China's ‘bittersweet’ Nobel Prize dream

2015年，屠呦呦凭借对抗疟药青蒿素的研发所作出的贡献，成为了第一位获得诺贝尔科学类奖项的中国公民。这项荣誉圆了数代中国人的诺奖梦。然而，在兴奋不已的同时，科学界对中国当前科研圈的担忧和批评也与日俱增，因为这些研究机构缺乏重大创新成果，也缺乏培养创新人才、发现并支持有潜在科学突破的原创性研究的能力。那么，中国很快会出现更多诺贝尔奖得主吗？

 


一个普遍的观点是，与在集体环境下工作相比，中国科学家独自工作时的表现往往更为出色。但很讽刺的是，中国传统文化更强调集体主义，而非个人主义。将青蒿素作为抗疟药来研究起源于中国政府在20世纪70年代组织的一个大型国家项目。该项目涉及来自诸多研究机构的数百名研究人员，其中十名做出了重大贡献的科学家（屠呦呦在列）得到了官方认可。但屠呦呦在获得诺贝尔奖之前并没有获得政府的足够认可（比如未入选中国科学院院士），这被认为是中国学术生态系统不健康、未能赏识其才华的证据。或许我们还应该关注的一个问题是：诺贝尔奖如何能恰当表彰那些明确由三人以上的团队所取得的突出科学成就？

 


在发达国家，获诺贝尔奖是一个常见的媒体事件，但在中国却有着特殊的意义。多年来，对中国公民获得诺贝尔奖的猜测和期望激起了全社会的强烈兴趣。为什么？中国成为科技强国的愿望从未像今天这么强烈。政府领导人意识到，必须取得科学进步，才能实现持续的经济增长和中国梦。中国梦是中国国家主席习近平为推动中国成为一个强大、繁荣、和谐的社会而提出的一个构想。获得诺贝尔奖表明中国的科学得到了世界的认可。这一现象和中国当下对于在知名期刊上发表文章和对各种出版指数的热衷不无关联。遗憾的是，这种对这些易于获取但却并不完美指标的追求导致中国的很多研究机构出现了评价体制上的问题。
 



获得诺贝尔奖的科学家人数当然能很好地说明一国的科技实力。中国会出现更多的诺奖得主吗？这取决于中国是否能够、以及如何才能发展自己的科研机构，这些机构要能培养足够多的、具备诺奖提名水准的科学家。然而，诺贝尔奖只不过是科学家个人穷其一生追求自己科学兴趣和目标的副产品。因为各种各样的原因，很多应该获奖的科学家从未被授予这样一个奖项。

 

公众往往忽略的一个事实是，诺贝尔奖仅限于几个科学领域（即物理、化学和生理学或医学）。但现代科学的发展已经超出了这三大学科，出现了很多交叉学科和综合性领域。为了表彰这些领域的最高成就，人们设立了各种奖项，如数学领域的菲尔兹奖（Fields Medal），计算机科学领域的图灵奖（Turing Award），环境科学领域的泰勒奖（Tyler Prize），专为天文学、数学、地球科学和生命科学领域设立的克拉福德奖（Crafoord Prize），以及天体物理学、纳米科学和神经系统科学领域的卡弗里奖（Kavli Prizes）。这些更新的奖项显然同样值得公众关注，因为它们对当前科学领域的覆盖面比诺贝尔奖更为广泛。

 


最后要说的是，科学进步在中国普遍被看作与社会和经济效益直接相关，但诺贝尔奖是为了奖励“对人类作出的最大贡献”，其中包括对自然界的根本性认识，而这种认识并不一定会带来立竿见影的社会效益。随着中国科学成果数量的增加和质量的提升，我们可以断言，将来会出现代表重要科学突破的研究成果，其中一些成果值得获诺贝尔奖。但不管是否获得这些奖项，中国科学都将向着自己的目标和理想前进，而诺奖梦只是一个更宏大的梦想的一部分，即建成一个全体人民共享繁荣和公正的和谐社会。


Zhonghe Zhou
In 2015, Youyou Tu became China's first Nobel laureate in science for her contribution to the development of antimalarial drug artemisinin. This honor is a dream come true for many generations of Chinese people. However, amid the overwhelming excitement, there is growing anxiety and criticism among the scientific community over China's current research establishment-for its lack of major innovative achievement, and poor capability in cultivating innovative talents, and in identifying and supporting original research with potential scientific breakthrough. Then, will there be more Nobel winners from China soon?
There is a general perception that Chinese scientists often excel better working alone rather than in a collaborative environment. This is ironic because the traditional Chinese culture emphasizes collectivism over individualism, and the development of the artemisinin as an antimalarial drug resulted from a large national project organized by the government in 1970s, involving hundreds of researchers from many research institutions, with government's official recognition of 10 leading scientists (among which Tu was listed) who made crucial contributions. Yet, Youyou Tu's lack of recognition (e.g. not elected into Chinese Academy of Sciences) in China prior to the Nobel honor has been cited as the evidence of an unhealthy academic ecosystem that failed to recognize her talent. One issue that ought to be discussed is: How could Nobel Prizes properly recognize truly outstanding scientific achievements in the world that are clearly done by a team of more than three scientists?
Winning a Nobel Prize, although a regular media event in developed countries, has a special meaning in China. Over the years, speculation on and anticipation of a Chinese citizen winning a Nobel Prize has garnered significant interest in Chinese society. Why? Today, China's ambition to become a great power in science and technology has never been so strong. The government leaders realize that scientific advance is necessary to achieve a sustainable economic progress and to realize the Chinese Dream-President Xi Jinping's agenda of advancing China towards a strong, prosperous, and harmonious society. Winning a Nobel Prize signifies world's recognition of Chinese science. This is not unrelated to China's current extreme enthusiasm for publishing in high-profile journals and zeal for various publishing indices. Such eagerness for tangible yet imperfect indices of recognition has unfortunately yielded poor research evaluation system in many Chinese institutions.
The number of scientists being awarded Nobel Prizes is certainly a good index for a country's scientific strength. Are there more Chinese Nobel Prize winners in store? This would depend on whether and how China can develop its scientific institutions that nurture a sufficient number of scientists whose research accomplishments are of the caliber to be nominated for such a prize. However, Nobel Prize is just the by-product of individual scientists' career-long pursuit of their scientific interests, and for various reasons, many deserving scientists were never awarded with such a prize.
The public is often unaware of the fact that Nobel Prize is only awarded in a few disciplines (i.e. physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine). But modern science has grown beyond these three disciplines, and many interdisciplinary and integrative areas have emerged. Various prizes have been established for recognizing the highest achievement in these areas, such as Fields Medal in mathematics; Turing Award in computer sciences; Tyler Prize in environmental sciences; and Crafoord Prize in astronomy and mathematics, geosciences, and biosciences; and Kavli Prizes in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. These newer prizes clearly deserve public's attention because they cover a much wider spectrum of sciences existing today.
Finally, scientific progress is widely perceived in China to be directly linked to social and economical benefits, yet Nobel Prizes are awarded for 'the greatest benefit to mankind' that includes basic understanding of nature not necessarily yielding immediate societal benefits. With increasing quantity and quality of China's scientific productivity, we can be certain that there will be research accomplishments representing important scientific breakthroughs, some of which are worthy of Nobel Prizes. Nevertheless, with or without these prizes, Chinese science will progress with its own goals and aspirations, with Nobel dream only a part of a much more grandiose dream of attaining a harmonious society of prosperity and justice for all people.