Great changes in the science and technology system: let the world's talents go to China

[Abstract] The National Science and Technology Innovation Conference, the Academician Conference of the two academies, and the Ninth National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology were held in Beijing. President Xi Jinping pointed out that in order to build a world science and technology power, the key is to build a large-scale, reasonable structure and excellent quality. The team of innovative talents.

Time Weekly reporter Fu Cong Fu Ming Gu Jinsheng from Guangzhou, Beijing

On May 31st, this news was broadcast on TV - National Science and Technology Innovation Conference, Academician of the two academies, and the Ninth National Congress of China Association for Science and Technology were held in Beijing. President Xi Jinping pointed out that China must build a world science and technology power, the key is to To build a team of innovative talents with large scale, reasonable structure and high quality.

When I saw this news, Li Wei, who is a senior returnee, was a bit worried. A college in Beijing has already thrown an olive branch to him. He hopes that the postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in the United States can return to work in the school and give him the promise to join the Thousand Talents Program. However, he still has a bit of concern in his heart--he told the Times Weekly reporter: "After returning to China, can I still have a fully equipped laboratory?" He admits that his foreign status may bring a lot of inconvenience.

The so-called "Thousand Talents Plan" is also known as the overseas high-level talent introduction plan. According to statistics, since the implementation of the plan in December 2008, as of the end of 2015, 5208 overseas high-level talents have been introduced for China. At the same time, the domestic scientific research personnel system has repeatedly been accused of hindering the development of scientific and technological talents. In this year's National Conference, Xing Xinhui, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, bluntly stated that the "hidden rules" such as "official standard", seniority, and relationship have made "talent engineering" It became a "wearing hat talent project."

Just in March of this year, the Central Government issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the System and Mechanism of Talent Development" (hereinafter referred to as "Deepening Opinions"), and "Transforming the Government Talent Management Function" was listed as the first place in the reform measures. Wang Huiyao, director of China and Globalization Think Tank (CCG), told the Times Weekly reporter: "Now the reform of the talent system is to strengthen the flow of talents within and outside the system. The channels for the flow of talents from enterprises and academics to the government are not smooth. Blocking the development of talent."

According to the staff of the Central Organization Department, in addition to breaking the existing institutional and institutional obstacles, the new round of reforms will change and the threshold will be improved.

"Thousand Talents Plan" to make up for brain drain

Wang Huiyao wrote in his book "The War of Talents" that "China is still the biggest loser in the global battle for talents." According to the China Association for Science and Technology, since the 1980s, China has begun to send large-scale foreign students. As of 2009, China sent about 1.6 million overseas students, the number one in the world, but only 500,000 returnees. The US "Science" magazine even compared Tsinghua University and Peking University to "the most fertile American doctoral training ground."

In contrast, during the period 1995-2005, 25% of American founders of engineering and high-tech companies came from abroad, half of which were founded in Silicon Valley, and one of Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, was Russian.

In the face of such a brain drain, in 2008, two scholars stood up, one is Shi Yigong and the other is Rao Yi. The former refused $10 million in research funding, announced that he had resigned from Princeton University, and returned to Tsinghua as a full-time teacher. The latter had just returned to China for one year and was the deputy dean of the Peking University Life Science and Medical Research Institute.

In May 2008, Shi and Rao participated in the seminar on innovation and entrepreneurship in Zhongnanhai, and submitted a proposal to the Central Organization Department on the introduction of high-level talents and the implementation of talent layout in the new era. It is worth mentioning that Xi Jinping also attended the meeting.

Soon after, in December 2008, China began the highest-level large-scale talent introduction program to date - the "Thousand Talents Plan", introducing high-level talents from overseas, and focusing on national key innovation projects, disciplines, laboratories, and central enterprises. Services, these experts are mostly top talents from internationally renowned universities and enterprises.

On June 13th, Fan Jing, a staff member who provided consulting services in the “Thousand Talents Program” green channel service window of the Central Organization Department, told the Times Weekly: Since 2008, the “Thousand Talents Program” has attracted 16 batches and more than 5000 for China. The number of senior talents returning to China, this number continues to increase.

Since then, the Central Talent Work Coordination Group Office has decided to implement the “Youth Thousand Talents Program” project, and various localities have also launched corresponding talent plans. At that time, the first batch of "Thousand Talents Program" special experts included Shi Yigong and Rao Yi.

According to the twelfth batch of national “Thousand Talents Plan” list, Time Weekly reporters noticed that after these high-level returnees returned to China, most of them landed in developed provinces such as the southeast coastal areas, and the proportion of the north to the north was nearly 30%. Among the entrepreneurial talents, the “Thousand Talents Plan” has reached 36% in Jiangsu Province, and the proportion is much higher than other provinces.

In the international competition for talents, remuneration package is also a very important part. According to the information of the “Thousand Talents Program” official website, only the talents selected for the “Youth Thousand Talents Plan” can receive a subsidy of 500,000 yuan at a time. According to the actual situation, each selected person will be approved for research funding of 1 million to 3 million yuan. Dongguan Institute of Technology has issued a basic annual salary of 500,000 yuan for the talents of the "Thousand Talents Plan", a housing subsidy of 1 million yuan, and a research grant of up to 50 million yuan.

Fan Jing also revealed some changes in the introduction plan: Since last year, most of the senior talents that the “Thousand Talents Plan” brought back to the country are innovative and entrepreneurial talents. Most of them bring their patents back to China to start business, and they are transformed into production capacity in China. The country became the holder of this patent.

This has also caused the situation that was mainly for the introduction of talent beneficiaries in universities, research institutions and even state-owned enterprises. In the list of Fan Jing’s reporters to Time Weekly, more and more non-public enterprises in Dalian, Tianjin and Shanghai Private units have attracted senior talents through the “Thousand Talents Program”.

"To pick talent from 8 billion people"

In the international competition for talents, visas, green cards and naturalization systems are the basic thresholds for introducing and naturalizing top talent. Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, once said: “In this era, all developed countries must rely on foreign immigrants and talents in order to enhance their competitiveness. The reason why the United States can lead in many fields is because it recruits talents. ."

In fact, the implementation of the “Thousand Talents Plan” has also indirectly changed China’s green card system. China’s green card has long been known as “the most difficult green card in the world”. Now, in order to compete for high-end talent, more and more developing countries are beginning to recognize dual citizenship. For example, South Korea announced that it will be announced in April 2008. Advance completion of dual citizenship in the future.

With the advancement of the “Thousand Talents Plan”, in September 2012, the Chinese government promulgated the “Measures for the Relevant Treatment of Foreigners Living in China for Permanent Residence” and began to lower the threshold for overseas talents to settle in China. According to the Xinhuanet report, according to Xinhuanet, the talents introduced by the “Thousand Talents Plan” have a green card processing time that is half that of ordinary people.

"For those who have introduced or attracted back to China through the 'Thousand Talents Plan' of the Central Organization Department, there is no need to worry about the issue of household registration, because for this type of talent, the Ministry of Public Security provides a naturalization through train." The staff of the Zhongguancun Foreigner Service Hall of the Immigration Bureau told the Times Weekly reporter.

A number of police officers told the Times Weekly reporter that the most convenient foreign experts and scholars apply for permanent residency in China. “These people who come here to apply for the most permanent residency are also these people.”

Fan Jing said that in general, the "Thousand Talents Plan" applies for permanent residency. If the materials are complete, they can be directly transferred to the public security organs by the Green Channel window of the "Thousand Talents Plan" of the Central Organization Department, usually once every six months. . After receiving the materials, the public security organ will usually issue a permanent residence permit for foreigners in China within 50 days. However, if other processes such as deregistration are encountered, it may be postponed for approval.

According to the China International Immigration Report (2015) compiled by China and the Global Think Tank, in recent years, China has become a new destination for immigrants, and 29% of foreigners in China have an annual salary of more than 29. Ten thousand dollars is more than four times the global average.

Wang Huiyao told the Times Weekly reporter: "Now China's high-end talents should also increase the introduction of foreign talents. In the current world of talent competition, China should change the selection of talents from 1.3 billion to 8 billion. People pick talents, after all, talents have no national boundaries."

"Haigui" collided with scientific research "hidden rules"

After Shi Yigong returned to Tsinghua University, he placed Chinese porcelain and landscape paintings in his office. He slept less than 6 hours a day and madly carried out his own scientific research. He waved to the scientific mountain peaks. The unspoken rules of the scientific research system at that time also began to "greet" him.

Shi Yigong recalled that one day when he had just attended the jury of a certain project on Saturday, the next day, he received six text messages from strangers, all of which were “a lot of care”. Shi Yigong was very puzzled: "How do these people know that I am being judged? Who is my phone number revealed?"

Shi Yigong and Rao Yi spent two years in the domestic system. On September 3, 2010, in the journal Science, an editorial article jointly signed by Shi Yigong and Rao Yi was published. 》. This article points directly to the "hidden rules" of China's scientific research system. The data show that in recent years China's research funding has increased at a rate of 20% per year, but "the relationship with individual officials and a few strong scientists is the most important because they dominate. The whole process of the preparation of the funding application guideline, and bluntly stated that "the current research fund allocation system has even hindered the development of China's innovation capability to some extent."

In this article, many peers in the scientific community have agreed and praised. According to a survey conducted by the China Association for Science and Technology, the research fund is only about 40% of the project itself. A large amount of research funds are lost outside the project and cannot be used in the cutting edge of innovative research. Li Wei told the Times Weekly reporter that he was worried that after returning to China, the system promised that his laboratory could not be realized. "Now is the golden stage of my research. If I am suspended because of returning to China, it is a waste of life." He told the Times Weekly reporter.

The two senior "sea turtles" directly bombarded China's scientific research system through foreign media, which triggered heated discussions in China and attracted the attention of senior officials. One month later, the Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang also invited Shi Yigong and others. People from the scientific community held a symposium to discuss the issue of the scientific research system.

After this incident, Shi Yigong and Rao Yi both lost their elections when they were selected as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. Rao Yi, who was defeated in the first round, directly sent a blog titled: "I will not be a candidate for the Chinese Academy of Sciences from now on", and it is not fair for Shi Yigong. Rao Yi later wrote that "China's scientific research needs to be developed in a sound manner, and the system, talents and funds are the three elements."

Wang Yaohui told the Times Weekly reporter: "The current flow of talents is not smooth, and the system is moving outwards. The channels for academics and enterprises to flow to the government are not smooth. Many scholars, even if they are political science, are difficult to flow to the government. ”

In fact, many scholars have pointed out that the promotion of Chinese talents generally has "only job title theory" and "only literary theory", which have all been widely criticized by the society. A foreign language school in Central China has more than 100 lecturers, but the number of associate professors is only two or three. The dean swears that if the problem of the current teacher’s title is to be solved, it seems that only the middle of this century has been evaluated. ".

Transforming the function of "four or two"

In 2015, Tu Yu won the Nobel Prize, and she did not have a doctoral degree. Second, she did not have a background in studying abroad, and she was not an academician of the two academies. Therefore, it is called "three no-persons". The award-winning experience of Tu Yu has made the reform of China's talent system and mechanism once again heated up, and the call for "disregarding talents" is getting higher and higher.

In late March of this year, the Central Government issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the System of Talent Development Mechanism". Among the measures to promote the reform of the talent management system, the first thing is to change the government talent management function and "promote the talent management department." Simple administration decentralizes and eliminates excessive interference with the employer."

The Times Weekly reporter noted that as early as August 2014, when Premier Li Keqiang met with the representatives of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, he emphasized that in the scientific research work, the government should “double the burden”. It is important to make innovative talents not burdened by unnecessary approvals. Previously, the China Youth Daily reported that the head of a research group of a Chinese research institute spent four months each year on the application of the project, and that it could be used for scientific research for no more than one third of the time.

One month after the publication of the "Deepening Opinions", on May 6, the symposium on studying and implementing the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the System and Mechanism of Talent Development" was held in Beijing. At the meeting, the emphasis was placed on solving the problem of administrative and "official standard" in talent management, and solving the problem of only academic qualifications, only professional titles and only thesis in talent evaluation.

For example, there is no uniform requirement for the examination of professional titles and computer application skills in the document. At the end of May, when Premier Li Keqiang delivered a speech at the National Science and Technology Innovation Conference, he mentioned the need to streamline procedures, simplify procedures, and free researchers from cumbersome forms.

Wang Huiyao said, "The current talent reform is to remove these unnecessary qualification certificates and let more scholars liberate from the framework."

For the work of previous years, the difficulties, challenges and countermeasures encountered by the “Thousand Talents Plan”, Fan Jing said: “Difficulties and challenges cannot be discussed. If there is any detail in coordination, the Ministry of Public Security is the latest. The policy introduced has opened the door to effectively solve the above difficulties."

As for the focus of the new round of "Thousand Talents Program" work, Fan Jing revealed that the next "Thousand Talents Program" work will increase the scope of introducing innovative and entrepreneurial talents. According to the specific needs of different business platforms, the proposed introduction of talents should also have other conditions. For example, entrepreneurial talents should have independent intellectual property rights and invention patents, and their technological achievements are internationally advanced. They can fill domestic gaps, have market potential and carry out industrial production. They have overseas entrepreneurial experience or have held senior management positions in internationally renowned companies. Over the years, familiar with relevant fields and international rules, have management and management capabilities; self-owned funds (including technology shares) or overseas follow-up ventures account for more than 50% of venture capital.