A new face at Natural Science Foundation of China—An interview with NSFC President Wei Yang

Abstract

Upon assuming his new post as the President of NSFC in late February, Wei Yang defined the mission of NSFC: ‘to expand the territory of exploration, to enrich the source of innovation, to strengthen interdisciplinary interaction, and to nurture young talents’. Known for his innovative approaches in higher education during his previous tenure as the President of Zhejiang University, what new measure is in store in Yang's new presidency has attracted much attention. In the recent interview with NSR, Yang reaffirmed his view that basic research is the core of science and the source of technology, providing the support and guidance to the long-term development of S&T-based society. He promises a continuing effort in perfecting funding mechanisms, including rigorous review of grant proposals, strengthening international collaboration and communication, and becoming a true ‘FRIEND’ of scientists.

SUPPORTING INNOVATION IN BASIC RESEARCH

NSR: NSFC has enjoyed a continuous budget surge in recent years, will this trend continue?

Yang: When NSFC was established in 1986, the annual budget was 80 million RMB. The funding plan for NSFC is 23.8 billion RMB in 2013, a 300-fold increase. However, I think there is still room for further increase. In the USA, the 2012 budget for the National Science Foundation was US$ 7.3 billion, and that of National Institutes of Health (NIH) was US$ 30.4 billion, about half (∼15 billion) of the latter was for the support of basic biomedical sciences. Since there is no NIH-equivalent funding agency in China, NSFC also serves the role of NIH, with one-third of its funding devoted to life sciences and basic biomedical research. Our total budget in 2012 was equivalent to US$ 2.8 billion, in contrast to a total of about US$ 22 billion in the USA. The gap is still formidable.

Comparing the USA and China, the GDP of China amounts to more than 50% of that of the USA; the total R&D funding in China is also close to half of the US R&D funding. However, the percentage of R&D devoted to basic research is only 4.7% in China, way below that of the USA, UK and Korea (all above 10%). Thus, there is much room for improvement. We hope in the next five years, the rate of NSFC's budget increase will exceed that of the GDP growth in China.

NSR: What is the role of NSFC in the R&D in China?

Yang: Basic research is the core of science and the source of new technology and industry, providing the support and guidance to long-term development of S&T-based society. As a main channel for funding basic research, NSFC has the responsibility of elevating the innovative capability of China and in selecting and nurturing scientific talents. In fact, the output of basic research is shared by all societies of the world. Any country that puts more funding into basic research will be making more contribution to human advancement as a whole.

Among the 36 billion RMB the central government put into basic research, NSFC received about 17 billion. For the broad spectrum of basic science researchers, especially for those outside prominent institutions across the country, NSFC is the main source of support, because provincial governments are mainly supporting applied research.

NSFC President Wei Yang (Photo: Xiaoling Yu, NSR)

During the last 10 years, the NSFC budget has been sharply increased from 2.05 billion in 2003 to 23.66 billion in 2012. Of the three kinds of programs, the financial allocation of Research Program (RP), aimed at achieving innovative results in basic research, is much higher than those of Talent-Training Program (TP), targeted at nurturing top talents and innovative research teams, and Research Environment Program (REP), intended to improve research facilities. Based on data from NSFC's Annual Report (http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/03re/02/index.html).

To NSFC, an important problem is how to achieve maximal outcome with our resources. A particular feature of NSFC is its support of young scientists. Each year there are 50 000–60 000 of Ph.D. graduates. Besides those choosing administrative and industrial careers, about 20 000–30 000 enter basic research. A grant from NSFC is often the first national-level grant they receive.

FOCUSED OR DIFFUSED FUNDING

NSR: Would spreading resources across all researchers affect the funding for really important projects that deserve much higher support?

Yang: In practice, NSFC operates in a ‘pyramid’ scheme. Since basic research itself should be a relatively free exploration by scientists and major research achievement often depends on an earlier period of nurturing and screening, NSFC has the responsibility and obligation in providing a broad-based opportunity for young budding scientists to grow. There are also projects near the top of the pyramid that receive much higher support. For example, ‘national distinguished young scientist award’ (for scientists below the age of 45) has a considerable percentage to be awarded to those scientists who have received training abroad and made high achievement after returning to China. There is an interesting statistics. Since its inception in 1994, this program had supported 106 out of 122 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with age below 60.

On the whole, scientists of different ages and at various stages of their career development require support of different forms and levels. For beginning scientists struggling to survive in the academic world, NSFC hopes to provide the support that helps them to overcome immediate difficulties. For those scientists that have already taken off in their research, NSFC's funding will promote and accelerate their pace of progress. For those targeting at important problems and have the potential of making a breakthrough, NSFC will provide strong support to help them achieving the goal.

NSR: Is there any new policy on the distribution and use of NSFC funding in individual grant awards?

Yang: We plan to introduce the concept of ‘indirect cost’ into the grant administration. Each grantee will be awarded with ‘direct cost’ for research, whereas the ‘indirect cost’ will be given to the institution where the research is performed, covering hardware and staff support, as well as part of merit-based compensation determined by the institution. In addition, the upper limit in the percentage for personnel costs (excluding investigators who receive regular salary from the institution) will be increased from the current 15%–30% or no bound.

NSR: There is a large regional disparity in scientific development in China, how is NFSC help in correcting this problem?

Yang: We have a ‘regional budget’ for under-developed regions, which include Yanbian Korea Autonomous Prefecture and 10 provinces or autonomous regions, such as Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Tibet, et al. The standard for funding follows a separate reference system, with the level of support for each grant lower than that for our regular individual investigator award. We also have joint funding, with local government providing partial matching funds. Take Xinjiang Autonomous Region for an example, 47% of all basic research funding are channeled through NSFC. The situation in Guizhou and Ningxia Provinces is similar.

NSR: Many scientists complain about the excessive amount of time devoted to grant proposals, what is your opinion on this problem?

Yang: One option is to increase the amount of each award. Over the past few years, NSFC has greatly increased the amount given to individual investigator-initiated grants from 30–400 thousands to the current average of 800 thousands over four years. To optimize the preparation of the proposal, the deadline for proposal submission is now set at March 20 of each year, allowing investigators to write proposal during spring vacation.

Writing grant proposals is probably an unavoidable task all scientists in the world must face. In reality, writing grant proposal is also an opportunity for thinking and planning research, and for incubating innovative ideas. I think another reason that Chinese investigators need to write more proposals is because of the high number of students they supervised and the corresponding costs in supporting their research.

PERFECTING GRANT REVIEW SYSTEM

NSR: You once commented that NSFC has the most fair system of funding and the most transparent and trustworthy procedure for review in China. Is there room for improvement?

Yang: The grant review system of NSFC is continuously undergoing improvement and adjustment. We are implementing a series of technical innovation that could ensure maximal fairness, from the application procedure to the review process. In the current application data files, each level of administrative staff has a stratified accessibility that is appropriate to his/her duties. For example, only the managing officers for individual discipline have the access to the data on individual proposals and have the right to choose reviewers. Myself or the heads of different departments do not have the access. This is to prevent potential manipulation and leak of information associated with individual proposals.

There are also changes in the review process. I just came from a review session in life sciences, in which one-third of the reviewers were experts from abroad and many reviewers are anonymous, with their identity represented by a number. During the oral defense by the applicants, the applicants no longer emphasized the titles of the journals where their papers appeared, nor the impact factor of the journals, but focused on explaining the originality and significance of the proposal. I believe that some review sessions have accomplished a rather rigorous peer review.

NSR: How does the review process avoid conflict of interest?

Yang: Avoiding conflict of interest is one of the basic principles of NSFC review guidelines. For example, the reviewer is excluded from evaluating proposals from his/her own institution and is asked to leave the room when such proposals were discussed. We may not fully avoid bias due to acquaintance with the applicants, but this is probably a problem for all review systems in the world. Our hope is that the reviewers can exert self-discipline and make the process to be as rigorous and fair as possible.

NSR: On the reviewers’ opinions, can NSFC provide a summary statement to the applicant, so that they could find out the merit and deficiency of the proposal?

Yang: Generally, we send reviewers’ comments to the applicant. However, we do not have the capability of providing summary statement as a feedback to the applicants, similar to the practice of NSF and NIH of US. Each year, NSFC received about 150 thousand applications. We do not have the manpower to do this for every proposal. The number of staff in NSFC is currently one-tenth of that in NSF.

MEASURES AGAINST SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCTS

NSR: There is much recent attention on the issue of scientific misconducts. What is your view on this matter?

Yang: It is my opinion that during the process of S&T development, every country may experience a period of high frequency of scientific misconducts. As the institutions and regulations gradually mature, the cases of misconducts are likely to decrease.

The use of research publications as the only measure in evaluating university faculty, many of which are shifting their main effort from teaching to research and entering competitive international research community, has resulted in some outrageous data fabrication. On the other hand, the annual number of cases of scientific misconducts dealt by NSFC did not show marked changes in recent years, while the number of proposals and applicants had been increasing rapidly, there appears to be a trend of relative reduction in scientific misconducts.

Statistics of project applications and misconduct complaints received by NSFC from 2008 to 2012. Based on data from NSFC's Annual Report (http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/03re/02/index.html).

NSR: What kinds of misconducts that have been found in NSFC proposals?

Yang: In general, there are five types: falsification of information on the applicant's credentials, plagiarizing works by others, leaking confidential information associated with the proposal review, deliberate bias in the selection of favorable reviewers, and fabrication or falsification of data in the award's final report or scientific publications.

NSR: How did NSFC deal with these misconducts?

Yang: The core confidential information at NSFC is the information on the content of the proposal and the names of reviewers. Any staff member leaking such information will be fired. We have indeed fired a person for this reason. In addition, new proposals received each year will be put through similarity screening against a few hundred thousand funded proposals in our database. Proposals that showed high similarity and repetition with the existing ones are often triaged. Besides the above technical measures, NSFC has established an external ethics committee for investigating cases brought out by whistle-blowers’ letters and reports to NFSC. Second, we established an office within NFSC for identification and processing cases of internal misconducts. Depending on the seriousness of the misconducts, punitive actions by NSFC include internal announcement, public announcement, and up to seven years of moratorium for any NSFC applications. At present, there are about 20 cases each year, with no trend of increase.

DEEPENING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

NSR: There is increasing trend in international collaboration around the globe, is there any new initiative in NSFC?

Yang: We have long-term collaborations with the US NSF, and collaborative projects with NIH are also on the rise in recent years. The budget for international collaboration has been increasing, with 680 million RMB this year for the use of bi-lateral collaborative projects. Another relative mature collaboration is with DFG of Germany. The Sino-German Science Center located near NSFC is a joint organization for research funding established by NFSC and DFG in 2000, aiming at supporting collaborative projects between Chinese and German scientists in natural sciences, life sciences (including medicine), management and engineering sciences, with each country contributing 50% of the budget. Many fruitful collaborative projects have been sponsored through this Center.

NSR: Open access to scientific publications has become an issue that attracted increasing attention. Is there any action by NFSC in line with funding agencies of other countries?

Yang: Last year, NSF (acting) President Cora B Marrett had proposed the establishment of a Global Research Council (GRC) consisting of 40 funding agencies around the globe, including NSFC as a member. Each year, GRC holds a conference to discuss topics concerning international collaboration in scientific research. One of the main topics for the meetings of 2013 and 2014 is the open access of scientific publications.

During the 2012 meeting, former NSF President Subra Suresh proposed that all publications supported by national funding agencies should become open access after one year. There is sound rationale behind for this proposal. According to the statistics, 12 major funding agencies around the world supported 98% of the papers published by Nature and Science. If GRC can impose the requirement on the publishers for open access on behalf of individual researchers, it will be more effective.

Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC), which was founded jointly by NSFC and DFG (German Research Foundation) in 2000. The building of SGC is located near that of NSFC, and is unique in its status as a German-Chinese joint venture in research promotion. (Courtesy of Lesheng Chen, NSFC)

NURTURING INNOVATIVE TALENTS

NSR: At present it appears that the best Chinese Ph.D. graduates in natural sciences mostly go abroad for postdoctoral work, and spending their most innovative and productive period abroad. Do you think this is a problem for China's scientific development?

Yang: I have a theory on this matter. The accumulation of talents may have to go through two stages. The first stage is termed ‘circulation’ stage, when young people from Asian countries where science is less developed to more developed countries to study. Many stayed in the West, and some returned to their home countries. Those returned began to develop science education and research, as happened in Japan and Korea, gradually leading to the next phase of ‘interaction’ stage. Talents begin to flow bi-directionally, and many people prefer to develop their career in their own country rather than going abroad. Japan has reached this interaction stage, and many students in Taiwan, China are no longer as interested in studying abroad. I think the mainland of China is in the transition from the circulation stage to the interaction stage. It still requires the government to devote more sources to attract the talents from abroad. As the level of research and education rises, we will reach the next stage.

NSR: How long do you think it will take China for its research and education to reach the level of advanced countries in the West?

Yang: This will depend on the rate of growth and accumulation of talents within China. Taking the best universities as example, I think it will take three generations (or within this century) for China to catch up with those in the West. The best universities around the world all have many strong academic leaders who are leading figures in their fields, whereas most Chinese research institutions have many talented young scientists who are yet to establish themselves.

NSR: What do you want people to remember you as the president of NSFC?

Yang: We now have a slogan in NSFC: becoming scientists’ ‘FRIEND’, aiming to make NSFC an agency that is ‘Fair’ to all scientists, ‘Rewarding’ to scientist's career development, ‘International’ in our outlook and endeavor, ‘Efficient’ in providing our services, ‘Numerous’ in the number of scientists we support, and ‘Diversified’ in our support for free scientific exploration.