The core concern of ILEAD is interdisciplinary research on education and management for the greater aim of promoting education reform and innovative teaching practices. Main research topics include: learning theories, teaching methods, systems of higher education institutions (governance, management, and language policies), reform and innovation in higher education.

Research on future universities

• Devising new models for higher education: ILEAD conducts research on fundamentals and overall goals, operational mechanisms, and the challenges faced by contemporary higher education institutions.
• Research on the development of Chinese higher education: investigating problems and challenges for the reform of Chinese higher education; devising strategies for reform and promoting the deepening reform of universities.
• Student-centred education systems: discovering and summarising paths and methods for student-centred education systems through observation and application.

Chinese education management research

• To find methods for the management of universities as knowledge organisations, in particular, research on networking organisations.
• Research on education leadership: focusing on the problems and difficulties for improving leadership, and how good leadership promotes the reform and the transformation of both Chinese and international higher education.
• Discovering paths and modes of Chinese higher education reform by researching systemic innovations.

Research on internalisation in higher education

ILEAD conducts research in the following areas in cooperation with the Internalization Research Center of the Chinese Ministry of Education:

• Research on theories of higher education internalisation and transnational universities: in-depth scientific research on the essence, influencing factors, and effects of higher education internalisation.
• Summarising and promoting patterns for university internalisation: best practices for higher education internalisation both in China generally, in model zones, and abroad.
• Policies and suggestions on Chinese higher education internalisation: promoting higher education internalisation of local governments and universities based on problems and needs nationwide
• Language policies in global education: studying university language policies in the context of internalisation, in particular – the regulations and practices of teaching in non-mother tongue languages.