Mobilising Knowledge

Abstract The full-scale outbreak of the War of Resistance triggered a fundamental reassessment of the university’s role in times of national crisis. Between 1937 and 1945, Chinese higher education experienced a functional shift from relatively autonomous intellectual enclaves to active instruments of state mobilisation. This study conceptualises universities as contested arenas wherein state imperatives, academic autonomy, and societal needs were dynamically negotiated. Under the pressures of total war, a technocratic and practice-orientated model of higher education emerged through the co-construction by diverse actors. Four interrelated mechanisms underpin this transformation: spatial redistribution of institutions; curricular realignment toward practical disciplines; integration of military and academic functions; and strengthened coordination between education and industry. Anchored in the framework of historical institutionalism, this analysis reframes wartime higher education as a site of structural innovation, contributing to the broader process of modern state formation in East Asia.