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Academy to hike foreign hires

2014-08-23 10:29 China Daily Web Editor: Si Huan
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The Chinese Academy of Sciences will beef up the number of foreign researchers it uses, as part of a move to promote internationalization for the next five years.

The academy released a reform outline on Tuesday, saying that foreign researchers will account for 3 percent of all academy researchers, up from 1 percent currently, until 2020.

The academy now has 56,000 researchers (excluding postdoctorate and visiting scholars).

The academy launched a program called the CAS President's International Fellowship Initiative to enhance internationalization by hiring more foreign researchers in August.

According to Tan Tieniu, academy's deputy secretary-general and head of the academy's Bureau of International Cooperation, the academy aims to attract four types of international researchers: distinguished scientists who are well-recognized in their academic fields; visiting scientists holding tenured positions (professorship, associate professorship or assistant professorship or equivalent) with well-known international universities, research institutions or enterprises; postdoctoral researchers with excellent performances; and PhD students from the developed or developing economies.

"CAS, along with the World Academy of Sciences, provides generous scholarships to fund overseas students from developing countries to conduct PhD studies in CAS," Tan said, adding that the scholarship program allows 200 foreign students to receive four years of funding with which to pursue PhDs at the academy.

It is appealing for overseas students, Tan said. In 2014, the academy received 1,700 applications from all over the world.

The program plans to fund 30 distinguished scientists for one to two weeks' academic exchange activities-50,000 yuan ($8,333) per week per person.

The funding ranges from 20,000 yuan to 40,000 yuan monthly per person, as well as a round-trip plane ticket.

One hundred postdoctoral researchers will receive an annual funding of 200,000 yuan apiece to conduct collaborative research for one to two years with CAS.

The program is part of the reform outline released on Tuesday. It is a 15-year plan for comprehensive reform in multiple aspects, including establishing and restructuring research centers for diverse research characteristics.

Ralf Altmeyer, a German virologist who currently leads the academy's Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, said he enjoys working in China with CAS.

"The infrastructure for an international environment has been built at CAS," Altmeyer said, adding that Chinese researchers are happy and ready to work with foreign colleagues.

More important, Altmeyer said the Chinese government has been supportive of science and technology innovation, which creates a proving ground for scientists worldwide.

"China's current research environment is becoming very similar to the one in the United States or Europe," he said.

Speaking of the hiring of more foreign scientists and researchers, Altmeyer said the plan is a good one and a step forward. It will further internationalize research in China, he said.

"It is a very important initiative to cross the boundary and involve foreign scholars to conduct research in China. We should have been doing this a long time ago," said Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing think tank.

"China's academic world has the best hardware, and now it needs to distribute more resources to software, such as recruiting foreign scholars," Wang said.

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