A Study on Current Situation and Influence Factors of Transnational Migration of Scientific Researchers in China

• In Event: How Does Mobility Change Researchers, Research Groups And Scientific Communities? (II)

Abstract

In recent years, with the steady increase of economy and development of S&T in China, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis, on the one hand Chinese government has increased investment in S&T and infrastructure. On the other hand various talents programs have been launched to attract global high-level talents which results in the brain drain gradually transformed into brain gain in China. Generally, overseas high-level talents have played important roles in promoting the overall level and strength of Chinese science and technology, expanding international cooperation and exchanges, and enhancing Chinese scientific community's international status and influence. However, it is still worth analyzing and evaluating Chinese overseas high-level talents support programs for more efficient policy-making.
In this work, we attempted to carry out a comparison study among three Chinese typical and significant overseas talent programs: "Hundreds of People Plan" launched by CAS, “Yangtze Scholars Program” launched by the Ministry of Education, and "Thousands of People Plan " launched by Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. The overall analysis is carried out from two aspects: one is to explore the status and problems of winners of three projects (a total of 5098 samples) through a CV method based quantitative analysis, such as studying background, returning locations, research filed as well as their international organization positions. Further, a questionnaire based survey has been applied to researchers in universities, research institutes and companies. We are interested to find out their attitudes on the fairness and reasonableness of those talents programs, as well as the influence factors which may affect researchers’ returning back to China. Based on this research, we proposed that the introduction of high-level overseas talents programs need top-level design and demand analysis, and a more relaxed policy environment is required to attract more foreign top scientists to work in China.

Author

• Jianzhong Zhou, Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences