Scientific researches and talents of China’s mainland
Xiu-Ju Zhao

Wuhan Polytechnic University; Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

dzrdez@163.com

Abstract    Scientific researches of China’s mainland have made remarkable achievements and China’s mainland scientists increasingly play a role in the international academic organizations. However, there are structural and institutional problems in scientific research and talent of China’s mainland. The possible and potential solutions are suggested.

        The researches have made remarkable achievements in premier geology and paleontology (Northwest University; Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), structure biology (Tsinghua University; National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing), oral science (West China School/Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University), optics (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP), Chinese Academy of Sciences) and quantum information (1) (University of Science and Technology of China), neutrino (Institute of High Energy Physics), cellular stress biology, immunology (Jiahuai Han, Xiamen University), traditional Chinese medicine (Youyou Tu, Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award), biomaterial (Sichuan University), sequencing (BGI, Shenzhen), etc. Papers with authors from China (including Hongkong, Macau and Taiwai) represent 6.6% (225) of the 3425 papers published in Nature journals in 2011, up from 5.3% (152 papers) in 2010. China increased its share of the top 1% of highly cited scientific articles from 1.85% (127 out of 6,874 articles) in 2001 to 11.3% (1,158 out of 10,238 articles) in 2011, and now ranks fourth globally. China’s mainland scientists increasingly play a role in the international academic organizations, such as foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences of United States of American ( Jie Zhang, Jiayang Li, Zhonghe Zhou, etc), fellows of International Academy of Wood Science (Fucheng Bao,  etc), foreign associates of Erfurt Academy of Sciences (Shuwen Dong, etc), president of the Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia and Oceania, FIMSA -Xuetao Cao, fellow of Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis - Xiaoxin Li, foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences of Russia (Gengdong Cheng, Yanling Li, etc), fellows of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Xuemin Xu, etc), fellows of Geological Society of America and Mineralogical Society of America (Jingsui Yang, etc), foreign Members of Academia Europaea (Zhigang Shuai, etc), APS Fellows (Zhong Fang, etc), IEEE Fellows (Zhenghe Feng, etc), Chairman of IUPAB - Zihe Rao, Chairman of ISVHLD 14 - Yumen Wen.
        However, there are structural and institutional problems in scientific research and talent of China’s mainland. Scientific research programs are fragmentation, including National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program), etc. Talents programs are explosive, and include Thousand Talents Program, Changjiang Scholars Program, Hundred Talents Program, Thousand Young Talents Program, etc. In addition, the authorities prefer foreign degrees to native ones; academic units and countries abroad and at home are discriminatory; start-up funds of native doctors are little, and their promotions are difficult. Evaluation on faculty is too frequent; the evaluation is not academic and professional, and a peer review mechanism is not established; evaluation is on default set up foreign languages ​​and computer qualifications.  Moreover, cooperation of peer is not enough. Unfortunately, inefficiency and bad attitudes of administrative departments of universities and research institutes exist widely. The reasons for the above phenomena are as follows, personally. The agencies including universities and institutions employ the working way and method of “from top to bottom, responsible for higher rank”. There is nothing but disaster in dividing the world into "us" and "them" and punishing “them”. The universities and institutions possess centralization of power, and the faculty has no freedom of selecting the way of teaching or studying; more personal injury, and less discussion, debate, critique are prevalent among the faculty. China belongs to tight (many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior) culture (2). Persons at lower and middle positions are suffered from low level of social security, unrealistic short-term unemployment, and low wages relative to the cost of living. In the last two decades (1990-2010), China has essentially followed the life satisfaction trajectory of a U-shaped swing and a nil or declining trend (3). The root may be from the belief of the Constitution of PRC: “This Constitution, in legal form, affirms the achievements of the struggles of the Chinese people of all nationalities and defines the basic system and basic tasks of the State; it is the fundamental law of the State and has supreme legal authority. The people of all nationalities, all State organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and institutions in the country must take the Constitution as the basic standard of conduct, and they have the duty to uphold the dignity of the Constitution and ensure its implementation.”

        The possible and potential solutions are as follows. The academic treatment can only be determined by academic performance and independent of country or unit where the degrees obtained. Establish internationally accepted title system based on peer-review. Emphasize on and respect for the persons holding original ideas. Encourage the free exploration, and the number of demand-driven research is moderate. At this stage, some measures are practicably made. Lecturer/instructor, assistant professor, assistant research fellow positions last for at least one year; associate professor, associate research fellow positions last for at least tow years, step by step promotion without exception, regardless of what kind of unit, what state obtained a degree in. Starting funding (thousand RMB yuan) for lecturer is 100-250, associate professor 250-800, and professor 800-2000, not exceeding 10% of the minimum or maximum limits. No results directly based on their own independent ideas, no associate or full professor. Postdoctoral fellows even owning papers of high IF as first author must be assistant professor and then become associate professor. For basic research of natural sciences, no papers of the corresponding author, no associate professor and no high-quality papers of the corresponding author, no full professor. Meanwhile, remove foreign languages ​​and computer requirements in evaluation.

References

1.             J.-W. Pan et al., Rev. Modern Phys. 84, 777 (2012).

2.             M. J. Gelfand et al., Science 332, 1100 (2011).

3.             R. A. Easterlin, R. Morgan, M. Switek, F. Wang, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., doi:10.1073/pnas.1205672109 (2012).