The Chinese "Scientific Community" at Century's End: Definition, Leadership, Changing Social Roles, and International Significance

自20世纪80年代初以来，中国的科技体制进行了一系列改革和重组，出台了新的国家研发政策和计划，对科学领域的研究生教育作出了重大承诺，并建立了广泛的国际联系。这些年来涌现的技术人才代表了中国在本世纪末面临的重大挑战的核心人力资源库。就国际知名度而言，这些挑战包括全球经济的挑战；管理——经济快速增长对环境造成的严重后果；为国家安全提供保障。本项目旨在更好地了解中国技术人员的集体特征，其满足快速变化的中国需求的能力，其在下个世纪的预期作用，以及这些特征如何与西方“科学共同体”的概念相关联。——该项目的工作首先系统地回顾了20世纪中国为建立现代科学机构所做的许多努力，包括毛时代（1949-1976）的努力，然后转向对后毛时代改革政策的审查，因为这些政策影响了职业生活和社区意识的发展。这项工作主要包括对中文和英文二手文献的回顾。在这项初步工作之后，该项目将开始从规模、学科构成、培训水平和模式、体制环境、交流模式和社会分层以及世界主义程度等方面界定和描述中国目前的技术人员。这项工作将审查政府统计资料以及中国政策分析师和STS研究人员的分析报告，并包括对在中国和美国的中国科学家的采访。研究的最后一部分将考察科学家的经济和政治角色。改革政策在中国的科研环境中引入了强大的商业激励，一些观察家认为这扭曲了科学使命，破坏了社区建设。其他改革政策提高了科学家的政治地位，增加了科学家在政策制定中的作用。通过文献资料和访谈，该项目将探索科学与经济、科学与国家之间联系的不断变化的本质。——尽管中国在国际上的重要性日益提高，但近十年来，中国没有关于科学发展的主要英文研究。因此，这项研究可能会引起那些寻求理解科学技术在中国未来中的作用的人以及那些对理解当代非西方环境中的“科学共同体”概念感兴趣的人的相当大的关注。中国拥有大量的技术人才，但过去错误的政策阻碍了这些人才成为一个连贯和有效的社区。其结果是，高质量的研究生教育和科学研究停滞不前，技术创新受挫，国家重大发展决策在没有正确的技术判断的情况下做出，造成了严重的经济和环境后果。自20世纪70年代末以来引入的政策旨在纠正这些错误，并允许建立一个充满活力的科学社区。该研究提出，在评估社区建设过程的现状和未来前景时，将引起中国专业学生、STS专业人员和寻求了解中国未来道路的政策团体的兴趣

Since the early 1980s, China's science and technology system has been subject to a series of reforms and-reoganizations, new national R & D policies and programs have been introduced, major commitments have been made-to graduate education in the sciences, and extensive international ties have been established. The technical personnel emerging from these years represents the core human resource-pool for the critical challenges China faces at century's end. In terms of international salience, these include the-challenges of the global economy; managing-the severe environmental consequences of rapid economic growth; and providing for national security. This project seeks to provide a better understanding of the collective character of-the pool of Chinese technical personnel, its capabilities for meeting the needs of a rapidly changing China, its expected-role in the next century, and how these characteristics pertain to Western conceptions of a `scientific community.`--Work on the project begins with a systematic review of the many efforts to build modern institutions for science in-China during the 20th century, including those of the Mao era (1949-1976), and shifts to an examination of-the post-Mao reform policies as these have influenced professional life and the development of a sense of community. This work primarily will involve reviews of secondary literature in Chinese and English. After this initial work, the-project will begin to define and characterize the current population of Chinese technical personnel in terms of its-size, disciplinary composition, levels and modes of training, institutional environment, patterns of communication and-social stratification, and degrees of cosmopolitanism. This work will review governmental statistical sources-and analytical reports by Chinese policy analysts and STS researchers, and include interviews with Chinese scientists both in-China and the United States.--The final part of the study will examine the economic and political roles of the scientists. Reform-policies have introduced powerful commercial incentives into the Chinese research environment which some-observers see as distorting of scientific missions and disruptive to community building. Other reform policies have-enhanced the political standing of scientists and increased scientists' roles in policy making. Using both documentary-materials and interviews, the project will explore the changing nature of the linkages between science and economy,-and between science and state.--In spite of China's growing international importance, there have been no major studies in English of scientific-development in China for almost a decade. This study is therefore likely to attract considerable attention-from those seeking to understand the roles of science and technology in China's future and from those interested in-understanding the concept of `scientific community` in contemporary non-Western settings. China has a large pool-of technical talent, but misguided policies in the past prevented this talent from becoming a coherent and functioning-community. As a result, quality graduate education and scientific research were retarded, technological innovation-was frustrated, and major national development decisions were made - with debilitating economic and environmental-consequences - without sound technical judgments. The policies introduced since the late 1970s have been intended-to correct these errors and to allow for the building of a vibrant scientific community--The study proposed, in assessing where this process of community building now stands and what its future prospects-are, will be of interest to professional students of China, to STS professionals, and to policy communities which seek-to understand China's future course.-