As China moves toward becoming a cultural powerhouse, how can universities empower young people to become creators of new culture, new content, and new narratives that resonate with contemporary life? At ICCI, a six-year teaching journey through a single course has led to a pioneering model of cultural co-creation between education and industry.
From podcasts bridging international cultures through student travel stories, to bilingual videos spotlighting Shanghai’s independent coffee scene, to AI-enhanced nail art inspired by traditional Chinese aesthetics going global—this year’s cohort of the ICCI–DBI Linkinno Funding showcased projects with a distinctly international edge. On September 25, the final presentation and launch of the research report “Co-Creating Cultural Originality: A Path for Industry-Academia Collaboration” drew renewed attention to this evolving model of education-driven cultural innovation.
The panel of ten industry mentors—ranging from vice presidents of tech firms and e-commerce executives to independent curators, startup founders, and café owners—seemed even more anxious than the students themselves. Seasoned veterans of the cultural and creative industries, they took to the stage alongside their student partners, presenting their projects and facing critical feedback from both peers and the public.
Over the past six years, the ICCI–DBI Linkinno Funding has grown into a signature component of ICCI’s master’s curriculum. Co-launched with DBI Group, this credited course—fondly referred to by students as the Linkinno Funding course—adopts a unique co-creation model that blends academic credit with startup funding, creative culture with cross-disciplinary innovation, and students with hands-on industry mentorship. In this course, students act as primary innovators, tackling real-world problems and developing original solutions in close collaboration with mentors from industry. Together, they take ideas from concept to prototype, turning campus creativity into fresh energy for cultural development.
According to Dean Weimin ZHANG, the Linkinno Funding course exemplifies ICCI’s core educational values: internationalization, interdisciplinary thinking, and industry orientation. Over the past decade, ICCI has aligned closely with national strategies for cultural and creative industries. Looking ahead, the school will continue to support young creatives as they engage with the needs of our time, serve the public's desire for a better life, and contribute their youthful energy to China’s cultural revitalization.
DBI Group, ICCI’s long-term partner in this initiative, reflected on the journey that began six years ago. Their vision was to create a new model for cultivating creative talent and incubating innovation projects within the framework of higher education. What started as a bold idea has since evolved into an influential platform for cultural innovation, with meaningful social impact. DBI encouraged students to remain curious, critical, and courageous—to persist through challenges and always be ready to begin again.
During the final showcase, ICCI also unveiled its newly completed research report, Co-Creating Cultural Originality: A Path for Industry-Academia Collaboration. This study, part of the Shanghai Higher Education Society’s annual research agenda, draws on six years of data from the Linkinno Funding course, encompassing 375 student participants and nearly 100 industry mentors.
Course instructor and project lead Haoqing WANG (known to students as “Teacher Pearl”) introduced the framework for understanding and cultivating youth-led cultural originality, broken down into four dimensions: “Trust,” “Source,” “Energy,” and “Capability.” The nearly 60 student-led projects served as evidence of how young people can drive cultural innovation—from decoding and reimagining culture, to responding to real-world social needs, blending culture with technology, pushing aesthetic boundaries, and facilitating cross-cultural dialogue. Together, these outcomes offer a working model for how universities can function as incubators of cultural originality through industry-academia co-creation.
What makes this course truly transformative is how it redefines the roles of everyone involved in the learning process. In-depth interviews with 81 students and 10 industry mentors from recent cohorts revealed a fundamental shift: instructors no longer act solely as knowledge providers, but as facilitators and resource hubs; mentors evolve from guest speakers into active collaborators and critical thinkers; and students relate to one another not just as classmates, but as project partners with shared ownership. This has led to the creation of a horizontal, co-creative learning ecosystem—one that breaks away from traditional hierarchies in the classroom.
According to course instructor and project lead Haoqing WANG, this model offers more than new teaching methods—it represents a new kind of university-industry synergy. Universities, she argues, can serve not just as training grounds for talent, but as incubators for original ideas and testbeds for innovation. By translating real-world needs into educational challenges, bridging cognitive gaps between students and professionals, and integrating policy, business, and social resources, they become central nodes in a full-cycle innovation ecosystem—from need discovery, to co-creation, to protection, to market validation.
In a time when cultural innovation is a national priority, the research affirms that higher education institutions have both the responsibility and the capability to lead. ICCI’s approach demonstrates how co-creative education can fuel not only student growth, but also industry progress and societal impact—providing a steady stream of original ideas shaped by the next generation of cultural creators.
The report concludes that in the pursuit of cultural revitalization, universities must—and can—play a critical role in cultivating cultural originality. Participants agreed that this co-creation-based teaching model offers a valuable blueprint for other institutions seeking to foster cultural innovation. More importantly, it provides a steady stream of fresh ideas and energy from young creatives into both the cultural industries and broader society. The hope is that many more original student-led cultural projects will emerge in the years to come.