Contributing to the discussion over China’s higher education development, this book takes a theoretical approach to address the topic of university academics’ innovation by introducing an academic innovation competency model, exploring the contexts, concepts and practices. The innovation competency model comprises three interdependent dimensions, including the academic internal drive vitality, the academic synthesizing refined ability and the academic suspected and introspective ability. By enriching the theory of professional development of university teachers, these three dimensions will help advance the reform of college personnel systems and ultimately improve the quality of China’s higher education.The book will be valuable to researchers, students and stakeholders hoping to learn about education reform in China, or to those who study higher education management and comparative education.