Text | "China Science News" reporter Feng Lifei
Li Jiayang was interviewed by China Science News. Reporter Ding Dian/photo
Sanya, Hainan, Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City. Li Jiayang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wore a fine-checked cotton short-sleeved shirt, sat at his desk with his back to the window, and worked intently at his desk.
Over the past year or so, Li Jiayang, director of the Yazhou Bay National Laboratory, has been very busy. On the one hand, he has been "recruiting troops" non-stop, forming a contingent of talents, establishing a joint party and government conference system, and promoting the construction of this national seed science and technology research and seed industry innovation platform as soon as possible; on the other hand, he is still insisting on carrying out research on molecular breeding of early japonica rice.
Li Jiayang, a plant molecular geneticist, took the lead in proposing the concept of "molecular design breeding" in the mainland, and cultivated a series of new varieties of high-yield, disease-resistant and high-quality state-reviewed rice with collaborators, leading the new direction of agricultural breeding in the mainland.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (hereinafter referred to as the Outstanding Youth Program). Li Jiayang applied in the year of its establishment, and also served as the leader of the expert group of the Outstanding Youth Project Review Committee for 10 years. In a recent interview with China Science News, he said: "The exploratory research supported by the Outstanding Young Scholars Program has made outstanding contributions to China's basic scientific research. ”
"The Outstanding Youth Program has helped me a lot"
In October 1994, Li Jiayang, who had just returned from the United States, came to a hotel at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain in Beijing. The purpose of this trip is to participate in the defense of the Outstanding Youth Project, which is a key step on the road to realizing his scientific research dream.
Li Jiayang was born in a peasant family in Feixi County, Anhui Province. After graduating from high school, he worked as an apprentice at a construction site, moving bricks, digging foundations, and carrying cement during the day, and reading books at night in dimly lit and noisy dormitories. This "drilling" energy allowed him to take the first train after China's resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977 and enter Anhui Agricultural College (the predecessor of Anhui Agricultural University).
At the end of 1981, he was admitted to the Institute of Genetics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the predecessor of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Genetics and Development) to study for a master's degree. After that, he went on to study in the United States in 1985 to pursue a Ph.D. at Brandeis University, and in 1991 he went to Cornell University for postdoctoral research.
"China is a big agricultural country and a big population country, and the Chinese must feed themselves. With this belief, Li Jiayang returned to his motherland, where scientific research conditions were relatively backward, and dreamed of cultivating high-yield and high-quality crops for his motherland.
At that time, China's research funding was generally tight. In the old laboratory of more than 30 square meters of the Institute of Genetics and Development, Li Jiayang started from scratch and built his own laboratory using a large number of old test benches and instruments and equipment that had been eliminated by others.
The start-up cost of Li Jiayang's laboratory is less than 300,000 yuan, and the purchase of advanced instruments and equipment often requires hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan. Limited funds prevented him from purchasing large instruments, and even small instruments such as centrifuges and pipettes were stretched thin.
"At that time, a pipette gun cost more than 2,000 yuan, and it cost more than 10,000 yuan for several people in the laboratory, which was a lot of expenses. Li Jiayang said. But he felt that if these tools were shared in his work, just like several people sharing a gun during a war, he would definitely not be able to do a good job, so he gritted his teeth and equipped each graduate student in the laboratory with a set.
At that time, the newly born Outstanding Youth Project could provide a maximum of 1 million yuan for 5 years, and the generous funds were expected to provide important support for Li Jiayang's stable team operation. But unfortunately, after the first defense, Li Jiayang "failed".
He had just returned from his studies in the United States, and the experimental conditions of the research group were not yet perfect, and the experts believed that "we need to wait a little longer". The following year, Li Jiayang made full preparations and finally successfully passed the defense.
"Getting the Outstanding Youth Program helped me a lot, basically solved the problem of scientific research funding at that time, and enabled my team to be established steadily. Li Jiayang told China Science News.
Talking about how to write a good application for the Outstanding Youth Program, Li Jiayang said: "The key is to let experts understand, understand and support you. ”
Li Jiayang said that this requires combing through a large number of the latest international literature, condensing real scientific problems, finding out their own innovation points according to the problems, and thinking about using new methods or technical routes to solve problems. "You can't do it without originality, and you can't do it without considering the research conditions. He said, "If you just ask a question at the frontier of science, but you can't achieve it with existing technology, it's a pipe dream, and it will definitely not be supported." ”
The top-level design should have the goal of "far, medium and near".
Li Jiayang's Jieqing project studies the regulation of growth and development by plant hormones, which is a classic basic scientific problem in the field of plant molecular genetics. He led the team to explore the starting point of the biosynthesis of plant auxin indoleacetic acid in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, took the lead in establishing gene microarray (or gene chip cDNA) technology in China, cloned and identified 53 plant growth regulator brassinolide response genes in more than 10,000 Arabidopsis microgenes, and deeply studied the regulatory mechanism of cell division in Arabidopsis. These studies have important scientific value for understanding and regulating plant growth and development.
It was not all smooth sailing for Li Jiayang to receive funding from the Outstanding Youth Project. At that time, the Outstanding Young Scholars Program adopted the "3+2" funding form, and only after the expiration of the three-year funding period was that it could be rated as excellent before it could continue to receive two-year funding.
Although the expert group believes that Li Jiayang's group has made good progress in the research in the first three years, the results have not yet been published, so there is no chance of "+2".
In fact, Li Jiayang's research can publish some "small articles", but he feels that it is inappropriate, and can only be published by insisting on completing the research, establishing a set of technical methods, finding important genes and revealing their mechanism of action.
It was not until the fifth year of his research that Li Jiayang's research results were put into paper, which had an important impact on the world. The National Natural Science Foundation of China approached Li Jiayang and decided to "reissue" a one-year subsidy. At that time, the funding for the Outstanding Youth Project was either 600,000 yuan for 3 years or 1 million yuan for 5 years under the "3+2" program, which made Li Jiayang the only scientist to receive a "3+1" grant of 800,000 yuan.
Looking back on that experience, Li Jiayang said that the "ruler" of the paper cannot be missing in the evaluation of the outstanding youth project. "It's like graduate admissions, if you don't have a relatively objective entrance exam, but only look at the school's background and teachers' evaluation, it is difficult to be fair and just. ”
Li Jiayang suggested that young scientists should do a good job of "top-level design" in research and establish short-, medium-, and long-term scientific research goals. Carry out research that can produce results in a short period of time to make the research group "live", win a certain reputation in a field through medium-term research, and most importantly, aim at long-term goals and carry out scientific research with major originality and breakthroughs.
Especially today, in the case of several times the funding of the Outstanding Youth Project, Li Jiayang said that only by carrying out major original research can we stand out and make scientific research results that are truly conducive to the long-term development of the country.
From 2024 onwards, in addition to the first five-year funding of 4 million yuan (2.8 million yuan for mathematics and management science), the Outstanding Young Scholars Project will also carry out graded evaluation of the projects that have expired in the funding period, and select no more than 20% of the outstanding projects to give the second five-year rolling support, doubling the funding intensity to 8 million yuan, and after the expiration of the funding period, no more than 50% of the outstanding projects will be selected to give the third five-year funding of 16 million yuan.
In Li Jiayang's view, such "rolling support" is a good move. As the largest project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for individual scientists, the 20% strict selection ratio of the Outstanding Young Scholars Program will help "select a group of the best and most top-notch basic research scientists" and continue to carry out high-level basic research in depth.
At the same time, he encouraged young scientists to have self-confidence, dare to touch and eventually overcome the most challenging problems, do work that others cannot do, and create their own history and belong to this era.
Fairness and justice is the greatest guarantee for the "gold content" of talent projects
Li Jiayang believes that the help of the Outstanding Youth Program to individuals is reflected in many aspects, including creating opportunities for scientists to work in a down-to-earth and serious manner. As long as you persevere, you can always make achievements, get recognition from peers and more opportunities for cooperation.
"Frankly speaking, scientists who receive funding from the Outstanding Young Scholars program often have certain advantages when applying for other research projects. Li Jiayang said. He believes that this is inseparable from the fact that the Outstanding Young Scholars Project has always adhered to a fair and reasonable strict evaluation over the past 30 years, which has ensured the quality of the scientist team to a large extent.
When Li Jiayang chose to return to China to work, some people around him were worried that it might be difficult for people with no background and no connections to apply for scientific research project funding.
In the review process of the Jieqing project, Li Jiayang saw the experts in front of the gong and the drum opposite, and immediately announced the review results on the spot after scoring, "Don't look at other things, just look at whether you are a good person", leaving no room for black-box operation.
"The National Natural Science Foundation of China selects funded projects in accordance with the '16-character' evaluation principles of relying on experts, promoting democracy, merit-based support, and fairness and reasonableness, and the outstanding youth projects are implemented very well. He said.
Li Jiayang said that in the future, only by continuing to adhere to fairness and justice, can the outstanding young talents project provide a growth channel for outstanding talents who have no background but are interested in scientific research, and can select scientific research talents with "gold content" for national scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance.
It is worth noting that from 2024, the age limit for female researchers to apply for the Outstanding Young Scholars program will be relaxed from 45 to 48 years old. Li Jiayang believes that this fully takes into account the impact of social reality factors such as pregnancy and child feeding on women, and is more conducive to the emergence of female scientists in the echelon of high-level talents.
At the end of the interview, Li Jiayang told the reporter of China Science News that over the past 30 years, the exploratory research supported by the Outstanding Youth Project has made outstanding contributions to China's basic scientific research. He hoped that the National Natural Science Foundation of China would continue to accurately grasp the laws and trends of basic research development and make greater contributions to strengthening basic research in the mainland.