China's return incentive scheme lures young scientists - superstars not so much

A long-term Chinese incentive programme was successful at enticing high-calibre, overseas-trained scientists to return home, but was less accomplished at luring back top researchers, according to a new study.

It was one of the findings by a team of researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tsinghua University and the University of Hong Kong, who evaluated the impact and policy implications of the "generously funded" Young Thousand Talents (YTT) programme. The scheme was established in 2010 to recruit and nurture early-career expatriate scientists who return to China after receiving PhDs abroad.

Scientists aged 40 and under were induced by YTT to return home if they were offered better funding and larger research teams to support their work, according to the study.

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"While 'the best are yet to come', China's YTT programme was attractive to young expatriates who had the capability but not the funding to run their own labs for independent research," the researchers said in an article published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

But the best scientists were less likely to return, they found. "With the option to pursue independent research either in the US or in China, top-calibre expatriates remain unlikely to return even given the YTT offers, probably reflecting a social and cultural environment conducive to scientific inquiry in the US."

The researchers published their findings based on an analysis of the publications and research grants of 721 awardees in the first four cohorts from 2011 to 2013.

Among them are 339 returnees who received PhDs abroad, accepted the offers and spent at least five years conducting research in China, while 73 scientists rejected YTT offers to remain overseas.

"As China continues to invest in higher education and academic talent, we can expect more Western-trained Chinese students to return to China," the researchers said in the article. "We can also expect Chinese universities to become more attractive locations for Chinese and international students intending to pursue scientific research careers."

"The dearth of necessary resources [for younger scientists] in the US and EU may not only expedite expatriates' return decisions, but also motivate young US- and EU-born scientists to seek international research opportunities," the research team said.

China's Young Thousand Talents programme is the junior branch of the namesake Thousand Talents programme, which was started in 2008 to target scientists aged 55 and under, and has since become the most prominent initiative to bring leading global scientists to China, according to the study.

Under the YTT programme, recipients have received a one-off tax-exempt income subsidy of 500,000 yuan, (US$150,000 in 2010 purchasing power parity), as well as start-up grants of 1 to 3 million yuan. They were also prioritised when applying for local and national grants, according to the researchers.

"In principle, [the programme] is open to researchers of any nationality; but in practice, few non-Chinese have availed themselves of the programme," they said.

Study author Wang Yanbo, an associate professor of strategy and innovation at the University of Hong Kong, said the programme is most attractive to Chinese scientists capable of conducting independent research, but who do not have access to funding and resources in the West.

"These are the individuals who got sandwiched in the system," Wang told the Post, adding that the study also reflects weaknesses in the North American and European Union science funding schemes.

"When you look over time, a larger percentage of research grants in the two places got into the hands of senior scholars. It's become more challenging for junior and young scholars to receive research grants for a healthy start of their career."

However, the superstar scientists trained in North America and the EU tended to stay overseas for a better research environment and career opportunities, Wang said.

"China is not at the global knowledge frontier yet," Wang said. "The top talents want to hang around with other top talents. Because there are a large number of superstar scientists in the US and not much administrative intervention there, they prefer staying overseas."

The team found that scientists who had accepted YTT offers and returned to China had produced an average of 2.4 publications per year while they were overseas. Those who rejected the offer were more productive with an average of 2.9 publications per year.

Among those scientists who had rejected YTT offers, nearly 90 per cent had overseas faculty appointments, compared with 14 per cent of those who later returned to China. Also, those who remained also had larger annual research grants - about US$30,365 (in 2010) - whereas people who eventually returned only had grants averaging US$4,439.

The team also found that scientists in chemistry and life sciences - fields that require large amounts of physical assets, financial resources and manpower - benefited the most from the YTT grants, with improvements in output and performance.

But returnees in mathematics and physics saw reduced performance, the researchers said.

"The departure of Xu Chenyang - a YTT recruit and a Breakthrough Prize winner in mathematics [the world's largest science prize] - back to the US has specifically raised questions about whether a research environment distinguished by administrative interventions and personal connections could be conducive to nurturing top-calibre scientists," they said.

Xu, now a professor at Princeton University, left the US for Peking University in 2012, but returned to America in 2018.

A separate report found that in 2021, at least 1,400 US-based ethnic Chinese scientists switched their affiliation from American to Chinese institutions.

The report came after the China Initiative launched in 2018, aiming to root out suspected Chinese theft of technical secrets and intellectual property as competition between the two countries intensified. While it was ended last year by the Biden administration amid concerns over racial bias and a culture of fear, the policy left a chilling effect on scientists of Chinese descent, according to the report.

Wang said US-China geopolitical tensions and the China Initiative have pushed some Chinese researchers away from any role that could bridge the two countries with science.

"It's a reflection of both the rapid growth of the Chinese scientific entity and the increasingly hostile environment in the US. When they look around the US, they feel the environment is not friendly any longer," he said. "It's not purely about money."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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