Perspective||Why University Professors Are Keen on "Hats"

Source of this article: China Youth Daily

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The hotly discussed talent "hats" in the scientific and technological circles mainly refer to talent plans and scientific research projects with talents as the funding object. The Talent Program aims to care, select and support talents, while the R&D Program provides funding for outstanding scientific and technological talents, and plays a role in nurturing and motivating them. However, in the process of implementation, some talent plans and projects are given too many benefits that are not related to the original intention of the policy, which leads to adverse effects on scientific researchers.

Many young scientific research personnel feel that "hats are flying all over the sky," which has become a major problem affecting their concentration on scientific research; the phenomenon of "stepping on a point to fight for hats" has broken the pace of young scientific research personnel's natural growth and has become an "unreasonable burden."

In recent years, the relevant departments have successively introduced a series of reform measures, with the main goal of cleaning up the "hats" of talents. However, observing the actual implementation of the policy, the problem of talent "hats" still exists and provokes deep thinking.

In the "Several Opinions on Correctly Understanding and Standardizing the Use of the Title of Talents in Colleges and Universities" issued by the Ministry of Education in 2020, it was clearly stated that teaching and discipline evaluation should comprehensively evaluate the quality of the teaching staff, and not take the title and quantity of talents as the direct evaluation basis. The "Notice on Continuing to Carry Out Special Actions to Reduce the Burden of Scientific Research Personnel and Stimulate Innovation Vitality" issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other four departments also mentioned the issue of cleaning up and standardizing the "hat" of talents in scientific and technological evaluation activities as evaluation and evaluation indicators.

The implementation of these policies has achieved some results, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology in the national science and technology plan project evaluation to cancel the entry to fill in the title of talent, the fifth round of the Ministry of Education discipline evaluation work plan to clarify not only academic qualifications and professional titles to evaluate teachers, to avoid the setting of talent "hat" indicators. However, despite the phased progress made in "breaking the four onlys", the "historical inertia" of the "hat-only" problem still exists in employers, especially in some universities.

So why is the "hat" still flying?

1. Some "hats" have become "magnets" for resource allocation, and young researchers use the "Matthew effect of resources" to describe the impact of "hats" on the allocation of scientific and technological resources. A researcher who has participated in the project review said that although the requirements of not "only hats" have been clarified in the evaluation rules of science and technology projects, there are still differences in the evaluation results of experts, and "it is easier to undertake large projects after having a 'hat'".

Wen Wu is 36 years old and a research assistant. Since 2019, he has applied for a science fund project for 4 consecutive years, but all of them have failed. Without his own projects and funding, he derided himself as a "migrant researcher in scientific research": "70 to 80 percent of the young people around me are [this feeling], perhaps more widely."

"Young people, if they don't get the 'hat', all aspects of development will be affected. With a 'hat', the title, treatment, and resource allocation will all be tilted towards him. Liu Yun said.

A researcher who did not want to be named in the evaluation policy of science and technology analyzed that the reason why scientific research units are willing to provide various special preferential policies to hire "hat talents" is because "as long as this person is introduced, it is equivalent to introducing the resources behind him", and the projects and funds they can bring can often play a key role in the scientific research units to stand out in the assessment and evaluation of superiors. The introduction of "hat talents" is actually the introduction of a "bargaining chip" to compete for rankings and resources. In order to get more support from their superiors, most scientific research units have either taken the initiative or been forced to participate in the "war for talent".

Some scientific researchers have reported that the phenomenon of "grabbing people" is relatively common in colleges and universities. Although the policy clearly requires that the number and level of "hats" should no longer be filled in in evaluation activities such as discipline evaluation, when talking about the landmark projects, iconic awards, and representative works filled in the current discipline evaluation, the director of the science and technology department of a university in southern China said frankly that it is still believed that "hat talents" should be "more probable" and "the ability to obtain resources must be valued by the school".

Some people believe that the inertia of "hat-only" is also related to the excessive voice of "hat talents". "Ability to access resources" is often sought after. Li Li, who is engaged in science and technology policy-related research at a university in Beijing, said that after obtaining the "hat", it is easier to become a person who evaluates the "hat", resulting in scientific research resources being ridged in the "hat" circle.

"Hats" can continue to attract more resources like "magnets", which also forms the "Matthew effect" mentioned by Wen Wu - allowing researchers to have more scientific research resources, and correspondingly, less less.

The above-mentioned policy researchers, who did not want to be named, believe that the emergence of "hats flying all over the sky" is largely related to the government's criteria for judging and using outstanding talents. Due to the relative lack of other credible talent evaluation channels such as academic evaluation and market evaluation, the so-called "hat talent" set up by the state to support talent plans and talent science and technology projects has become an important yardstick for governments at all levels to judge whether a person is an outstanding talent, and the allocation of scientific and technological resources and policy support are inclined to them, which leads to the excessive gathering of resources to "hat talents", making them "magnets" of resources, thus exacerbating the resource gap between "hat talents" and non-"hat talents", and exacerbating the resource gap between "hat talents" and non-"hat talents" and exacerbating the " chasing hats, grabbing hats".

He analyzed that in this environment, the "hat" has become the "passport" of the academic workplace, to a certain extent, the channel for the academic growth of young talents, and young people who want to move forward have to "step on the point to fight for the hat", and rush to "produce results as soon as possible" and "do some short and fast topics as soon as possible" before the age limit node of applying for various "hats", which will bring unreasonable pressure and burden to declare. This is obviously not conducive to scientific research personnel to devote themselves to research and overcome difficulties, nor is it in line with the development needs of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance. 2. Some "hats" have become "passports" for academic careers Young professor Wang Feng joined a university in 2021, and his career development was "very smooth", and he believed that "getting a 'hat' as soon as he returned to China" played a key role in it. He said that half a year after getting the "hat" of a national-level talent, he was rated as a professor from an assistant researcher through the "green channel".

After Wang Feng joined a domestic university, he judged that "having a title can lead to better development", and carefully prepared an application for "several months".

While waiting, he saw that people were posting good news on social media one after another, and Wang Feng once thought that he had "hung up". He was frustrated - "If you don't have (hats), it will be difficult to apply for projects and evaluate job titles." More importantly, he believes that if he fails to be evaluated this year, he will "have to be evaluated again" the next year, which will take a lot of time and energy. Therefore, after getting the news of "rating", he was relieved.

Li Qingshan, a 37-year-old associate professor at a university in Beijing, was full of admiration and envy when he heard this story. He has applied for national fund projects and a national high-level talent support program for many years. The age limit for men in these two declarations is 38 and 40 years old respectively, and it is clear that there is not much time left for him to "fight for hats".

Li Qingshan learned that in the colleges and universities where he worked, with a "hat", he could be "directly identified" as a high-level talent, and he who had not yet obtained the "hat" could only be selected into the lower-level talent plan of his unit. Compared with a person with a "hat", in addition to feeling "no status", he also has a "multiplied difference" in treatment.

In his view, the "hat" is like a "passport" to the academic workplace. If you don't get all kinds of "hats" by stepping on the point, then it will be difficult to open the upward channel of the academic workplace.

Wei Shijie and Zhang Wenxia, researchers of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology Development Strategy, mentioned in the analysis article "Exploration, Problems and Policy Suggestions for National Scientific Research Institutions to Support Young Researchers to Concentrate on Research" that at present, the mainland's science and technology projects, talent plans, and science and technology awards have formed a road that needs to be "upgraded to fight monsters" to a certain extent. If a young researcher fails to achieve a high starting point (that is, get a high-level talent "hat") in the early stage of his career, it will be difficult to achieve "turnover" in the subsequent career, so young researchers have to participate in the fierce competition for resources from the beginning, and it is difficult to grow slowly in their own way and rhythm under the huge involution pressure and anxiety.

Li Qingshan believes that "hats" can "sift out" some excellent people, but "it's not normal for everyone to compete for hats".

According to Liu Yun's analysis, it is precisely because the existence of "hats" will bring great differences to the development of scientific researchers in all aspects, and many young people still think that "hats" are worth fighting for. However, in fact, compared with the huge group of young scientific researchers, the number of talent "hats" is very limited, "more monks and less porridge", and everyone wants to compete, which eventually leads to the rhythm of "chasing hats" "disrupts the natural growth law of talents". 3. The ruler of diversified talent evaluation should be "hard" Liu Yun believes that the alienation and use of talent titles is a manifestation that talent work and scientific research management concepts have not kept up with the pace of development of the times, and relevant policies need to be adjusted. The government can commend scientific and technological talents who have made outstanding contributions, but the matter of giving academic honors to scientific researchers should be handed over to the academic community. He said that employers should assume the main responsibility of the legal person for selecting and employing personnel, and should not use "hats" as the only criterion for judging talents.

Li Qingshan believes that in order to make the ruler of the "hat" seem not so effective, it is necessary for other talents to evaluate the "ruler" to be hard.

He observed some positive changes, such as some units have begun to try to reform, broaden the talent evaluation channels, social services, teaching achievements, scientific and technological achievements transformation and so on into the talent evaluation system, but in the implementation, these evaluation channels have not been widely recognized like "hats". "Since the beginning of this year, I have served five or six steel mills, more than a dozen coking plants, and more than a dozen brick factories," but due to the lack of a mature system for evaluating the effectiveness of science and technology services, his work results do not prove his ability well, let alone use it to obtain career promotion opportunities or more scientific research resources.

On how to harden the "ruler" of other evaluations, some experts suggest increasing evaluation channels, giving full play to the role of academic communities and industry associations, and establishing a pluralistic evaluation system other than the government evaluation system. Some researchers also proposed that the proportion of non-"hat talent" review experts should be increased in project review.

At the same time, Liu Yun suggested that the function of the honorary title of national talents should be adjusted to commend those who have made outstanding contributions, and "select a few every year" to play the role of "role model". He also suggested that the state's talent research projects for young people should avoid being labeled as "national brand", so as not to be mistaken by society and employers as "talent hats".

Li Li believes that drastically reducing the number of "hats" may be used as a "symptomatic" option, so that most young people may be able to "feel at ease" and return to their original academic intentions; and through the adjustment of the evaluation system, diluting or even canceling the "added value" corresponding to talent plans and scientific research projects is the "root cause" way out to solve the problem of "only hats".