An exploration on the flow of leading research talents in China: from the perspective of distinguished young scholars

Ming-liang Yue, Rui-nan Li, Gui-yan Ou, Xia Wu () and Ting-can Ma ()
Additional contact information
Ming-liang Yue: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Rui-nan Li: Wuhan University
Gui-yan Ou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xia Wu: Wuhan University
Ting-can Ma: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Scientometrics, 2020, vol. 125, issue 2, No 41, 1559-1574

Abstract: Abstract Understanding the flow characteristics of talents is a task of great significance for talents cultivating, talent structure optimizing, talent policy making, etc. In this paper, we investigate the flow of leading research talents in China based on the academic career data of Distinguished Young Scholars sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. We explore the flow characteristics from perspectives of time, region, and institution type. We find (1) over 40% of the Distinguished Young Scholars have flow experiences and (a) the flow rate reaches the highest in 5–10 years of the scholars’ academic career or in 1–5 years before receiving the Distinguished Young Scholars Fund, (b) as the working year grows, scholars are more inclined to take on part-time responsibilities (as, e.g., visiting professors); (2) the flow of Distinguished Young Scholars mainly occurs in the provinces with the most sufficient science and education resources, while the inflow and outflow provinces are becoming more balanced in the recent years; (3) the flow of talents within colleges and universities is more frequent than research institutes, while research institutes are facing a severe problem of brain drain. We designed questionnaires for the Distinguished Young Scholars in hope of finding potential causes of their flows. We find that (4) the most influential factors (to talent flow) are personal research ability improvement, career development and work environment, followed by the (inflow) institution’s reputation, compensation and benefits, and the (inflow) province’s Science and Technology Policies environment.

Keywords: Leading research talents; Talent flow; China; Flow pattern; Questionnaires (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03562-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03562-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03562-x

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().