Do you understand the seriousness of the brain drain in our country?So far, there are about 320,000 researchers voluntarily choose to become U.S. citizens, and the vast majority of them are experienced senior researchers
For example, Yin Xi, who was once known as a physics prodigy, Xu Chenyang, a mathematical prodigy, and Luo Liqun, a biologist sent abroad by the University of Science and Technology of China, are now academicians and tenured professors in the United States. They returned to China to start a business, not only contributing their wisdom and talents to the motherland, but also creating one wealth myth after another in China. According to the "China Overseas Returnee Employment Survey Report" released by the Ministry of Education, in 2022, the total number of Chinese students studying abroad is as high as 83050,000 people. Regrettably, only 19% of those with a postgraduate degree or higher choose to return to their home country, which is less than half of the total
Why didn't this group of talents decide to stay?Or are they not integrating their ideals into society, but trying to make a living?Is it because the shape of the moon in foreign countries is more rounded, or is it because they lack patriotic feelings?What is the core problem of this serious brain drain?
There are two main questions to answer: first, we have a logical misunderstanding of the phenomenon of "brain drain";Second, talents have shown obvious utilitarian and short-term behaviors in their work, resulting in enterprises being unable to retain outstanding talents. Secondly, the loss of scientific research talents is affected by many factors such as salary, promotion opportunities and scientific research environment.
First of all, let's take a look at some of the misunderstandings in our understanding of brain drain
Why do people think they've made a mistake?Many people focus too much on this issue, comparing China directly with developed countries, while ignoring that China is still a developing country. In this context, the loss of talent is actually a normal thing, and there is no need to worry too much.
If you think about it carefully, advanced countries like Britain, the United States, Germany, and France were at least two hundred years ahead of us in terms of industrial development. But we have now developed into the largest economy in the world, and our economic power far exceeds that of these countries. They have completed the pace of industrialization and industrial upgrading a long time ago, and have a deep scientific foundation.
In addition, the level of economic development of our developing countries is relatively backward, and the foundation of science and technology is not very solid. Especially in the United States, whose per capita GDP is 5-6 times that of ours, and their population size is much smaller than ours, the treatment provided to scientific researchers is undoubtedly quite high. This makes them more demanding of the environment in which they work, while we don't have such a good living environment.
People are always moving towards higher goals, and when making a choice, it is common to choose an environment that pays better. Many countries have also gone through such a phase. On the contrary, it is contrary to common sense to let people all over the world resist ** and refuse better conditions.
To better understand this, let's take a ** student as an example: after years of hard work and Xi, he finally obtained his doctorate. If he returns to his hometown to work as a university teacher after graduation, his annual income can reach 100,000;If you choose to go to a university or research institution in Shenzhen, with an annual income of not less than 400,000 yuan, and follow the strategy of "talent introduction", then the problems of household registration, establishment and children's enrollment can be solved. If it were himself, he probably wouldn't have thought about it so much. If the child were from your family, would you be inclined to support them in choosing which one?
I think most people will probably choose to send their children to ShenzhenIf you can, why not go there?I don't think most people would do that. Can you be sure that they don't have a deep affection for their hometown?This is true abroad, and it is also true at home, and it is serious!
This is actually due to the loss of regional talent due to uneven economic growth. Which country do you choose to do?Since this is the case at home, what if we consider expanding it abroad?What country do you want to go to?When you work in China or Africa, where would you choose?Which one would you choose between China and the United States?
Wouldn't it be easier to understand this way of comparison?Therefore, if you want to retain senior scientific and technological talents, you must consider it from the enterprise level and the first level. The desire for high-level talent to stay abroad is actually an extended version of the brain drain in the domestic region. If you haven't already, let's compare the "difference in the treatment of high-end industrial talents at home and abroad", and you will understand it after reading it.
If you have a real science and engineering background, with a postgraduate or higher education background, then your first-year salary in the UK is about £30,000, which translates to about $260,000. If you work for every additional year in the future or accumulate points based on your contributions, you will likely be able to obtain permanent residency in the UK in less than a few years.
If you plan to travel to the United States, you can choose to get a doctorate first, and then wait in line for a green card while working, with an estimated annual salary of about $90,000, which is equivalent to about 60-700,000 yuan. If you want to apply for a green card, you must first get a doctorate from a university. Once you get your green card, your starting amount will reach 700,000, a number that will vary depending on your actual ability and there is no clear upper limit.
If you choose to stay in China, then your average annual income for your PhD in 2022 will be between 15-200,000 yuan, which is not yet at the starting level of others. And if you choose to stay in China, then the humanities and social sciences will earn even less, and you may only get a thousand yuan a month.
In addition, from an objective point of view, the degree of support for scientific research laboratories abroad, the openness of the scientific research environment, and the welfare of staff are all superior to those in China. On the Internet, wasn't there a small paragraph that was widely spread before?
For example, Yuan Longping, a veteran expert, cultivated hybrid rice that provided food for more than a billion people, so in ancient times, people would build temples and erect monuments to commemorate itIn the United States, charging tens of millions a year for patents is not a far-fetched dream;Despite this, he only received a property and a research grant of 5 million yuan, which led to him being criticized on the Internet for many years.
On the other hand, do you still think it's unusual for talented people to go abroad?In fact, many times, talents grow up in constant mobility. This is actually an inevitable consequence of the current social progress.
Seeing such a situation, some people may think: the environment was not as good as it is now, and then we didn't see so many researchers going out of the houseDoesn't our country really need such people?In particular, academicians like Qian Xuesen, Zhao Zhongyao, and Huang Baotong have resolutely returned to China to contribute to the country despite various obstacles abroad
This is true, but it does not mean that young people lack patriotism. The reason why the two generations chose to be different is mainly because the background of the times has changed, and people's reference standards have also changed.
The generation of scientists led by Academician Qian Xuesen referred to "Chinese scientific research ten years ago" and "Chinese scientific research now", believing that in that era, the motherland needed them more than in the past, and if they returned, they would be able to play a greater valueThe lifestyle of the new generation of young people is based on the "lifestyle of developed countries" and the "lifestyle of China".
Rather than saying that they lack patriotism, it is more accurate to say that their pursuit of life and scientific research environment has been raised to a higher level. "Science is a cultural phenomenon. "In addition, talent is not so scarce in China now compared to the past, and science does not stagnate because of a small number of people, so they are more inclined to choose better talents when assessing.
Having explained the errors in cognitive logic, let's take a step further to ** the second question:
What are the specific factors that affect the loss of talent?
The first thing to consider is salary and benefits. For example, some well-known scientists who have worked in China for decades or even hundreds of years are paid very well, while in foreign countries, the salary is only half or lower.
The previous analysis also pointed out that due to our late start, there is still a certain gap between our scientific research base and industrial base and advanced countries, coupled with a huge population base, it is difficult to maintain consistency with foreign counterparts in terms of the salary of scientific researchers. For the same top talent, if you can get a million abroad, but less than 500,000 at home, this also explains why some people choose to go overseas for development.
Second, opportunities for career growth and advancement are scarce. In recent years, the national policy has become more and more open, and the working space of scientific researchers has become larger and larger, but the salary has become lower and lower. In our academic and scientific field, the social class is relatively fixed, and no matter how capable you are, if you want to be promoted, you need to submit**, take charge of projects, and evaluate job titles.
Therefore, I think the most important thing in the scientific research community is not the title, but the scientific research achievements and contributions. At present, many researchers tend to choose to stay in universities and take up professorships.
But if you don't submit** or get a job title, then even if you have a Ph.D., there will be no formal establishment, and you are likely to fail to meet your goals within the stipulated time, thus facing the risk of dismissal. Unlike in foreign countries, the title is not the decisive factor. As long as you hold a patent or technology, you will have access to sufficient resources and the opportunity to lead projects and grow your career independently.
The third is about the environment for scientific research. The scientific research environment in our country is very open, and many people can obtain scientific research results through various channels. China's scientific research environment is relatively closed, and due to the limited resources, the approval process for various laboratories and research institutions to apply for support is usually very strict, resulting in the support and actual results are often not proportional.
If you want to do a big project, then you have to buy a lot of equipment to complete it, which is not an easy thing for our country. For example, when you intend to work on a technology, the more precise and accurate the instrument required, the more precise the data will be. In addition, many units in our country do not have their own independent laboratories, which gives researchers a lot of freedom to conduct experiments.
However, these necessary equipment can usually reach the scale of tens or even millions of dollars, and few laboratories in China can be fully equipped. In addition, at the management level, scientific research institutions also face many challenges, such as the lack of transparency and impartiality, and there are factional problems in the academic field, which is also the so-called "academic valve" problem that many netizens often criticize.
Taken together, these three core factors make the brain drain problem we are currently observing particularly severe.
When the scientists left, many were deeply worried:
If this continues, will our scientific research strength gradually weaken?Can our country make a breakthrough in scientific and technological innovation?At that point, how should we develop further?
I have to say, this is too much to worry about. From a macro point of view, China does have a certain foundation and advantages in the development of science and technology. We do value scientific research talents, but at the same time, we cannot ignore the country's current stable and rapidly growing scientific research strength. The second is whether the number of scientific research personnel has increased. In general, the key to judging whether a country's scientific research capacity is declining or rising depends on two aspects: first, whether the overall scientific research funding has increased;The question is not whether the total number of researchers has increased.
To be clear, China has achieved continuous growth in both areas, and at a very fast rate.
Wang Zhigang, Minister of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, has made it clear that in 2022, the whole society's investment in R&D will exceed 3 trillion!How is this number calculated?What exactly is this concept?It is the total amount of national funds spent on science and technology every year. That's more than the national wage in 2007 combined!How did this number come about?If it is evenly distributed to 1.4 billion people, everyone can get more than 2,000 yuan!
As for the total number of scientific research talents, as early as 2012, China's scientific and technological R&D personnel have occupied the first place in the world, with a total of 3.2 million people. There are many scientists and engineers, as well as many other professionals, who are part of our nation's scientific and technological workforce. Ten years have passed, but we still have the largest number of researchers in the world, with a total number of more than 6 million, which is even more than the entire population of Singapore!
You may have only noticed that our research teams went to Europe and the United States, but few of the leading scientists from Japan, Germany and India have also set foot in China!
For example, Akira Fujishima, the former president of Tokyo University of Science, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has led his team to the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. His students started a new experimental project here. Shuji Nakamura, a Japanese-American physicist, chose to set up his research laboratory in China after winning the Nobel Prize in Physics. Here, he will work with scholars from all over the world to develop the future direction of physics. Their appearance has caused a huge response in the field of science in Japan and on the Internet!
In addition, Daniel Povey, who is known as the founder of AI voice in the United States, has also become a member of Xiaomi's R&D team in China. Nikos, a distinguished member of the German Academy of Sciences in the field of neuroscience, also led his research team and family members on a visit to China.
All of this is a clear indication that China's scientific research strength is continuing to grow. As long as we are given more time, our scientific research field will continue to improve, and I believe that more outstanding talents will return to the bosom of the motherland in the future.