The book is based on four case studies exploring changes in faculty work life at Tsinghua University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, and Minzu University of China, all of which were included in Projects 211 and 985, two generously funded governmental initiatives launched in the 1990s aimed at increasing the quality of the country’s top universities. It shows how governmental funding has helped enhance research capacity and proliferation as well as internationalisation at Chinese research universities, and it also points to certain challenges that these universities face, mostly related to institutional autonomy and academic freedom.