Investigating Basic Prospect and Hot Frontier of Research on High-quality Development of Higher Education-Bibliometric Analysis of Papers Published in Core Journals since the 18th PCP National Congress

Promoting the high-quality development of higher education is an essential part of building a high-quality education system. From the perspective of bibliometrics, this study conducts a systematic analysis on the basic prospect and hot frontiers of research in the field of high-quality development of higher education since the 18th PCP National Congress based on 1060 PKU core and CSSCI journals collected in CNKI database since 2013. By using metrological analysis software, the research finds that the number of research documents in the field of high-quality development of higher education shows a trend of “relatively flat in the early stage and sharply increasing in the later stage”, forming a core group of authors with good structure and complete echelon, but the cooperation among authors is generally loose. Normal universities and comprehensive universities in Beijing, Jiangsu and other places are the main force and think-tanks to lead and promot research in this field. Higher education journals and ideological and political education journals such as China Higher Education are the main platforms for publishing achievements in this field. The research focus in this field can be represented in the concept and connotation, the significance, the promotion strategy, and the experience and enlightenment of high-quality development of higher education. Moreover, the frontier trends can be embodied in the related topics around supply side reform, applied undergraduate, first-class undergraduate education, local universities, and the construction of “double first-class”. The present study suggests that scholars should enhance their awareness of problems, break through the speculative paradigm, and strengthen interdisciplinary and inter institutional interaction in future.