Research on China-Malaysia New Engineering Talent Cultivation Paths from the Perspective of Industry-Education Integration: A Case Study of Xiamen University of Technology
China-Malaysia higher education cooperation has become an important testing ground for cultivating new engineering talent that can operate across borders. Taking the partnership between Xiamen University of Technology (XMUT) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as its object, this documentary case study traces how cooperation beginning with a single research platform in November 2021 evolved, through four identifiable stages, into a systematic, three-dimensional, and sustainable architecture for cross-border, bachelor-through-doctorate cultivation of new engineering talent. Stage I (2021–2022) established the International Industrial IoT Research Institute under a four-party mechanism of Chinese and Malaysian universities and enterprises; Stage II (2022–2025) extended cooperation from joint master’s training to doctoral training with mutually appointed supervisors; Stage III (2023–2026) added a Sino-foreign cooperative undergraduate program in microelectronics approved by China’s Ministry of Education in May 2026, completing coverage of the bachelor, master and doctoral levels; and Stage IV (2025 onward) upgraded the jointly built China-Malaysia Artificial Intelligence Joint Laboratory into a national-level international research cooperation platform. The stages are cumulative rather than parallel: governance assets, co-developed curricula, dual mentorship, and mutual recognition created early become the enabling conditions of later stages. The study extracts the mechanisms behind this evolution, discusses operational constraints, and derives implications for replicating the model in other ASEAN-China partnerships.
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