Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home Scientists in the United States were not overly surprised in 2008 when the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland awarded a $10 million research grant to a Princeton University molecular biologist, Shi Yigong. Shi Yigong, a Princeton University molecular biologist, rejected a prestigious $10 million grant to return to China in 2008. Dr. Shis cell studies had already opened a new line of research into cancer treatment. At Princeton, his laboratory occupied an entire floor and had a $2 million annual budget. The surprise shock, actually came a few months later, when Dr. Shi, a naturalized American citizen and 18-year resident of the United States, announced that he was leaving for good to pursue science in China . He declined the grant, resigned from Princetons faculty and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing. To this day, many people dont understand why I came back to China, he said recently between a crush of visitors to his Tsinghua office. Especially in my position, giving up all I had. He was one of our stars, Robert H. Austin, a Princeton physics professor, said by telephone. I thought it was completely crazy. Chinas leaders do not. Determined to reverse the drain of top talent that accompanied its opening to the outside world over the past three decades, they are using their now ample financial resources and a dollop of national pride to entice scientists and scholars home. The West, and the United States in particular, remain more attractive places for many Chinese scholars to study and do research. But the return of Dr. Shi and some other high-profile scientists is a sign that China is succeeding more quickly than many experts expected at narrowing the gap that separates it from technologically advanced nations. Chinas spending on research and development has steadily increased for a decade and now amounts to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product . The United States devotes 2.7 percent of its G.D.P. to research and development, but Chinas share is far higher than that of most other developing countries. Chinese scientists are also under more pressure to compete with those abroad, and in the past decade they quadrupled the number of scientific papers they published a year. Their 2007 total was second only to that of the United States. About 5,000 Chinese scientists are engaged in the emerging field of nanotechnology alone, according to a recent book, Chinas Emerging Technological Edge, by Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao, two United States-based experts on China. A 2008 study by the Georgia Institute of Technology concluded that within the next decade or two, China would pass the United States in its ability to transform its research and development into products and services that can be marketed to the world. As China becomes more proficient at innovation processes linking its burgeoning R.D. to commercial enterprises, watch out, the study concluded. Quantity is not quality, and despite its huge investment, China still struggles in many areas of science and technology. No Chinese-born scientist has ever been awarded a Nobel Prize for research conducted in mainland China, although several have received one for work done in the West. While climbing, China ranked only 10th in the number of patents granted in the United States in 2008. Chinese students continue to leave in droves. Nearly 180,000 left in 2008, almost 25 percent more than in 2007, as more families were able to pay overseas tuition. For every four students who left in the past decade, only one returned, Chinese government statistics show . Those who obtained science or engineering doctorates from American universities were among the least likely to return. Recently, though, China has begun to exert a reverse pull. In the past three years, renowned scientists like Dr. Shi have begun to trickle back. And they are returning with a mission: to shake up Chinas scientific culture of cronyism and mediocrity, often cited as its biggest impediment to scientific achievement. They are lured by their patriotism, their desire to serve as catalysts for change and their belief that the Chinese government will back them. I felt I owed China something, said Dr. Shi, 42, who is described by Tsinghua students as caring and intensely driven. In the United States, everything is more or less set up. Whatever I do here, the impact is probably tenfold, or a hundredfold. He and others like him left the United States with fewer regrets than some Americans might assume. While he was courted by a clutch of top American universities and rose swiftly through Princetons academic ranks, Dr. Shi said he believed many Asians confronted a glass ceiling in the United States. Rao Yi, a 47-year-old biologist who left Northwestern University in 2007 to become dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing, contrasts Chinas soul-searching with Americas self-satisfaction. When the United States Embassy in Beijing asked him to explain why he wanted to renounce his American citizenship, he wrote that the United States had lost its moral leadership after the 9/11 attacks. But the American people are still reveling in the greatness of the country and themselves, he said in a draft letter. These scientists were not uniformly won over by the virtues of democracy, either. While Dr. Rao said he hoped and believed that China would become a multiparty democracy in his lifetime, Dr. Shi said he doubted that that political system will ever be appropriate for China. As a Tsinghua student, Dr. Shi joined the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. As a registered Democrat in the United States, he participated eagerly in elections. Multiparty democracy is perfect for the United States, he said. But believing that multiparty democracy is right for the United States does not mean it is right for China. Yet the re-entry to the politicized world of science in China can be challenging. Some scientists with weaker rsums have shunned returnees. In its biennial election of academicians last month, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinas highest advisory body on science and technology, passed over Dr. Shi and Dr. Rao. It also did not recognize Wang Xiaodong, a well-known Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who recently left the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for Beijings National Institute of Biological Sciences. The tension has spilled over into the Chinese blogosphere, where Dr. Shi has been attacked as insincere and untrustworthy. In a posting in 2008, Liu Zhongwu, a professor of science and engineering at South China University of Technology, said that Dr. Shi should be excluded from any projects that touch on Chinas national interests. Bear in mind, he is a foreigner, he wrote. The last year and a half have been like 10 years to me, said Dr. Shi, who says the criticism is redolent of the Cultural Revolution. I am rejoicing that I am still standing. But the returnees also have powerful friends, including their universities presidents and some officials within the Communist Partys Central Committee. Dr. Shi and Dr. Rao helped draft the partys new program to hire top-flight overseas scientists, entrepreneurs and other experts the latest incarnation of the governments campaign to lure its scholars home. In May 2008, Dr. Shi was invited to speak about the future of Chinese science and technology to Vice President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials at Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound in Beijing. Dr. Rao says the government is generous maybe overly so in financing science. The challenge, he said, is making sure that the funds are spent wisely, not simply handed over to those in bureaucratic favor. Five years ago, as head of a scientific institute at Northwestern University , he made the same argument in the British journal Nature. Dr. Rao wrote that connections too often trumped merit when grants were handed out in China. He recommended abolishing the Ministry of Science and Technology and reassigning its budget to a more reputable agency. His critique was banned in China. But last October, China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper, summarized it in a profile of Dr. Rao headlined A Man With a Mission. It is going to be an uphill battle, said Mr. Cao, an author of the book on China. They are excellent scientists. But they must form a critical mass to reform the system. If they dont reform it, they will leave. At Tsinghua, Dr. Shi says he is optimistic. In less than two years, he has recruited about 18 postdoctoral fellows, almost all from the United States. Each has opened an independent laboratory. Within a decade, he said, Tsinghuas life sciences department will expand fourfold. Dr. Shi does not pretend that science there is now on a par with Princeton. Rather, he likens Tsinghua to a respected American state university. But in a matter of years, he said, we will get there. From January 6, 2010 本文引用地址： http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=285191
感谢内部消息、小道消息和消息灵通人士，第一时间得知： 施一公和饶毅在2010年9月3日（虽然俺这里还是9月2日）《SCIENCE》上发表社论：中国的科研文化 记得2000年Jiang ZM（president of the PRC）在SCIENCE上发表过社论：科学在中国。2008年温家宝（Premier of the State Council of the PRC）发表社论：科学与中国的现代化。 顺便一说：施饶社论中的connections，是关系的意思，通常西方世界用guanxi表示关系。这是中国文化对西方词汇的一大贡献。文中的build connections，是搞关系的意思；另一种表述为 build guanxi。 该社论的信息和摘要如下（详细内容，就不用我来代劳介绍了；见科学网即将发布的信息此为预测，将100％正确） Science 3 September 2010: Vol. 329. no. 5996, p. 1128 Editorial China's Research Culture Yigong Shi 1 ,* and Yi Rao 2 , Government research funds in China have been growing at an annual rate of more than 20%, exceeding even the expectations of China's most enthusiastic scientists. In theory, this could allow China to make truly outstanding progress in science and research, complementing the nation's economic success. In reality, however, rampant problems in research fundingsome attributable to the system and others culturalare slowing down China's potential pace of innovation. 补充 正如所预计，科学网已发布2010-9-3 9:51:53该社论的内容，如下： http://news.sciencenet.cn//htmlnews/2010/9/237032.shtm 中国政府投入的研究经费以每年超过20%的比例增加，甚至超过了中国最乐观的科学家们的预期。从理论上讲，它应该能让中国在科学和研究领域取得真正突出的进步、与国家的经济成功相辅相成。而现实中，研究经费分配的严重问题却减缓了中国潜在的创新步伐。这些问题部分归结于体制，部分归结于文化。 尽管对于一些比如由中国国家自然科学基金委员会资助的小型研究经费来说，科学优劣可能仍然是能否获得经费的关键因素，但是，对来自政府各部门的巨型项目来说，科学优劣的相关性就小多了，这些项目的经费从几千万元到几亿元人民币。对后者而言，关键问题在于每年针对特定研究领域和项目颁发的申请指南。表面上，这些指南的目的是勾画国家重大需求；然而，项目的申请指南却常常被具体而狭隘地描述，人们基本上可以毫无悬念地意识到这些需求并非国家真正所需；经费预定给谁基本一目了然。政府官员任命的专家委员会负责编写年度申请指南。因为显而易见的原因，专家委员会的主席们常听从官员们的意见，并与他们合作。所谓专家意见不过反映了很小部分官员及其赏识的科学家之间的相互理解。 这种自上而下的方式不仅压抑了创新，也让每个人都很清楚：与个别官员和少数强势科学家搞好关系才最重要，因为他们主宰了经费申请指南制定的全过程。在中国，为了获得重大项目，一个公开的秘密是：作好的研究不如与官员和他们赏识的专家拉关系重要。 中国大多数研究人员常嘲讽这种有缺陷的基金分配体制。然而，一个自相矛盾的现象是，他们中的绝大多数人却也接受了它。部分人认为除了接受这些惯例之外别无选择。这种潜规则文化甚至渗透到那些刚从海外回国学者的意识中：他们很快适应局部环境，并传承和发扬不健康的文化。在中国，相当比率的研究人员花了过多精力拉关系，却没有足够时间参加学术会议、讨论学术问题、作研究或培养学生（甚至不乏将学生当做廉价劳力）。很多人因为太忙而在原单位不见其踪影。有些人本身已成为这种问题的一部分：他们更多地是基于关系，而非学术优劣来评审经费申请者。 无须陈述科学研究和经费管理中的伦理规章，因为绝大多数中国研究界的权势人物都在工业化国家接受过教育。然而，全面改变这一体制并非易事。现行体制的既得利益者拒绝真正意义上的改革；部分反对不健康文化的人，因为害怕失去未来获得基金的机会，选择了沉默；其他希望有所改变的人们则持等待和观望的态度，而不愿承担改革可能失败的风险。 尽管路途障碍重重，科学政策制定者和一线科学家们都已清楚地意识到中国目前科研文化中的问题。它浪费资源、腐蚀精神、阻碍创新。借助于研究经费增长的态势和日益强烈的打破有害成规的意愿，现在正是中国建设健康科研文化的时刻。一个简单但重要的起点是基于学术优劣，而不是靠关系，来分配所有的新基金。随着时间的流逝，这种新文化能够而且应该成为一种新系统的顶梁柱，它将培育而不再浪费中国的创新潜力。 《科学时报》 (2010-9-3 A1 要闻) Full text China's Research Culture
中国在经济总量指标方面已经走在了世界的前列，如中国目前外汇储备世界第一、出口额列世界第二、GDP排世界第三。中国的大学生总量列世界之冠（27 million students in technical colleges and universities the most in the world），中国发表的论文总量也紧随美国其后排世界第二。 那么，中国是否会在科学上取得霸主地位？ 《纽约时报》元月18日发表了系列专题文章来探讨这个话题。作者有外国人也有中国人。有的谈中国的科技政策，有的谈中国的科研体制，有的谈中国的创新能力，.....；有的侧重正面的东西，有的谈及许多问题，如学术腐败等等。参见何毓琦先生的博文 Will China Achieve Science Supremacy? （ http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=288785 ）。值得一读。
标签: 科研体制
