The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to "adhere to the priority development of education, self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, and talent-led drive, and accelerate the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents". The key to achieving talent-led drive is strategic science and technology talent. Strategic scientific and technological talents stand at the forefront of international science and technology, lead independent innovation in science and technology, and undertake national strategic scientific and technological tasks, and are the main body of national strategic scientific and technological forces. Discovering and cultivating more strategic scientific and technological talents is a major task in the new era. On this basis, this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to further strengthen the discovery and training mechanism of strategic scientific and technological talents and promote the development of strategic scientific and technological talents from four aspects: how to discover more potential strategic scientific and technological talents, improve the early cultivation system of future talents, establish a funding system for researchers, and build an innovation-friendly talent ecology.
Discover more potential strategic tech talent
To cultivate strategic scientific and technological talents, it is necessary to first discover potential strategic scientific and technological talents, and then they can be cultivated. If there is no potential for strategic scientific and technological talents, no matter how much they are trained, strategic scientific and technological talents will not be producedHowever, if they have potential and do not cultivate it, or even suppress their development, they will not produce strategic scientific and technological talents.
In order to discover potential strategic scientific and technological talents, it is necessary to determine the criteria for strategic scientific and technological talents. We analyze the innovative activities of the winners of the National Science and Technology Award, some scientists specified in the book "100 Experts Talk about Talents" by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, 190 scientists specified in the "Spirit of Scientist Series" of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and more than 400 Nobel Prize winners. The scientific and technological talents who put forward the future development direction, development ideas and development priorities of science and technology.
Improve the early cultivation system for future talents
The vast majority of people with the potential of strategic scientific and technological talents are young people, and the formation of these potentials, especially the cultivation of interests, the establishment of aspirations, and the formation of a sense of mission and values, are all sprouted at the primary and secondary school level. Therefore, in cultivating strategic scientific and technological talents, we must start with young people and improve the system for cultivating early-stage talents.
First of all, it is necessary to optimize the educational structure and cultivate the spirit of science and scientists. Optimizing the educational structure means optimizing the teaching materials, teachers, and teaching structure. Seize the key node of China's higher education transformation from popularization to popularization, and set up general education courses. The general education course focuses on the overall design of the discovery and solution of scientific problems, the integration of science and technology and humanities, the combination of theory and practice, pays attention to the process of scientific exploration and the development of human potential, and highlights the cultivation of independent thinking ability, logical reasoning ability, observation and experiment ability and debate and questioning ability. First-class scholars, including outstanding scientists, participate in teaching, devote a certain amount of class time to teaching primary and secondary school students every year, and even do science popularization work for the public. In addition, it can also play the role of retired scholars and attract silver-haired resources to participate in teaching and science popularization activities.
Second, we will continue to fund young talents from the peak of the cultivation of innovative ideas. The focus of strategic talent training should be shifted down to graduate students and outstanding undergraduates, improve the whole chain training system for outstanding young talents, and provide three coherent funding for first-time scientific research projects, accelerated scientific research projects and challenge scientific research projects for graduate students and even outstanding undergraduates. After the completion of the three types of grants, they will be transferred to the project funding for all researchers.
In addition, the talent training plan should also expand the scale of support, optimize the support methods, and the funders' expenses can be used to solve the living difficulties of young scientific and technological talents, so that young scientific and technological talents can research with peace of mind and no worries.
Establish a funding system for researchers
Since the implementation of the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and strengthening the country with talents, China has cultivated a large number of scientific and technological talents and talent teams, supporting the construction of a well-off and innovative country in an all-round way. However, many talent programs are project-centric, and a people-oriented funding system has not yet been established. It is necessary to cultivate talents through science and technology projects, and the cultivation of strategic science and technology talents needs to be funded by people.
Funding for people should adopt the model of ** cooperation with social capital. **Funds are open to the whole society and even the world;At the same time, we will guide enterprises and financial institutions to establish professional and subdivided talents, and encourage the establishment of various talents through social donations, so that the most pioneering talents in various fields can be supported anytime and anywhere. ** and the society ** each has its own strengths, each does its best, can be jointly funded, or give full play to their respective advantages to fund independently.
Build an innovative and friendly talent ecosystem
The first is to build a scientific community centered on scientists. A scientific community is a group of scientists who share the same scientific values. The focus is to break the management mode and resource allocation mode of only core journals, only "hats", only awards, and only administrative positions, encourage scientists to explore freely, give strategic scientific and technological talents greater power to decide on technical routes, greater power to dispose of funds, and greater power to dispatch resources, and let them fully release their talents and energy, do learning and innovation with peace of mind, and establish an academic-centered system and culture under the leadership of the party.
Second, basic research and public welfare researchers should implement a system in which the basic salary accounts for the income of the main body of the salary. In order to train strategic scientific and technological talents, it is necessary to enable first-class researchers to enter innovative posts, and implement a system in which the basic salary is the main body and other incomes are the auxiliary to the remuneration of innovative personnel, so as to ensure that strategic scientific and technological personnel can devote themselves to research.
The third is to actively explore advanced review mechanisms such as international small peer review, non-consensus review, and groundbreaking research review. The basic system of the scientific community is peer review. It is necessary to actively explore advanced review mechanisms such as international peer review, non-consensus review, and groundbreaking research review, and encourage the free exploration of all kinds of whimsical ideas.
Fourth, we should build a new type of scientific research ethics that is inclusive, honest and responsible. Research ethics is the value relationship between scientific researchers, and between scientific researchers and members of society. We have entered the intelligent era brought about by the new technological revolution, and the traditional scientific research ethics formed in the industrial age have undergone great changes, and even subversive changes, which have put forward new requirements for the construction of scientific research ethics. The focus is on building a new type of scientific research ethics and innovation culture that is inclusive, honest and responsible, so that researchers can have firm scientific beliefs, strong scientific research integrity capabilities, and continuous scientific research integrity behavior.
Author: Guo Tiecheng, Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China.
This article ** is published on People's Tribune on November 14, 2023.
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