Get rid of the "paper-only" university achievement award review and guide scientific research back to its original intention
Recently, the selection results of the 2020 National Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Award (Science and Technology) (hereinafter referred to as the Achievement Award) of National Colleges and Universities have been released one after another.
This time, nearly 300 projects and candidates (persons) were awarded with natural science awards, technological invention awards, science and technology progress awards, and youth science awards.
The result is visible.
What is invisible are the changes in the award judging process.
Lei Chaozi, Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Information Technology of the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as the Department of Science and Technology), said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that the orientation of this award review is clear, which is to break "only papers", break "SCI first", and highlight Requirements for the quality and contribution of scientific and technological innovation work.
"We must let the vast number of scientific and technological workers in universities see our determination to establish a correct evaluation orientation and guide scientific research back to the original aspiration."
Nearly 90% of nominations have been rejected for revision
A major feature of the evaluation process of this achievement award is "focus on quality and light on quantity".
In order to avoid falling into the trap of judging numbers, the Science and Technology Department revised the nomination letter this time.
The number of "representative papers" and "representative citations" for the Natural Science Award and the Youth Science Award has been reduced from 8 to 5, and it is no longer required to fill in the "impact factor" in the "Number of citations" is replaced by "Total citations of other citations".
Moreover, the representative citation list of the Natural Science Award is no longer used as the body content of the nomination book.
"We do this so that even if you want to fill in the number of essays, there is no place to fill in." Lei Chaozi said.
The second step is to conduct a formal review of the nomination letter.
The two reviewers cross-examined, the team leader checked the overall situation, and the one-sided, excessive, and distorted use of relevant indicators of SCI papers was the focus of the review.
Lei Chaozi revealed to a reporter from the Science and Technology Daily that, after receiving the nomination, they also saw the "stubbornness" of the problem—nearly 90% of the nominated projects are still showing the results of SCI papers and impact factors.
Some also put on various "vest" and replaced them with expressions such as "international influential articles".
Should you open one eye and close one eye to let these nominations pass, or return for revision?
At the beginning, everyone was also very embarrassed, worried that so many nominations will be reworked, will it arouse everyone's dissatisfaction, and even arouse public opinion.
Lei Chaozi said, but precisely because this is the first year of the award review reform, the implementation must be resolute.
"Either you modify or withdraw from the review." The Department of Science and Technology and the accomplishers conducted a lot of communication and policy explanations, and finally got their understanding and support.
Judging from the nomination form that has passed the formal review, the display of the results by the person who completed the results has returned to emphasize the innovative quality and service contribution of the results.
"If an article is the gold content of one kilogram of gold, in order to pursue the quantity, the scientific research team will disassemble it into 100 articles. Each article contains 10 grams of gold. Add up to one kilogram. But now, I only allow you to report 5 For the masterpiece of this article, if you still divide and make up the numbers according to the original method, the gold content of your results will not be enough, and you will suffer.” Lei Chaozi said, in this way, everyone naturally has to pursue quality.
If we continue to resolutely implement reforms for several years, we will definitely see results.
The pursuit of value should be adjusted in scientific research work in colleges and universities
Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Education has always emphasized the need to upgrade the science and technology work in universities.
Lei Chaozi said frankly that if we only look at the numbers, the number of our papers, SCI papers and patents are all gratifying.
But today, with emphasis on technological self-reliance and self-reliance, we must adjust the value pursuit of scientific research and steadily improve quality.
"In a nutshell, it means that basic research must really make discoveries, applied research must really solve problems, and the transformation of results must be really effective."
For colleges and universities, the frame of reference must also be changed.
Don't always stare at the rankings of domestic fraternal colleges and universities.
To compare, it is better than who has made greater contributions to the country's economic development and who has made greater contributions to human civilization.
There must be major original results and practical problems must be solved.
Looking at the quality and countless review methods, higher requirements are also placed on review experts.
"They have to be really good, and they have to look at it carefully." Lei Chaozi said that in the reward work, the evaluation experts of each stage of the university achievement award come from the Ministry of Education's science and technology management information system expert database.
In 2020, the focus will be on supplementary experts for subjects with a small number of experts, and a total of more than 13,000 experts will be added. At present, there are more than 50,000 effective experts in the expert database, an increase of 26.7% from 2019.
Lei Chaozi said that objectively speaking, the larger the number of experts in the expert database, the more experts can be selected for review; the more small and medium-sized experts, the more objective the evaluation of results can be.
It is important to point out that the expert database currently has a certain number of experts outside the university system, and many of these experts have participated in communication review and conference review.
The site inspection of the 2020 Grand Prize also invited business experts to participate.
"Experts are asked to judge the transformation and application of the results from the perspective of the enterprise, and see if the results really serve the economic and social development."
This time, the communication review has passed the online review of the review system. The review process shields the submission of expert information for the completer and staff, and the system automatically avoids relevant experts in accordance with the set rules.
"Even we ourselves don't know who this project is allocated to." Lei Chaozi said.
Evaluation experts also generally report that the atmosphere of award evaluation is now more honest.
"We use university science and technology awards as our starting point to implement the country’s good policies, so that researchers can truly feel the change in evaluation orientation. We emphasize the quality and contribution of scientific and technological achievements, and emphasize that the awards are clean and honest. Experts "say hello." Lei Chaozi emphasized that the reform of reward work is to further eliminate the tendency of "SCI first" and encourage college teachers to be devoted, research, and avoid impetuosity.