Rise of the underdogs: why low-funded, unknown researchers are making a splash in China’s scientific research community
In the Chinese research community, Dr Han Chunyu was a “nobody”, at least by the yardstick of funding.
Throughout his decade-long academic career, the associate professor of biology at Hebei University of Science and Technology received 300,000 yuan (HK$357,000) in grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. That equals about 30,000 yuan per year, less than what a worker in a shirt factory makes.
Despite the lack of backing, Han has broken into the global spotlight. Working out of his modest laboratory in Shijiazhuang, he and his colleagues developed a new technology to edit the human genome with unprecedented efficiency and accuracy. The discovery could open the door to alternative approaches to tackling cancer and ageing.
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The research was published early this month in Nature Biotechnology and it quickly became one of the most viewed new articles, according to Nature.com, the website of the journal’s publisher.
“Very nice piece of work … it is great to see that it actually works!!” said Professor John van der Oost at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, who had predicted the theoretical possibility of the technology in 2014.
“Han generated a splash,” agreed Dr Wang Jie, scientific editor of Cell Research. “Everyone is talking about him and nobody knows who he is.”
The surprise achievement by Han could be part of what’s being called the “spillover effect”. Amid China’s large investment in science and technology, universities are churning out doctorate holders, but there simply aren’t enough institutions or academic posts to give them all prestigious roles. They end up at lower-rung universities, working in anonymity, but with a crucial advantage compared to the generation before them – the internet and its wealth of research.
China has become a key contributor to the global body of published research. Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scientific papers, said the nation was turning into a research superpower. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve witnessed that the growth of Chinese-authored articles as the highest in the world, making China the second highest global producer of scholarly articles after the US,” said Jason Chan, regional director of global communications at Elsevier in Singapore.
Between 2005 and 2014, the volume rose three-fold, while the share of Chinese-authored articles cited in global patents jumped from less than five per cent to more than 10 per cent, according to Chan.
“No scientific publisher can ignore or deny the increasing significance and importance of China’s contribution to scholarly publishing as the country takes its place amongst the leading research-intensive nations,” Chan said.
Behind the boom is the world’s largest army of researchers. Beijing is using money to lure talented Chinese scientists working overseas. The South China Morning Post reported last month that a new class of multimillionaire researchers had arisen in China due to the intense investment by the authorities in science and technology.
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According to the central government, more than 1.4 trillion yuan was spent on research and development last year, a nearly 40 per cent increase from 2012.
Most scientists, however, still work at relatively small universities or research institutes with limited budgets. Some cannot even afford to access international academic journals and download research papers legally.
According to an investigative report by Science magazine last month, China was home to the biggest user base of Sci-Hub, the world’s largest pirated paper database.
But these “underdogs” will become a new force in innovation, according to Chen Dewang, professor of computer science at Fuzhou University.
Although Han was not employed at a leading research university, he received his doctorate from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, one of the best in the country, Chen said.
“The rapid increase in the number of PhD graduates and the limited number of posts at first-tier research institutes has caused an obvious spillover effect. It is now a common phenomenon that PhD graduates from top universities take up positions at ordinary universities,” Chen wrote in a popular blog article on Sciencenet.cn, the largest online community for Chinese scientists.
He said that the internet had helped to level the playing field. “In the age of flat science, any research institute has a chance to make a world-class discovery. In the age of flat science, the research community will often be rocked by an unsung hero. In the age of flat science, money, facility and fame is no longer a must for first-rate research. The ultimate source of scientific creativity is a good idea, strong interest and persistent effort,” he added.
Chen’s opinions have drawn positive comments from his peers in the research community. “The success of Han may mark the rise of underdogs in Chinese research,” a scientist based in Shanghai told the Post.
But not everyone is optimistic. Carrying out research remains an expensive proposition on the mainland and it’s a common perception in the field that publishing a paper in a top research journal is impossible for those without multimillion yuan backing.
Duan Yibing, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Policy and Management, said funding requirements would only increase in the coming years as the nation moved closer to the forefront of research and development. Discoveries required talent and cutting-edge equipment.
Duan said.
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A large slice of China’s science spending currently goes to headline-grabbing projects, such as the Five hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope in Guangxi province and the underground laboratory dedicated to particle physics in Sichuan province.
“It is everyone’s hope that big science can be done with small money, but the reality is often the opposite,” Duan said.
Han refused to be interviewed for this article, citing personal reasons, but said he hoped his team would receive more funding from the government. “Being famous made me quite uncomfortable,” he said. “We just made a tiny first step, the road ahead remains long and challenging.”
