Date: 30th March (Monday), 2026
Time: 4:00 to 5:15
Mode: online by Zoom
Speaker: Yingxin Liu (Margaret), Assistant Professor (teaching), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen); Huan Li, Assistant Professor, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University; Hanyu Qin, PhD student, The University of Hong Kong
Chair: Hugo Horta, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong
Registration link: https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/MTOUsvVjSS2WibMUhVbuDQ
Abstract:
Within the highly competitive research funding ecosystem, early career academics (ECAs) in mainland China face unavoidable pressures to participate in grant competitions as a prerequisite for academic career entry and progression. Focusing on resource inequality within divergent universities, this study investigates the tactical approaches Chinese ECAs employ to navigate their research agendas tailored to funding demands, alongside comparative insights into how research agenda-setting diverges between elite-forging and non-elite-focused universities. Drawing on resource-based view and mobilization strategies (optimization/bricolage), this narrative inquiry interviewed 30 ECAs across 24 elite-forging and non-elite-focused mainland Chinese research institutions. Findings reveal that grant acquisition is contingent on both institutional and individual resource capacities. To navigate this grant competition, ECAs adopt a hierarchical framework of four strategies aligning with incremental resource availability, ordered as follows: necessity-based bricolage, lean-condition optimization, ideational bricolage, and asset-rich optimization. Institutional disparities underpin this pattern: ECAs at non-elite-focused universities predominantly rely on the first two resource-constrained approaches, whereas their elite-forging university counterparts normally leverage the latter two resource-abundant strategies. These insights offer actionable frameworks for ECAs to thrive amid funding competition, while also calling attention to structural inequities in funding systems that universities and policymakers must address to better support ECAs.
About the speaker:
Dr. Yingxin Liu (Margaret) is an assistant professor (teaching) in the School of Humanities and Social Science at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China. Her research interests encompass higher education internationalization, international mobility, talent management, doctoral employment and employability, research agenda-setting, and gender disparities in academia.
Miss Hanyu Qin is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. Specializing in higher education, her research interests include doctoral education and the development of early career academics. She is dedicated to understanding the challenges and opportunities facing the next generation of scholars in the academic workforce.
Dr. Huan Li earned his PhD from the University of Hong Kong and currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Future Education, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. His primary research focus—traced back to his doctoral studies—has centered on doctoral education, specifically the career development of doctoral graduates, encompassing both academic and non-academic career pathways.