Researching and publishing in the English departments of Chinese tertiary institutions: Status and challenges

Since the 1990s, many countries have established national systems for the assessment of quality in higher education (Brennan &Shah, 2000). Given that teaching and research are considered key indicators of quality, a nationwide quality assessment of English major curriculums was initiated in China in 2006. Following the 2006 initiative and with a view to gauging teaching and learning quality, the educational bureau in a northeast province administered a large-scale institutional review of the English curricula in higher education institutions across the whole province in late 2012. One major outcome of the 2012 review-the focus of the current paper-was the extent to which research capacities, number and quality of outputs varied among English departments in the different institutions. The research questions were: How do academics perceive conducting teaching and research in English departments in Chinese higher education institutions? In what ways do academics view the teaching-research nexus in English departments in Chinese higher education institutions? Outcomes revealed that the need to research and publish created constant pressure in all institutions with varying strategies employed to cope with these pressures; also, institutional academic leaders revealed a variety of coping strategies to mitigate tensions in the teaching-research nexus. Copyright © 2017 Asian E F L Journal Press.