The photosynthetic rate of plant leaves was measured in Guyuan Ecological Experimental Station of Northwest A&F University. Wang Xuefeng reporter Zhang Xuejun photo
Professor Yu Xudong of Hainan University visited the pomelo tea base of Gaohe Biotechnology Co., Ltd. to check the planting situation of pomelo tea seedlings. Reporter Zhang Xuejun photo
Breaking the "SCI supremacy" of papers is an important measure to change the pursuit of quantity into the pursuit of quality, which will have a far-reaching impact on breaking the utilitarianism and quick success in scientific and technological innovation, removing the academic bubble and shaping the excellent atmosphere of practical innovation. Recently, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology issued "Several Opinions on Standardizing the Use of Relevant Indicators of SCI Papers in Colleges and Universities and Establishing Correct Evaluation Orientation" (hereinafter referred to as "Several Opinions"), and put forward ten specific opinions on breaking the "SCI supremacy" of papers and optimizing academic ecology.
What is the significance of cracking "SCI worship" to the establishment of scientific and technological evaluation mechanism in the new period? How to establish a scientific evaluation system after breaking the "SCI supremacy"? What explorations have universities made in this regard? The reporter recently conducted an interview.
Excessive pursuit of SCI papers distorts the pursuit of scientific and technological innovation value
Since SCI (scientific citation index) was introduced to China in the late 1980s, it has provided a source of information and data for researchers in Chinese universities and scientific research institutions to understand international academic trends, and also opened a channel for disseminating academic achievements to the outside world, which has greatly promoted the rapid development of scientific research in China, especially basic research.
However, in recent years, the number of SCI papers, cited times, highly cited papers, impact factors and derived ESI rankings have become the core indicators of academic evaluation, as well as professional title evaluation, performance appraisal, talent evaluation, subject evaluation, resource allocation, school ranking and other aspects, which has led to excessive pursuit of SCI papers and related indicators in scientific research work in colleges and universities, even aiming at publishing the number of SCI papers, high-impact papers and highly cited papers. There are some problems in scientific and technological innovation, such as distorted pursuit of value, exaggerated and impetuous style of study and quick success, which are not conducive to the high-quality and connotative development of higher education, can not meet the requirements of educational reform and development in the new era, and are not conducive to the construction of a strong country in education and science and technology.
According to Lu Jian, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Nanjing University, since the reform and opening up, China’s scientific and technological development has roughly gone through three stages. First, the stage of comprehensive transformation: completely changing the problem of not attaching importance to science and technology during the Cultural Revolution, promoting the arrival of scientific spring and bringing scientific and technological innovation to the international stage. Second, the stage of large-scale development: the framework of scientific and technological innovation system has been fully established, major breakthroughs have been made in several fields, and many scientific and technological indicators are among the best in the world. The third is the stage of high-quality improvement: building an innovative country and blowing the horn of marching into the world’s technological power. At present, the root cause of the problem is that the economic and social development in the new era has required science and technology to enter the stage of high-quality upgrading, while the current evaluation system is still in the stage of large-scale development, which cannot keep up with the new requirements of the new era and new stage of science and technology development.
"In the early stage of scientific research development in domestic universities, encouraging the publication of SCI papers has a positive effect on improving the level of scientific research and should be affirmed. However, as China’s scientific and technological innovation enters the stage of promoting high-quality development with high-quality innovation, if SCI papers are still used as the only indicator to evaluate the level of scientific research, it is a manifestation of lack of self-confidence, which will lead to the loss or even alienation of goals. " Jin Li, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and executive vice president of Fudan University, believes.
According to Yi Fan, president of the Institute of Science and Technology of Shandong University, in recent years, the state has issued a series of policies and measures, such as the State Council’s Opinions on Strengthening Basic Scientific Research in an All-round Way, Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Project Evaluation, Talent Evaluation and Institution Evaluation, and breaking the "Five Merits" and "SCI supremacy". The core is to enhance the original ability of scientific and technological innovation and enhance the quality and contribution of scientific and technological development.
"The contribution of SCI papers exists, which is China’s business card in the world and the expression of China’s academic level and international influence, but this kind of competition should be of high quality. At present, improving quality on the basis of ensuring a certain amount can create a better scientific research atmosphere. " Yi Fan said that breaking the "SCI supremacy" is not to deny the publication of SCI papers, let alone to oppose them, but to encourage the publication of high-quality and constructive papers, not to follow the trend and even lead to academic misconduct.
According to Chen Qiang, a professor in school of economics and management, Tongji University, SCI is just a tool for document retrieval, with its specific screening angle, logic and standards, but it has been overused and distorted.
Chen Qiang analysis, first of all, financial investment in science and technology requires performance audit and needs the support of performance indicators. Scientific research organizations in colleges and universities have a strong administrative color, so it is necessary to promote related work. As a result, in some colleges and universities, SCI papers have become explicit indicators of scientific research level and discipline construction performance, and even turned into "baton" of scientific research activities. Secondly, after the reform and opening up, in the international academic competition in most fields, Chinese universities are mainly in a state of "following". When the academic level and governance maturity are not too high, there are also practical considerations in cost control and efficiency improvement when choosing indicators such as SCI papers. After all, at a specific stage of development, taking SCI papers as academic evaluation indicators is simple, intuitive and easy to understand and implement.
Establish and improve the evaluation system according to the "category"
In terms of how to break the "SCI supremacy" of papers, "Several Opinions" put forward a number of specific measures, such as establishing and improving the classified evaluation system, improving academic peer evaluation, vigorously reducing project evaluation, talent evaluation and institutional evaluation, and reversing the utilitarian tendency of assessment and reward.
Yi Fan believes that the core of Several Opinions is to adhere to the problem orientation and oppose "only papers". It is not to deny the value of papers and oppose the publication of papers. It is necessary to encourage the publication of high-quality papers, return them to the academic essence, and avoid the utilitarianism of papers. Second, adhere to classified management, strengthen peer review, pay attention to the quality of results, highlight the effectiveness of evaluation, and continuously improve scientific and technological evaluation activities. Third, adhere to the combination of breaking and establishing, not only dare to "break" and resolutely break the bad direction of "only papers" in the evaluation of scientific and technological activities, but also be good at "establishing" and establishing new regulations.
Jin Li also believes that the key to the current problem of "SCI supremacy" lies in the fact that the number of papers is linked to the allocation of resources. Therefore, the core of standardizing the use of related indicators of SCI papers in colleges and universities and breaking away from "only papers" and "SCI first" in scientific research evaluation is to get rid of utilitarianism. The key to breaking "SCI supremacy" is not only "breaking", but also how to "stand". Exploring the establishment of an academic evaluation index system that can reasonably measure the contribution value is the embodiment of improving the ability and level of academic governance.
"It is impossible to measure the diversity of scientific research and academic value by using a single index. Classified evaluation, peer evaluation and representative work system are three evaluation principles that reflect the combination of quantitative and qualitative, which is conducive to the construction of ‘ SCI first ’ After the evaluation system. " Jin Li said that the key point is to correctly use the evaluation mechanism of SCI papers, instead of simply using the number of SCI papers, the number of highly cited papers, the level of impact factors and other indicators to evaluate departments, disciplines and teachers, thus forming the orientation of blindly pursuing popularity, highly cited papers and impact factors. According to different disciplines and fields, we should classify scientific research evaluation, and combine the representative work system to distinguish the evaluation criteria of papers in different fields such as basic research, applied research and technology development. At the same time, we should emphasize solving major problems of basic research, major national needs and major industrial applications, and apply them in long-term evaluation such as title promotion and short-term evaluation such as performance accounting according to the principles of accessibility and differentiation. The existing expert peer evaluation should also be improved and refined according to the principle of traceability and accountability.
In Chen Qiang’s view, it is necessary to establish and improve a classified evaluation system based on "category": the laws of basic research, applied research and technological innovation are different, and the research methods and results are different. Under normal circumstances, the basic research cycle is long, with "slow research", "deep research" and "cold research" as the mainstay, and the output is relatively uncertain. Applied research aims to achieve a technological breakthrough in a specific field, or to solve practical problems in production and management practice. It has a clear result orientation and needs to race against time. Technological innovation is even different. It needs one eye to look at the supply side and one eye to look at the demand side, and its performance is more relevant to the market.
"Evaluation work must respect the laws and characteristics of different scientific research fields, broaden the observation dimension, and pay attention to invention patents, engineering schemes, industry standards, specifications, monographs, teaching materials, reference books, proposals, special reports, policy texts, media articles, creative designs and other forms of achievements in addition to high-level papers." Chen Qiang said.
"Thesis is endowed with the function of scientific and technological evaluation because it is the expression carrier of professional knowledge and achievements. Similarly, academic monographs, peer-reviewed scientific and technological reports, and research results that apply or promote technological progress all have the same function as papers as evaluation criteria. The significance of objecting to paper is to find suitable evaluation methods for scientific and technological innovations of different natures. At the same time, scientific and technological reports, academic monographs and other forms of expression can complement the time-sensitive papers in the systematic nature of the results. " Du Ozawa, dean of the Institute of Science and Technology of North China Electric Power University, said.
In terms of peer evaluation, Du Ozawa believes that the professionalism of modern science is getting stronger and stronger, and the division of professional direction is becoming more and more obvious. For the vast majority of researchers, their work and achievements are likely to be meaningful only to their professional fields. Therefore, peer review is the premise and foundation of scientific and objective evaluation mechanism.
"To implement peer review, we should vigorously create a healthy and progressive scientific culture, put an end to the erosion of the unhealthy atmosphere of human society and relationship society in the scientific community, organically combine the popular double-blind review with public review, and establish a personal credit system for researchers." Du Ozawa said.
In addition, Du Ozawa suggested that the long-term representative work system should be implemented in scientific and technological evaluation. Scientific and technological innovation activities have their inherent periodicity and regularity, and the output of high-level achievements is often directly proportional to the investment of researchers in time and concentration. The output of the results is a spiral accumulation process. What ultimately represents a researcher’s level should be his long-term masterpiece. In most cases, the research results in recent years required by the evaluation of professional titles and the selection of talent titles only reflect the active degree of scientific and technological innovation of researchers, and the representative works, including scientific and technological reports, academic monographs and academic papers, can better reflect the height that researchers can reach.
Scientific and technological evaluation should return to the origin of scientific research and technological innovation.
The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out at the 2018 National Education Conference and the Academician Conference of the two academies that "it is necessary to deepen the reform of the education system, improve the implementation mechanism of Lide Shuren, reverse the unscientific orientation of education evaluation, and resolutely overcome the stubborn disease of only grades, only studies, only diplomas, only papers and only hats, and fundamentally solve the baton problem of education evaluation". It is necessary to reform the evaluation system of science and technology, establish a classified evaluation system oriented to the quality, contribution and performance of scientific and technological innovation, and correctly evaluate the scientific value, technical value, economic value, social value and cultural value of scientific and technological innovation achievements. This points out the direction for the reform of evaluation system, and its profound connotation is to emphasize that scientific and technological evaluation should return to the origin of scientific research and technological innovation and liberate scientific and technological personnel from unreasonable evaluation system.
In Lu Jian’s view, from a macro perspective, the problems that need to be paid attention to in China’s current scientific and technological development can be summarized as follows: a pair of contradictions — — The number of papers, citations and patents in China ranks among the best in the world, but its innovation ability is around 20. Two weaknesses — — Key core technologies are controlled by people, and few Nobel Prize winners; Two deviations — — Value deviation (pursuing hats and papers as goals) and behavior deviation (impetuous and utilitarian tendency). We should fully realize the overall situation, process and complexity of the evaluation system reform. This requires planning the problems of "breaking" and "establishing" from the overall perspective.
Nanjing University uses the principle of "one definition", "four transformations", "three reductions" and "three lines superposition" to explore and practice a scientific evaluation system that is more suitable for the needs of the new era.
Lu Jian introduced that "one clarity" means that under the background of "the world is in a great change in a hundred years", standing at the height of the community of human destiny, on the basis of inheriting tradition, we will try our best to explore the original issues such as "what is a university" and "who to train" and rethink the positioning, connotation, structure and function of a university. "Four transformations" is a new paradigm of university development characterized by "new system of talent training, new model of scientific research, new mechanism of team building, new promotion of teachers and students, etc." to lead "transformation of development mode, transformation of development mode, transformation of management mode and transformation of ways of doing things". The "Three Reductions" restore the essential connotation, important extension and measurement methods of related indicators, such as scores, further studies, diplomas, papers and hats, such as personnel training, scientific research and team building, so that various indicators can return to their auxiliary means of measurement in various scenes. The so-called "three-line superposition" means that the perspective of measurement mode is changed from emphasizing only the result to emphasizing the combination of the result and the process, and the evaluation elements are transformed into the three-line superposition of "excellent leading, transformation and improvement, and indicator performance", and then new elements of evaluation are put forward.Such as mode, mechanism, method, efficiency, performance, hierarchy, etc., and their scientific combination, as an alternative path to traditional evaluation methods.
Focusing on the goal of improving academic governance, Nie Zuoren, academician of China Academy of Engineering and vice president of Beijing University of Technology, introduced that the academic committee of Beijing University of Technology has mainly carried out three practical explorations: First, it has established academic evaluation standards oriented to "quality and classification", and established an evaluation index system that pays attention to the quality level of landmark achievements, the contribution to the promotion of this post, the influence of solving the "stuck neck" problem in key national technical fields, and the promotion of scientific and technological progress, highlighting the characteristics of disciplines. The second is to improve the construction of operational mechanism, revise and promulgate seven rules and regulations on the work of academic committees at the two levels of schools and colleges, and enhance the status and role of academic communities in academic evaluation activities. Third, the Code of Academic Ethics and Conduct has been specially formulated, which clearly puts forward a standardized management framework for the academic behavior of teachers and students and promotes academic self-discipline.
"The perfection of scientific and technological evaluation and academic evaluation system is the establishment of orientation and the remolding of values. It is an important part of improving the ability and level of social governance in China and will have a far-reaching impact on China’s scientific research and personnel training. Different universities are at different stages of development and have different needs. According to the spirit of the document, according to their own characteristics and development stages, combined with the actual development of disciplines, we should formulate the management methods and implementation plans for scientific and technological evaluation of our school. " Jin Li believes.