As UK–China transnational education continues to grow, much of the discussion around new partnerships understandably focuses on programme approval, curriculum, facilities, student recruitment and regulatory compliance.
But once a partnership is established, a much more practical question quickly emerges:
Who will actually deliver the programme — and is the staffing model sustainable?
A recent study by Kamalanathan Kajan, Xiaoting Zhang and Yujia Lu, published in Education Sciences on 23 August 2026, brings this issue into sharper focus.
Their paper, “Beyond Infrastructure: Workload, Perceived Institutional Support, and Pedagogical Adaptation in Sino-British Transnational Higher Education,” examines the experiences of 56 teaching staff working within a Sino-British dual-degree engineering partnership in China.
Workload is more than an HR issue
One of the study's most important findings is the relationship between academic workload and perceptions of institutional support.
Across the case examined, total teaching workload was the strongest observed negative correlate of overall staff support and satisfaction. The authors argue that TNE institutions should therefore think not only about physical infrastructure, but also about what they describe as “workload governance.”
This is important.
Academic delivery in TNE is rarely limited to the hours spent in the classroom.
Staff may also be managing:
- curriculum adaptation and contextualisation;
- preparation for a different teaching and learning environment;
- assessment and moderation requirements;
- communication across institutions and time zones;
- duplicated administrative processes;
- bilingual or cross-cultural teaching considerations;
- quality assurance responsibilities;
- student support;
- travel and intensive teaching schedules; and
- coordination between UK and Chinese academic teams.
A staffing model that looks reasonable when calculated only through teaching contact hours can therefore become considerably more demanding in practice.
Faculty are already adapting
The study also provides an interesting insight into what academics actually do when teaching transnationally.
Faculty described adapting materials to make them more contextually relevant, using bilingual resources, changing approaches to classroom discussion and employing co-teaching and other strategies to support student engagement.
Importantly, many of these practices appear to have developed through the experience and initiative of individual academics rather than solely through formal institutional systems.
For universities, there is an important lesson here.
Good TNE teaching should not depend entirely on individual academics finding their own way to make the model work.
Successful partnerships need institutional structures that recognise the additional complexity of transnational teaching and give staff the preparation, time, resources and professional development required to deliver effectively.
From “flying faculty” to sustainable workforce planning
This becomes particularly important as UK universities expand their portfolios of Joint Education Programmes (JEPs), Joint Education Institutes (JEIs) and other collaborative provision in China.
There is no single staffing model that works for every partnership.
Depending on the programme, universities may use different combinations of:
UK-based flying faculty, locally based UK-appointed academics, Chinese partner faculty, international recruitment, co-teaching, visiting academics and increasingly developed local academic teams.
Each option brings different implications for cost, academic quality, workload, institutional control, staff development and long-term sustainability.
Flying faculty, for example, can provide strong institutional connection and direct academic oversight. But intensive international delivery can also create pressure on academics' responsibilities at their home campus.
A heavily localised model can offer greater continuity and potentially lower delivery costs, but requires careful attention to recruitment, academic development, curriculum ownership, quality assurance and integration with the awarding university.
The real question therefore should not simply be:
“How many academics do we need?”
It should be:
“What academic workforce model will allow this partnership to maintain quality, meet regulatory and institutional expectations, provide a strong student experience and remain financially sustainable over the long term?”
Staffing needs to be designed at the beginning
Too often, detailed workforce planning happens after the academic and financial model for a TNE partnership has already been agreed.
That can create problems later.
Before committing to a new China TNE partnership, institutions should model the full academic delivery requirement across the lifecycle of the programme.
This includes not only scheduled teaching but assessment, moderation, programme leadership, quality assurance, academic administration, student support, faculty development, travel, cover arrangements and partnership governance.
The Kajan, Zhang and Lu study provides useful empirical support for treating workload as a structural and governable feature of TNE, rather than simply an issue for individual academics to manage.
How China Connected supports TNE staffing strategy
At China Connected, we support UK and Chinese universities in developing practical and sustainable academic delivery models for China TNE partnerships.
Our work can include:
- TNE academic workforce modelling;
- UK and China teaching allocation planning;
- flying-faculty and locally based staffing models;
- recruitment of China-based and international academic staff;
- co-teaching and faculty integration models;
- academic staff development for TNE delivery;
- quality assurance and governance structures; and
- longer-term localisation and workforce-development strategies.
Rather than treating staffing as a final operational detail, we help institutions integrate academic delivery, regulatory expectations, quality assurance and financial sustainability into the design of the partnership itself.
As China TNE continues to expand, developing new programmes may only be the first challenge.
Building the academic workforce capable of delivering them sustainably could be the next.
Research discussed
Kajan, K., Zhang, X. & Lu, Y. (2026). Beyond Infrastructure: Workload, Perceived Institutional Support, and Pedagogical Adaptation in Sino-British Transnational Higher Education. Education Sciences, 16(9), 1356. Published 23 August 2026.