Massive jobs shake-up as China reorganizes science academy

beijing

Up to 20,000 researchers will be retired or transferred from their jobs within three years in the first phase of a dramatic reorganization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Only 10,000 research staff will be retained at the reformed institutes.

The president and five vice-presidents of the academy met in Huairou outside Beijing in the first week of August to thrash out details of the first phase of the planned reorganization of all the academy's 123 institutes and 68,000 researchers. The changes over 13 years will drastically reduce the number of full-time researchers and institutes and bring in new blood from outside (see Nature 394, 7; 1998).

It was decided at the meeting — but has yet to be officially announced — that in the first phase, lasting until 2000, 12 regional bases or centres will be created, or partially created, rather than the eight provisionally announced in June.

Table 1 The planned new regional centres

The additions include a centre for mathematical sciences in Beijing, one for astronomy in Beijing (linked to facilities in Xian, Nanjing, Shanghai and Yunnan) and small centres based on individual institutes in Nanjing, Dalian and Beijing. But plans for a south-western base of bioresources and biodiversity centred on Kunming have been postponed until a later stage.

Institutes have been selected to participate in the first phase on the basis of having a proven academic track record, strong leadership, clear academic goals and a history of reform, academy officials say.

Under the initial reorganization, only about 10,000 of 30,000 researchers at the institutes involved in the first phase will retain full-time jobs in the academy. About 10,000 will be retired and another 10,000 will be transferred to other jobs, for example to companies affiliated with academy institutes. Selection of those to be retained will be a “tough job”, admits a senior member of the academy.

For example, the 1,900 people employed at the eight institutes that will make up the Shanghai life-science research centre will be reduced to 800 researchers plus 100 administrators and technicians. The institutes currently include the Shanghai institutes of biochemistry, brain research, cell biology, entomology, physiology and plant physiology.

Directors of the new centres will be relieved of administrative duties that are unrelated to research, such as finding nursery schools for researchers' children or accommodation for staff. These tasks will be taken over by a small central administrative unit for a given group of institutes. The directors will assume roles similar to their counterparts in Europe or the United States, concentrating on research management and budgetary responsibility for the institute.

Advisory committees will select directors for the 12 new centres over the next few months. The directors will then choose group leaders, who will have the difficult task of deciding which of their researchers to retain.