The following document is an apparently full list, circa 2017, of technical positions that the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hoped to fill through its talent programs. The document specifies the academic and career qualifications, desired age, and technology areas of the candidates that the Hefei Institutes seek to hire, and details monetary, housing, and other incentives to attract qualified candidates to Hefei. This is just one example, albeit an unusually detailed one, of Chinese scientific research institutions’ efforts to recruit foreign scientists—and Chinese scientists trained in the West—to improve China’s S&T talent pool.
The Chinese source text is available online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20200519201346/http://hms-cssa.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6%E9%99%A2%E5%90%88%E8%82%A5%E7%89%A9%E8%B4%A8%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6%E9%99%A2%E6%B5%B7%E5%A4%96%E6%8B%9B%E8%81%98%E4%BF%A1%E6%81%AF20170612.pdf
US $1 ≈ 7 Chinese Yuan Renminbi (RMB), as of July 1, 2020.
Translator: Etcetera Language Group, Inc.
Editor: Ben Murphy, CSET Translation Lead
Organization Introduction
The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter CASHIPS) is an important comprehensive scientific research base and talent cultivation base of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It is located on beautiful Dongpu peninsula near Shushan Lake in Hefei and has an area of 2.26 square kilometers. The peninsula is surrounded by water and lined with trees. When General Secretary Jiang Zemin visited the site in 1998, he praised the scientific research environment here and gave it the name “Science Island.”
CASHIPS has 10 scientific research units: the CAS Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, the CAS Institute of Plasma Physics, the CAS Institute of Solid State Physics, the CAS Institute of Intelligent Machines, the CAS High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the CAS Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, the Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, the Institute of Technical Biology and Agricultural Engineering, the Center of Medical Physics and Technology, and the Institute of Applied Technology. Its main research fields include energy, the environment, materials, biology, information, and national defense advanced technologies. CASHIPS has over 2,600 employees, including six academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, six inductees to the Ten Thousand Talents Program (万人计划), 14 inductees to the Thousand Talents Program (千人计划), six participants in the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Innovative Talent Promotion Program (创新人才推进计划), six national-level inductees in the New Century Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talents Project,1 four national 863 Program evaluation experts,2 32 national 973 Program3 chief experts, nine members of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and Outstanding Youth Science Foundation (杰青/优青), 49 CAS Hundred Talent Program (百人计划) inductees, and seven Anhui Provincial Hundred Talent Program inductees. We have five post-doctoral stations and 73 post-doctoral researchers. We have 12 doctoral programs and 25 master’s programs, with more than 1,600 graduate students.
CASHIPS has over 20 well-equipped national, provincial, and CAS key laboratories and research centers, including the national major project Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) experimental nuclear fusion device, the national major science project steady-state strong magnetic field device, the Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Optics for the National 863 Program, the Intelligent Robot Sensing Technology Laboratory for the National 863 Program, the National Environmental Optical Monitoring Instrument Engineering Center, the Key Laboratory of Environmental Optical Monitoring Technology of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the CAS-National Ethnic Affairs Commission Agricultural Information Technology Joint Laboratory, the CAS Key Laboratory of Ion Beam Bioengineering, the CAS Key Laboratory of Environmental Optical Monitoring, the CAS Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, the CAS Key Laboratory of General Optical Calibration and Characterization, the CAS Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Composition and Optical Radiation, the CAS Key Laboratory of Novel Thin Film Solar Cells, the Anhui Provincial Nanomaterial Engineering and Research Center, the Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Photonic Devices and Materials, and the Applied Technology Research Center for Low Temperature Superconducting Magnets and Electricity Energy Saving.
From 2005 to 2016, CASHIPS won 21 National Science and Technology Awards, including one National Science and Technology Progress Award – Innovation Team Award, four National Science and Technology Progress First Prize Awards and six Second Prize Awards, four National Natural Science Second Prize Awards, two National Technological Invention Second Prize Awards, and three China International Science and Technology Cooperation Awards. We also won 33 Anhui Science and Technology Awards. In 2015, CASHIPS ranked second among national scientific research institutes for papers published in SCI and EI journals and fourth in applications for invention patents. In 2016, we won 143 National Natural Science Foundation projects, ranking second among scientific research institutions throughout China. In 2016, EAST achieved a plasma discharge with an electron temperature of more than 50 million degrees and a duration of 102 seconds, the best performance by any similar device in the world under similar parameters. In addition, the steady-state strong magnetic field device achieved its goal of a 400,000 Gaussian steady-state magnetic field. This made China the second country in the world to achieve a 400,000-Gaussian steady-state strong magnetic field.
In January 2017, the “Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center” was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology, becoming one of China’s three major science centers. As the rising sun lights the road ahead, CASHIPS, as one of the core units of the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, warmly welcomes outstanding talents from China and abroad to join us. Let’s work together to realize the dream of humanity, achieve things that bring honor to humanity, and advance China’s scientific endeavors.
- Translator’s note: The New Century Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talents Project (新世纪百千万人才工程) was a PRC S&T talent cultivation program that launched in 1995. Its goal was to train more than 100 world-class academic and technical leaders around 45 years old, more than 1,000 academic and technical leaders under 45 at China’s cutting edge, and more than 10,000 highly qualified academic and technical leaders aged 30-45, all by the year 2000.
- Translator’s note: China’s 863 Program (“863”计划) is also known as the National High-Tech R&D Program (国家高技术研究发展计划).
- Translator’s note: China’s 973 Program (“973”计划) is also known as the National Key Basic R&D Program (国家重点基础研究发展计划).