China plans major shake-up of academy

beijing

China's leaders have approved a plan by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out a drastic re-organization of its 123 institutes, which employ 68,000 researchers.

The plan will be implemented in three phases over the next 13 years. Substantial amounts of new money will be directed into selected research areas and regions, with hundreds of new staff being recruited from overseas. Some institutes will be merged, some closed down.

In line with government priorities, the academy aims to “embrace the era of knowledge economy” and “build up a national innovative system”. To achieve this, it is seeking an extra 2 billion yuan ($240 million) a year — increasing by half its institutes' current funding from a number of sources, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as the academy itself.

The proposed extra budget has yet to receive official approval from the financial authorities. But China's top committee for science, technology and education, headed by Premier Zhu Rongji, pledged its support last month and the plan won backing earlier this year from President Jiang Zemin. A decision on the budget is expected in about a month's time, according to Bai Chunli, one of the academy vice-presidents.

In the first phase, from 1998 to 2000, extra resources will be invested in priority research areas and regions (see table). Research groups from about 40 of the academy's 123 institutes are expected to participate, and 600 new staff will be recruited from outside the academy.

Table 1 Priority research areas and regions, first phase (1998-2000)

It is hoped that many of these will be bright young researchers from overseas, says Bai. As well as basic scientists, the academy will be seeking individuals with good research management skills.

New research centres will be created in the selected fields and regions by combining strong groups from different institutes. It is hoped to create 10,000 positions (more than double the current number) for ‘mobile’ researchers such as postgraduate students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting professors.

The aim is to reduce the 68,000 permanent positions to 30,000 through retirements and re-assigning people to other jobs by 2010, says Bai, while increasing the number of mobile researchers to 30,000.

A ‘tenure track’ system will be introduced for full-time employees, with assessments every four years up to the twelfth year, before a decision on lifetime employment is made. Details of the first phase of the re-organization plan, such as which institutes will participate in the priority areas, will be finalized in about two months.