PASCAL recently posted a policy brief on the role of the ‘regional-intensive’ university. Recent days have seen some other important contributions on this and related issues in a variety of media. This note is intended to highlight some of the points made, to supplement and exemplify the discussion in the policy paper.

China is the global leader in terms of number of learning cities, but China's policy in relation to learning cities also show that a learning city is not only about competitiveness, but also about social cohesion.