中国青年报,国家自然科学基金 z-bio 2025-01-07 476

　　The first revised National Natural Science Foundation of China Regulations (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") will officially come into effect on January 1, 2025. What signal does the newly revised Regulation send? What does it mean for the technology industry? Recently, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (hereinafter referred to as "NSFC") organized experts to interpret the key revised content.

　　Joint funding opens up new avenues for strengthening basic research

　　Article 4 of the Regulations stipulates that the state encourages local people's governments, enterprises, and other organizations to invest funds in joint funding, establish mechanisms for scientific and technological innovation cooperation, and encourage social forces to donate to the National Natural Science Foundation.

　　What does the inclusion of 'joint funding' in the Regulations mean?

　　Professor Zhang Qiang from the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University believes that this revision has opened up a new path for expanding funding sources and increasing investment in basic scientific research.

　　Lv Wei, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said, "China's R&D (scientific research and experimental development) expenditure has ranked second in the world, and basic research expenditure is also constantly increasing. However, the proportion of basic research in R&D lags behind that of innovative countries at the forefront

　　Lv Wei analyzed that the main reason for the insufficient investment intensity in basic research in China is the singularity of investment sources, mainly relying on central government financial investment. For example, the current government funds that focus on supporting basic research for young people in China are far from meeting the needs of the vast number of young scientists, leading to the phenomenon of "thousands of horses crossing a single tree bridge". Therefore, the newly revised Regulations include the more mature joint fund funding model in Article 4, while also encouraging social donations.

　　In the view of Yang Lingchun, Vice Minister of the Department of Scientific Research at Peking University, this also means that there will be closer cooperation between the government, enterprises, and academia. She stated that basic research issues can not only be condensed from the forefront of scientific development and major national strategic needs, but also from economic and social development and the forefront of industries. Behind the technological bottlenecks faced by frontline industries are often constraints from key core scientific issues.

　　Yang Lingchun gave an example that previously, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Xiaomi Public Welfare Foundation officially signed a contract to receive a donation of 100 million yuan. This reflects the increasingly important role that enterprises play in supporting basic research. She believes that this regulation establishes cooperative relationships between enterprises, other organizations, and research institutions, creating a more open innovation ecosystem. At the same time, it also provides a foundation for cross-border cooperation, which is conducive to promoting the marketization and application of scientific research results.

　　Lv Wei stated that practice has proven that the joint fund mechanism not only increases the funding sources of scientific funds, but also helps to solve major key scientific issues of concern to local governments, enterprises, and others. In order to further diversify the sources of funding for basic research, it is necessary to encourage the exploration of social funding to establish scientific funds in the future.

　　Supporting young people to demonstrate determination, green light for non consensus project selection

　　Article 8 of the Regulations stipulates that the National Natural Science Foundation of China shall establish special funds for cultivating young scientific and technological talents.

　　Zhang Qiang believes that the relevant regulations demonstrate to young scholars the unwavering determination of the National Natural Science Foundation of China to support outstanding young talents.

　　Hu Ming, a professor at the Law School of South China University of Technology, said, "Currently, the world is undergoing unprecedented changes, and a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is deepening. Young scientific and technological talents are not only the driving force of a country's scientific and technological innovation, but also the decisive force for the future strength of the scientific and technological team. The establishment of a special fund to support young talents in the Regulations is in line with the laws of talent growth and scientific research activities

　　In addition, it is worth noting that in order to encourage original basic research work, the Regulations have added special application and evaluation regulations for funding projects such as major originality and interdisciplinary innovation, and the fund management agency can formulate them.

　　Regarding this new regulation, Lv Wei said, "Currently, due to various reasons such as evaluation mechanisms and expert selection mechanisms, there are relatively few original projects from the Natural Science Foundation of China. This revision has given the green light to explore the selection mechanism for non consensus original innovation projects

　　Yang Lingchun believes that this arrangement increases the flexibility of the project selection mechanism and further encourages researchers to freely explore unknown fields. She said that the Natural Science Foundation of China established the Original Exploration Program project in 2020. Taking Peking University as an example, since the establishment of the project, among the approved original project leaders, the age group of 36-45 years old has the highest total number of project leaders, accounting for 53.3% of the total approved funding. She believes that it has played a good guiding and motivating role, especially for outstanding young talents who are in the early stages of their scientific research career and do not yet have rich research qualifications but are active in original ideas.

　　Lv Wei found in relevant research that original research is usually not designed from the beginning. She suggested that in the future, scientists should be given greater autonomy in choosing research directions and technical routes, and a phased evaluation and rolling support approach should be adopted to gradually promote and cultivate original scientific research.

　　Strengthening research integrity and ethical governance in science and technology

　　The Regulation has made a series of new provisions in strengthening scientific research integrity and technological ethics construction, including the addition of a scientific research integrity commitment system, a new joint punishment mechanism, strengthening the handling of violations, and adding new types of violations.

　　Hu Ming believes that the Regulations further strengthen the legal thinking of scientific research integrity and technological ethics construction, forming a legal framework for whole process management, dishonesty punishment, and joint punishment. He pointed out that the applicant, the supporting unit, the evaluation experts, and the staff of the Science Foundation have signed the "Commitment Letter for Scientific Integrity and Technology Ethics" respectively. Once signed, they must fulfill their commitment obligations according to the provisions of the commitment letter, otherwise they will bear corresponding legal responsibilities. The commitment system for scientific research integrity represents the autonomy, self-discipline, and autonomy within the scientific community, while joint punishment and handling of dishonesty represent external constraints, heteronomy, and control of the scientific community. Both help guide researchers, supporting units, and evaluation experts to effectively fulfill their main responsibilities.

　　Lv Wei also noticed that the Regulations provide clear provisions on strengthening the responsibilities of evaluation experts, not only strengthening the principles and methods of expert recusal, but also stipulating that fund management institutions should regularly evaluate the performance of evaluation experts in fulfilling their evaluation duties. She believes that this approach is beneficial for selecting fair, objective, and responsible review experts.

　　When it comes to strengthening the management and supervision responsibilities of supporting units, Lv Wei said that after years of rectification, the academic atmosphere in China has improved, but academic misconduct still occurs from time to time. Due to the large amount and wide coverage of funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, in order to ensure the academic atmosphere of the fund projects, we cannot rely solely on the Natural Science Foundation of China, but also fully leverage the role of the supporting units.

　　Hu Ming believes that as the main responsible unit for scientific research integrity and technological ethics construction, relying units shoulder the heavy responsibility of implementing scientific research integrity and technological ethics construction. They should comprehensively promote the modernization of the internal governance system and governance capacity of scientific research integrity, including establishing and improving the organizational structure, scientific research personnel integrity management, scientific research activity integrity management, scientific research integrity file management, scientific research integrity cultivation mechanism, and scientific and technological ethics review mechanism of relying units.