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 73-84 [Abstract] ( 4 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 889KB] ( 13 )

	85	Sun Jiashen, Xiang Jie

		Reshaping Ryukyu: A Historical Narrative of Okinawa During the Early American Occupation ^Hot!
		The rewriting of history in the post-colonial period is often accompanied by significant adjustments to the power structure of occupied regions and profound reconstruction of ethnic identity, which essentially is a process in which the dominant power realizes its own interest demands and ruling legitimacy through discourse construction. On April 1, 1945, U.S. troops landed on the main island of Okinawa, and after a brutal Battle of Okinawa, they completely took control of the Ryukyu Islands and quickly established the United States Military Government, marking the beginning of a 27-year occupation and rule over the Ryukyu Islands. This period, which followed Japan’s colonial rule (1879-1945) and preceded Japan’s administration period (since 1972), became a crucial turning point in the historical development of the Ryukyu Islands.After its establishment, the U.S. Military Government strictly followed the strategic positioning of the Ryukyu Islands by the U.S. military during the Battle of Okinawa, clearly implementing the core ruling principle of “separating Ryukyu from Japan” and establishing the basic policy of “pro-American and anti-Japanese, supporting Ryukyu’s subjectivity”. At the same time, it gradually established autonomous institutions participated by Ryukyuans and indirectly managed by the United States, attempting to politically sever the historical ties between Ryukyu and Japan, strengthen Ryukyu’s independent image, and lay the foundation for the United States to long-term control this strategically important location in the western Pacific.To maximize its own strategic interests and consolidate the legitimacy of its rule in Ryukyu, the United States did not limit itself to political and military control, but took cultural and educational means as an important tool to systematically reconstruct the historical memory and cognitive system of the Ryukyu people. In this process, various cultural carriers such as textbooks, museum exhibitions, and academic publications became the core positions for the United States to promote the construction of historical narratives, all centered on the core orientation of “taking Ryukyu as the center”. They deliberately highlighted the subjectivity and uniqueness of Ryukyu, weakened or even erased the profound impact of Japanese colonial rule on Ryukyu, and implanted pro-American values.In this specific historical context, the rewriting of Okinawa’s history was by no means a simple rearrangement of historical facts, but a profound transformation of the discourse system. It completely subverted the hegemonic discourses constructed during the Japanese colonial period, such as “Okinawa is an inalienable part of Japan” and “Ryukyu and Japan share the same ancestors”, and broke Japan’s long-term monopolistic narrative of Ryukyu’s history. At the same time, taking advantage of the opportunity of the U.S.-led historical rewriting, the Ryukyuan intellectual class got rid of the ideological imprisonment during the Japanese colonial period, actively participated in the excavation, collation and dissemination of ethnic history, reorganized the historical context of Ryukyu as an independent kingdom, retrieved the language, culture and folk memories suppressed by Japanese colonialism, and thus realized the re-memory of ethnic history and the reconstruction of identity, promoting the revival and development of Ryukyu studies.Focusing on the historical writing and narrative of Ryukyu in the early period of the U.S. occupation (1945-the 1950s), this paper systematically analyzes how the United States realized its strategic demands through discourse construction from four dimensions: the U.S.-led macro historical writing strategy, the narrative construction in post-war textbooks, the civilized display narrative in museums, and the historical research of Ryukyuan scholars. It explores the internal connection between historical writing, power operation and identity, reveals the complexity and diversity of Ryukyu’s historical narrative during this period, and provides an important reference for understanding the multiple aspects of Ryukyu’s history and the evolution of East Asian geopolitics.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 85-96 [Abstract] ( 7 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 873KB] ( 11 )

	97	Fang Shile, Han Shihui, Xu Xinnan, Shi Xinjie

		Can Digital Finance Enhance the Resilience of Rural Households? ^Hot!
		The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out: “We should improve the normalized mechanism for preventing rural populations from returning to or falling into poverty.” The key challenge lies in enhancing the endogenous development momentum of rural households, especially their ability to withstand multiple shocks and resist risks. Digital financial instruments, with their unique advantages, are emerging as a critical tool for stimulating the intrinsic development potential of rural households by effectively addressing the bottleneck caused by the lack of standardized collateral and the obstacles created by information asymmetry in traditional financial services.We approach the issue from the perspective of household development resilience and discuss how digital finance affects rural households’ ability to cope with multiple shocks. Empirical analysis and mechanism verification of the above issues are conducted based on data from four waves of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) covering the years 2013 to 2019. The innovative contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following dimensions: First, considering the historical transition stage of poverty governance strategy from vulnerability governance to resilience governance, we explore the role of digital finance in improving rural household welfare through the development resilience index. This offers a new perspective for investigating the role and impact of finance in the context of common prosperity. Second, according to the theory of right poverty, we construct an analysis framework including three dimensions: risk identification, risk resistance, and risk mitigation capabilities, to clarify the logical chain of digital finance affecting households’ development resilience, providing theoretical support and empirical evidence for preventing the return of poverty and creating a sustainable income mechanism. Third, we not only demonstrate the positive impact of digital finance but also conduct an in-depth analysis of the potential imbalances in the distribution of digital dividends, discussing how to maximize the inclusive growth effect of digital finance. Fourth, based on existing literature and practical poverty alleviation experience, we attempt to define the concept and boundaries of the risk of large-scale poverty return, revealing the limitations of digital finance in addressing such risks through empirical analysis. This provides valuable supplementary evidence for both theoretical advancements and practical insights into the risk of large-scale poverty return.The main research findings are as follows:Digital finance can significantly improve the development resilience of rural households, and this conclusion has passed a series of robustness tests. Mechanistic analysis reveals that digital finance primarily enhances households’ development resilience by improving their risk identification capabilities, risk resistance and risk mitigation capabilities. In terms of regional differences, digital finance has a more pronounced effect in areas with high levels of traditional financial development and well-developed traditional infrastructure. Regarding household differences, digital finance has a greater impact on high-income households and those with high social capital compared to low-income households and those with low social capital, indicating a phenomenon of “elite capture”. This may be due to the existence of access and application gaps for vulnerable rural households, which gives them have unequal opportunities to benefit from the development of digital finance. Further discussion shows that digital finance can help reduce the risk of rural households returning to poverty, but it has no significant effect on the prevention of deep poverty and large-scale poverty return, which may be related to the imbalance in the distribution of digital dividends.Based on the above findings, we propose that the supportive role of digital finance, particularly third-party fintech platforms such as Alipay, should be fully leveraged. Furthermore, it is essential to continue fostering the development capacity of rural households and enhance their resilience to risks. Key strategies include addressing the “access gap” and bridging the “application gap” while establishing a governance mechanism to counter “elite capture” in order to achieve inclusive growth of digital finance. Overall, this paper provides empirical evidence and decision-making references for deepening the understanding of how digital economy enhances the development resilience of rural households, reduces the risk of returning to poverty, and effectively links the consolidation and expansion of poverty eradication achievements with rural revitalization.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 97-117 [Abstract] ( 6 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 942KB] ( 12 )

	118	Lang Yuanke, Hou Wanjun, Ma Jiwei, Jin Yutao

		Multidimensional Measurement and Spatiotemporal Evolution of Integrated Advancement of Education, Science, and Talent ^Hot!
		Education, science and technology, and human capital constitute the foundational and strategic pillars of China’s modernization. As technological iteration accelerates and global competition intensifies, structural tensions within China’s education–research–industry system have become increasingly salient. Problems such as the misalignment between educational supply and industrial demand, the disconnection between scientific innovation and technological application, and the mismatch between talent cultivation and regional carrying capacity continue to surface. A systematic assessment of the level and spatio-temporal evolution of the integrated advancement of education, science and technology, and talent is therefore essential for optimizing spatial layout and improving policy precision, and for advancing the development of new productive forces and achieving high-level technological self-reliance. Existing research, however, remains limited in three respects: (1) quantitative and dynamic measurement of integrated advancement is still underdeveloped; (2) prevailing theories fail to reveal the interaction mechanisms at the factor level, and insufficiently examine the foundational role of education, science and technology, and talent as basic inputs in supporting innovation, nor do they adequately address elements, functions, and spatial structures at the innovation-system level; and (3) analyses have yet to deepen their spatial scale, as most conclusions are drawn from province-level studies and thus fail to capture convergence patterns and evolutionary dynamics at finer spatial levels, potentially obscuring intra-regional differences and hindering the identification of deeper structural sources of regional divergence in innovation capacity.Building on a systematic review of the theoretical, historical, and policy logics of integrated advancement, this study constructs a twelve-indicator evaluation system across the three dimensions of education, science and technology, and talent, using the Delphi method and entropy weighting. We assess the structural, status, and trend dimensions of integrated advancement for 284 prefecture-level cities from 2010 to 2021, and analyze their regional disparities and spatio-temporal evolution.The findings indicate that the overall level of integrated advancement has steadily improved, yet the composite index remains relatively unbalanced and low; the mutual reinforcement among education, science and technology, and talent has not fully translated into synergistic effects. Spatially, eastern coastal regions have formed a relatively complete positive cycle, whereas central, northeastern, and western regions face pronounced shortcomings in talent carrying capacity, scientific research platforms, and basic educational provision. Significant regional differences and clustering patterns persist, though disparities at the national scale and within regions are gradually narrowing. Most of the variation arises between regions rather than within them, suggesting institutional constraints such as insufficient cross-regional coordination, administrative boundary effects, and barriers to factor mobility. Local results further show that weak educational foundations, talent outflows, and a shortage of scientific research platforms create broken factor chains that underpin low-value clusters. The dynamic evolution of integrated advancement exhibits stability, gradualism, and incremental optimization, but also faces pressures of fluctuation and divergence; resource siphoning effects are evident, mid-level regions are more vulnerable to external shocks and risk falling into a long-term “middle-stratum trap”, and late-developing regions struggle with insufficient factor-attraction mechanisms and limited conversion capacity.Accordingly, this study proposes strengthening planning integration, factor integration, and regional integration to build a high-quality coordination system aligned with national strategic needs, and to accelerate higher-quality integrated advancement in education, science and technology, and talent.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 118-141 [Abstract] ( 7 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 2619KB] ( 12 )

	142	Zhou Li, Xiao Chunhuan, Ma Yidan, Zhang Jie

		Influence of Postdoctoral Training on Discipline Development Based on the Empirical Analysis of a “Double First-Class” Construction University ^Hot!
		As a pivotal engine driving technological innovation in higher education, enhancing national competitiveness and fostering social progress, the significance of disciplinary development in universities is self-evident. While existing research has extensively explored the theoretical foundations of disciplinary growth, the influence of key elements such as academic teams—particularly the postdoctoral cohort—remains underexplored due to limited data availability. In response, this study leverages data on postdoctoral researchers and disciplinary development from a “Double First-Class” initiative university between 2010 and 2020. It examines the complex impact of postdoctoral training on disciplinary advancement through the dual lenses of human capital accumulation and signaling effects, focusing on both the quality and scale of such training. The main findings are as follows:(1) The quality of postdoctoral training exerts a significant positive effect on disciplinary development. Meanwhile, the relationship between the scale of postdoctoral researchers and disciplinary progress exhibits a nuanced inverted U-shaped pattern. Specifically, within an appropriate range, an increase in postdoctoral numbers catalyzes disciplinary advancement; however, beyond a certain threshold, the marginal contribution diminishes. These findings remain robust across multiple sensitivity checks.(2) Heterogeneity analysis reveals notable disciplinary variations in the impact of postdoctoral training. In non-humanities disciplines, improvements in the quality of postdoctoral training significantly promote disciplinary development, whereas in humanities disciplines, such effects are relatively limited.(3) Moderating effect analysis indicates that both the size and quality of the faculty significantly enhance the positive influence of postdoctoral training on disciplinary growth.The contributions of this study are threefold. First, it broadens the perspective on disciplinary development research. Existing studies have largely focused on macro-level factors such as policy environments, knowledge systems, or disciplinary structures, with limited attention paid to key academic groups like postdoctoral researchers. By integrating postdoctoral scholars into the analytical framework of disciplinary development, this paper elucidates their role as high-level research reserves, thereby enriching the talent-driven perspective in this field. Second, it provides empirical evidence. Drawing on data from a “Double First-Class” university, this research examines the effects of postdoctoral training quality and scale on disciplinary development, addressing a gap in the existing literature. Third, by incorporating disciplinary heterogeneity and faculty-related factors, the study reveals the differential impacts of postdoctoral training across disciplines and confirms the moderating role of faculty size and quality in the relationship between postdoctoral training and disciplinary progress. This deepens the understanding of the mechanisms and conditions under which postdoctoral training influences disciplinary advancement.In sum, this research enriches the scholarly discourse on disciplinary development and postdoctoral training, while also offering practical insights for optimizing the postdoctoral system in universities and promoting high-quality disciplinary growth.
		2026 Vol. 56 (4): 142-160 [Abstract] ( 3 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 889KB] ( 9 )

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