Industry-specific universities, which are focused on certain sectors, are unique to China's higher education system, with their development and changes closely related to educational system reforms and their establishment, growth and transition highlighting the distinct characteristics of the times.

Having the advantage of integrating education and industry, industry-specific universities continue to power the high-quality economic and social development of the country. They have developed an array of special disciplines covering key areas of the economy, and helped form an innovation ecosystem through industry-university-research cooperation.

The importance of social services for industry-specific universities has become increasingly prominent thanks to China's rapid economic and social development. These universities shoulder the mission of cultivating industry talents, seeding industry innovation, and putting technological achievements to commercial use to promote socioeconomic development.

However, there is a need for industry-specific universities to develop a new development system, keeping pace with the high-quality socioeconomic development. The development model of universities is undergoing a fundamental transformation, with the focus shifting from giving people access to education to fulfilling the personalized and diversified resource needs of high-quality higher education. Industry-specific universities should also shift their focus from their own growth to serving the needs of socioeconomic development, and helping solve problems to facilitate high-quality socioeconomic development.

Among the five major functions of universities — talent cultivation, scientific research, social services, preserving and promoting cultural heritages, and international exchanges and cooperation — social services, being the weakest, are restricting the high-quality development of talent training and scientific research. Hence, the urgent task of such universities is to comprehensively improve their social services.

As a fundamental function of universities, social services are an important indicator of their educational level and social contribution. The need is to make social services a driving force for the high-quality development of industry-specific universities and boost their strength.

By providing better social services, industry-specific universities can strengthen their connection and interactions with and better understand the development needs of the local economy and society, while providing targeted services and support for governments and enterprises. By offering differentiated social service projects and products, industry-specific universities can enhance their brand advantages and sharpen their core competitiveness.

It is therefore necessary to establish an industry-university-research mechanism that adopts a goal-oriented approach, promotes innovation through collaboration, provides resource guarantee and evaluates performances to improve the social services of these universities.

First, industry-specific universities should clearly chart their service direction and create a distinctive service system by focusing on how to meet national strategic and local development needs, so as to cultivate talents that have a sharp industrial vision, can achieve breakthroughs in key technologies to boost industrial development, and establish technology research institutes and modern industrial colleges to serve industries.

Second, these universities should also establish an open collaborative network and develop innovative service supply models. By establishing a multi-channel and multi-dimensional cooperation mechanism, they can explore a more collaborative innovation model, help enterprises address their various problems, and tap the market to test these solutions.

Third, the universities should take measures to improve their capacity-building mechanism and lay a solid foundation for talent cultivation. They also need to give full play to the collaborative education approach of "on-campus and industry mentors", and include teachers' achievements in social services to evaluate their performances to promote innovation.

And fourth, industry-specific universities need to establish a comprehensive evaluation system that takes into consideration the service scale, economic benefits and social impact, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of social services in real time through a big data platform. They should also link the evaluation results with the allocation of special funds and resources and support the formation of a dynamic and optimized resource allocation model. These measures will help transform industry-specific universities from traditional teaching institutions to modern service-oriented institutions, helping boost industrial upgrading.

The job of industry-specific universities is to nurture talents that can boost the country's socioeconomic development. Major economic and social transformations have shaped the development of these universities, aligning their "specification", "de-specification" and "re-specification" in relation to industries with China's economic and social development phases.

"Re-specification" means industry-specific universities changing their "one-way feedback model" and adopting a new "two-way symbiotic model" and changing their teaching methods to meet the needs of different types of talents and accommodate technological innovation brought about by cross-industry integration thanks to the fourth scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.

"De-specification" refers to industry-specific universities developing a better understanding and actively responding to adaptive changes. Through "re-specification" strategy, industry-specific universities can better serve the needs of economic and social development, and enhance their competitiveness and influence.

For example, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics has adopted a "re-specification" strategy by developing new disciplines and deepening the integration of industry and education. The different disciplines or subjects the university offers highlight their financial characteristics and help the students to explore green areas. The university has deepened its cooperation with local government departments by intensifying research in the region's economy, and providing more diversified and higher-quality services. These measures have not only boosted the high-quality development of the university, but also provided useful reference for a "respecification" approach of industry-specific universities.

The author is president of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress, and a member of the China Association for Promoting Democracy. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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