Impact on Higher Education Transformation and Leadership Development Overseas Leadership Development Programmes for Chinese University Leaders

Dr. Xin Xing is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Yan’an University (China) and a Visiting Scholar at the National Academy of Education Administration (China). His main research interests are leadership development in higher education, university governance and leadership as well as education for sustainability. Xin accomplished his Master’s degree at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and earned his PhD degree from the University of Helsinki (Finland). During spring 2016 Xin was a Visiting Graduate Researcher at the UCL Institute of Education (U.K.). He is a member of the Higher Education Leadership Branch Association,China Association of Higher Education, the Chinese Society of Academic Degrees and Graduate Education as well as the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland. Currently, he is Principal Investigator of the National Office for Education Sciences Planning, China (NOESP) project on Impact of Overseas Leadership Development Programmes for Chinese Higher Education Institution Leaders in the Central and Western Regions of China. Xin has been dedicated to studying quality and impact of overseas leadership development programmes for Chinese school principals and university leaders since 2011. He has published five articles, book chapters as well as one book on this topic.

Dr. Meng Tian is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Birmingham (U.K.). Herresearch interests cover school leaders’ professional development, distributed leadership, and leadership for social justice. Meng is CoConvenor of the Educational Leadership Network in the European Educational Research Association. From 2019 to 2021, Meng worked as Co-Director for the Centre for Research in Education in Asia (CREA) at the University of Bath, UK.Meng accomplished her Bachelor’s degree at the East China Normal University (China), and her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). During her career, she has been a Researcher in several EU and international projects such as the European Policy Network of School Leadership (distributed leadership) and the International School Leadership Development Network (leadership for social justice). As Principal Investigator, she has led the British Association for International & Comparative Education (BAICE) project on Multi-Academy Trusts in England and Independent Schools in Finland and the British Council project on Leading Change Management in Educational Systems.