China has recently launched a radical reform to transform over 600 regional universities into application and technology oriented institutions. The reform is a response to diverse labour market demands, regional economic development and the suboptimal structure of the higher education system, and uses international experiences as a reference. While China is still struggling to identify proper international models to follow, this article offers a potential candidate--Finland, with respect to Finnish experiences recommendations for the Chinese reform are discussed and elicited. The analysis flows from discussions in a series of seminars and workshops held in Finland and China in 2014. This article argues that the Finnish experience is of relevance to Chinese regional university transformation, notwithstanding the huge difference in scale.