For a few lucky research fields, a new government road map for science is like winning the lottery
The long-awaited S&T plan, a set of marching orders handed down to scientists last month, may set the tone of science in China for years to come. It specifies 16 major engineering projects, including design of large aircraft, moon exploration, and drug development. Four major basic research programs are highlighted: protein science, topics in quantum physics, nanotechnology, and developmental and reproductive science. Although not stated in the plan, R&D spending by all sources, industry included, will rise from 236 billion yuan ($30 billion) in 2005 to 900 billion yuan ($113 billion) in 2020, Chinese off icials announced last month. Basic research is slated to climb from 6% of R&D expenditure in 2004 to as much as 15% in 15 years.
With government coffers flush, Chinese scientists had hoped the new plan would give a bigger boost for basic research. However, “basic science is still not playing a central role in the government’s mind,” asserts Shing-Tung Yau, a mathematician at
Although the details have not been filled in, the plan has been hailed as a noble attempt to reshape a landscape of patchy scientific talent into a cohesive community churning out innovations, rivaling the West. The plan is “an important platform for
Others are hesitant to jump on the bandwagon. They worry that a heavy emphasis on applied science and megaprojects will stifle creativity. “The most innovative ideas come from ver y few creative scientists at rare moments, whereas planning of large-scale projects requires the consensus of many scientists,” says Yi Rao, a neurobiologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and deputy director for academic affairs of China’s National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS). “It is unrealistic to expect very innovative science projects to come out of planning.”
Muffled criticism
Drafting the S&T plan was not straightforward. Twenty working groups involving 2000 scientists and officials wrangled over the document for close to 3 years, revising it a dozen times at a cost of $10 million. The buck stopped with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who chaired a ministerial committee over the working groups. Since becoming
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It quickly became clear that Wen hoped to replicate the success of China’s first S&T plan, a 1956 blueprint that led to the creation of scores of CAS institutes, produced the nation’s first atom and hydrogen bombs, and sent up its first satellite. Although the government never spelled out “two bombs and one satellite” as a goal, people associate these triumphs with the 1956 document, and Wen was determined to rekindle past glory by embracing large projects.
Deliberations slowed, however, when some scientists openly questioned the new plan’s emphasis on big programs. In the fall of 2004, as the working groups were putting the finishing touches on the plan, Nature published a compilation of essays, some sharply critical of elements of the plan and of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the lead agency for crafting and implementing it.
In one essay, three prominent Chinese scien-tists—Rao; Bai Lu, a neuroscientist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; and CAS biophysicist Chen-Lu Tsou—asserted that MOST’s spending lacks transparency and gives bureaucrats too much power over scientists. The authors recommended stripping MOST of its budgetary authority and bolstering mechanisms for awarding peer-reviewed grants. In a second essay, Mu-ming Poo, a biologist at the
MOST complained to the General Administration of Press and Publication. The oversight body squelched the debate, banning distribution of Nature’s
After more than a year’s delay, the S&T plan emerged—with big science front and center.
Supersized
The four basic science programs deemed most strategic are areas in which
The plan places NCNST and the
Features of the other two basic science megaprograms may make them more appealing to small teams. Scientists who helped shape the program on developmental and reproductive biology say they intend to establish a merit-based system to distribute funds. The program “probably will stimulate the interaction among genetics, developmental biology, and evolution, which is a very promising direction,” says Zhang Ya-ping, director of CAS’s Kunming Institute of Zoology.
Some critics worry that money will be wasted and that expensive new instruments will languish because there are too few skilled scientists to use them. “The number of basic-science scholars is far from satisfactory,” Yau says, despite government programs to entice talented expatriates and foreigners to work in
Others see a strategic flaw: Enshrining narrow priorities in a 15-year plan could make it hard to change course in the future, warns Yau. “It is very bad to commit money [over a long term] to directions that are considered to be important now,”Yau says, noting that the plan ignores “many impor tant areas”—including his own, mathematics. Indeed, some predict an exodus from disciplines not in vogue. “Scientists may shift their research focus to favored areas in the plan. If they don’t, they can hardly get funding,” says Deng Xingwang, an agricultural biotechnologist and director of NIBS. Even the coun-try’s bastion of basic research funding, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, seems to toe the line. Although its budget is slated to increase by $50 million to between $400 million and $500 million this year, sources say, its 2006 handbook stresses “an integration of the national strategic need and the independent development of science.”
Another worry is that big programs may be impervious to adequate oversight. Because almost everybody in a field in
Duan says the critics will be proved wrong. “By catering to the national need, basic research will enjoy an opportunity for development by leaps and bounds,” he says. “There is still much room for the free exploration driven by curiosity.” Others see the plan as a multibillion-dollar gamble.
–HAO XIN AND GONG YIDONG
Gong Yidong writes for China Features in