▲Yan Ning took a photo at the 2018 World Life Science Conference. Beijing News Data Picture
Text | Gongyu
On the morning of November 1, structural biologist Yan Ning announced at the 2022 Shenzhen Global Innovation Talent Forum that he would resign from his teaching position at Princeton University and become the founding president of the Shenzhen Academy of Medical Sciences. Five years ago, Yan Ning caused heated discussion when he left Tsinghua University . Now the trend of this "star" scientist has once again attracted people's attention.
Whether at home or abroad, the free flow of high-level talents in the academic circle is the norm. Scholars often weigh the development platform, project funding, student source quality, social reputation, personal emotions, family needs and other factors to make the most suitable choice for a specific stage. As a world-renowned biologist and an academician of the United States, Yan Ning naturally has no shortage of top platforms and funding support; but at a special time point such as fierce competition between China and the United States and complex and changeable international situation, he chose to give up the generous treatment abroad and return to China full-time to work, but he still conveyed some different signals to the society.
In recent years, the number of high-level talents introduced by major universities and research institutes from overseas has continued to rise. However, due to the large differences in management systems and operating models of domestic and foreign research institutions, some negative news about the conflicts between the introduced talents and the employer and the inability to perform their skills has been frequently exposed, which seriously affects the willingness of overseas talents to serve in China.
However, Yan Ning's return to China this time was not returning to traditional famous schools such as Tsinghua and Peking University to teach, but chose a newly built research institution like the Shenzhen Academy of Medical Sciences that focuses on "some key areas".
According to public information, the Shenzhen Academy of Medical Sciences has no fixed staffing and no levels, and implements a social employment system; among which, the president, as the legal representative of , is recruited from the world, and is appointed by the board of directors, and implements the term system . Its school management philosophy is highly consistent with the international community. Under the de- institutionalized and administrative construction model, faculty and staff have more flexible and independent space in their work, and can devote more energy to talent training and scientific research, and are expected to produce academic achievements more efficiently in cutting-edge science and technology fields. This is undoubtedly an attractive innovation for introducing talents who often complain about "not adapting to the local environment".
Shenzhen Academy of Medical Sciences is not an isolated case. In order to break through the dilemma of cutting-edge technology being blocked, "breaking the traditional mechanism and establishing innovative universities" has become an important goal of my country's higher education reform. Since 2012, small and sophisticated innovative research universities such as Southern University of Science and Technology , Shanghai University of Science and Technology , West Lake University and other small and sophisticated innovative research universities with the goal of cultivating talents in specific fields have been built one after another. The achievements made in recent years are also obvious to all. These changes in
also reflect the new trend of "people-oriented" in the development of scientific research in my country. Under the top-level guidance of "breaking the five onlys", this year the Ministry of Science and Technology and five other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out a Special Action to Reduce the Burden of Young Scientific Researchers", and recently, , Fudan University and other universities have successively launched alternative solutions such as "elevating or leaving", etc., which are all committed to providing scientific researchers with a more comfortable and independent working environment, allowing them to concentrate more energy on scientific research, which is also beneficial in the long run.
In the past few years, in order to attract overseas talents, various places often rely on high salaries and settlement subsidies. Shenzhen’s “ Peacock Plan ” and Shanghai’s “Pujiang Talent Plan” have all become brands and have a certain reputation among overseas talents. From the perspective of attracting talents, Chinese universities are no longer short of all aspects of hardware conditions for "introducing people" and "retaining people". In recent years, there have been frequent reports of internationally renowned professors joining domestic universities full-time. Now we should focus more on building environments and systems for "using good people". As a young and vibrant big city, Shenzhen’s introduction of Yan Ning has also made an example for other cities.
The competition in the future world is ultimately a competition for talents.At a time when many countries and regions are joining the "war of robbing people", attracting more top scientists like Yan Ning back to their country through innovative means, so that they can work and build the country in a more familiar way should become a win-win and benign normal system.
Source: Beijing News Comment
