International University Consortia on the New Silk Road

International collaborations among higher education institutions have existed along the Silk Road for a long time. With the initiative of the Belt and Road, it is believed that cooperation among universities and colleges may be influenced in various respects. In this study, seventeen university consortia that have been formed in the last thirty years along the Silk Road were investigated, including the membership structure, their starting point, goals and developments of these consortia, and the roles of world-class universities. The findings showed: 1) these consortia share the similar goals of multinational collaboration to foster solutions to new global challenges; 2) the thirty-year development of these consortia was divided into three phases, and most of the member universities are from the EU, China, and the US; 3) world-class universities were, are and will be playing the leading roles in these consortia continuously.