This document, issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2011, details the number and affiliation of CAS-sponsored candidates for China’s “Youth Thousand Talents Program.” The Youth Thousand Talents Program is one of many Chinese government programs designed to recruit foreigners or Chinese living overseas, particularly those with strong S&T skills, to move to China and help improve China’s technology base. Under the Youth Thousand Talents Program, prospective employers in China, such as CAS, are responsible for identifying overseas talent they wish to recruit, and must then submit applications to the Program on behalf of their chosen candidates.
The Chinese source text is available online at https://web.archive.org/web/20200518175308/http://www.ie.cas.cn/qtgn/zt/xzzq/zwxx/201111/W020111108338594710041.pdf
US $1 ≈ 7 Chinese Yuan Renminbi (RMB), as of June 29, 2020.
Translator: Etcetera Language Group, Inc.
Editor: Ben Murphy, CSET Translation Lead
Note: The nation’s first batch of Youth Thousand Talents Program (“青年千人计划”) application and review work has come to an end. In order to further promote the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS) Youth Thousand Talents Program talent recruitment work, the CAS Bureau of Personnel and Education summarized the application work from the first batch of the Youth Thousand Talents Program, analyzed relevant issues, and put forward ideas and suggestions for subsequent work. The relevant content is now published for reference by all units.
Work Situation Report on CAS’ Youth Thousand Talents Program
Bureau of Personnel and Education
In December 2010, China issued the Notice on Carrying Out Application Work for the Sixth Batch of the Thousand Talents Program (“千人计划”) and the Notice on Printing and Distributing the “Working Rules for the Introduction of Young High-level Talents from Overseas.“ In order to organize the related work, the Bureau of Personnel and Education issued the above documents to the primary responsible personnel in the various units of CAS through special channels at the end of December 2010. When the first batch of applications started in January 2011, a CAS-wide video conference was held to convey the spirit and set out the details for application work. So far, the application and evaluation work for the first batch of the Youth Thousand Talents Program has been completed, and the application work for the second batch is about to start. Relevant situations:
I. Basic Application and Evaluation Situation for the First Batch
(i) Application Situation
A total of 44 units from throughout CAS recommended 204 applications (see Annex 1), accounting for 19.7% of nationwide applications (1,033 applicants in total). The average age of CAS applicants was 35 years. 152 were from the United States, accounting for 74.5%; 20 held foreign job titles equivalent to assistant professor or above, accounting for 9.8%; and 76 were postdoctoral researchers, accounting for 37.3%.
The distribution of CAS applicants in the six fields set out by the Central Organization Department is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Distribution of CAS applicants in the six fields set out by the Central Organization Department
| Field | Nationwide Applicants | CAS Applicants | CAS Applicants as a Proportion of Nationwide Applicants |
| Mathematics | 112 | 37 | 33.0% |
| Chemistry | 108 | 34 | 31.5% |
| Environment | 96 | 16 | 16.7% |
| Information | 191 | 27 | 14.1% |
| Engineering | 264 | 25 | 9.5% |
| Life Sciences | 262 | 65 | 24.8% |
| Total | 1033 | 204 | 19.7% |
The regional distribution of applicants shows that CAS applicants were concentrated in Hefei, Beijing, and Shanghai, with very few applicants coming from western regions (see Table 2). In terms of units, the University of Science and Technology of China had the largest number of applicants at 52. Next came the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology with 16 applicants, the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences and the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics with 15 applicants each, and the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science at 11 applicants. 63 units did not recommend candidates.
Table 2: Regional Distribution of CAS Applicants (Hefei includes both the University of Science and Technology of China and the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science)
| Region | Hefei | Beijing | Shanghai | Guangzhou | Nanjing | Shenyang | Changchun | Wuhan | Xi‘an | Xinjiang | Lanzhou | Chengdu | Kunming | Total |
| Applicants | 63 | 47 | 31 | 24 | 18 | 10 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 204 |
(ii) Evaluation Work
- Evaluation Process
The evaluation for the first batch of the Youth Thousand Talents Program was divided into four stages: formal review, communication review, on-site review, and public announcement. Evaluations were organized for six fields: mathematics; chemistry; environmental and earth sciences; information, engineering and materials; and life sciences.
- Formal Review
The formal review consists of a preliminary review of the application materials. The main operation process of the Youth Thousand Talents Program formal review is to first send the materials of all applicants in each field to three peer experts in the appropriate field for initial evaluation. If two of the experts give the applicant a passing score, the applicant will pass this round.
- Communication Review
The Youth Thousand Talents Program communication review expert database is composed of inductees to the Thousand Talents Program and domestic experts recommended by the CAS, the Ministry of Education, the China Scholarship Council, and the Ministry of Science and Technology. Of the over 7,600 experts in the database, nearly 2,000 are from the CAS. Seven to 11 communication review experts from the communication review expert database are automatically matched to each applicant by the system according to the relevant algorithm. These experts must include two experts from the Thousand Talents Program.
- On-site Review
This time, a total of 46 experts were invited to take part in on-site reviews for the Youth Thousand Talents Program, all of whom were selected from the national Thousand Talents Program. Among them, 35 experts were from universities, accounting for 76.1% of the total, while only five experts came from CAS, accounting for 10.9%. The low proportion of on-site review experts from the CAS is mainly due to the low proportion of Thousand Talents Program inductees from CAS (about 10%).
During the on-site review, 7-8 review experts were invited for each discipline group. In principle, the evaluation results are determined with reference to the average of the scores given by the experts. The specific evaluation principles are shown in Table 3.