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China fishing in pool of global talent

By Wang Zhuoqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-16 07:45

The academy, one of the ministry-level agencies involved in the program, has already received applications from more than 80 leading minds plying their trade overseas for the second round of recruitment.

And as more talents head to China to improve their career opportunities amid the global financial slowdown, the bar has been raised, said Mu. "We have a larger pool of intelligence to choose from now. We want only the best."

Timing has also played a major part in facilitating the country's recruitment plan. Since the opening up and reforms policy in 1978, millions of Chinese students have flocked overseas for further education.

Three decades later, the number of Chinese-born talents living in Europe and the US has swelled to such a level the government has a massive pool to draw from and reverse the brain drain effect.

"The people who went abroad back then are now in their 40s or 50s and in the prime of their careers," said Miao. "It is only in recent years we have had such a large number of already experienced scientists and researchers to target and lure back."

In switching to an innovation-based economy, while all the time reducing its reliance on the export industry, China must compete with the world's most advanced nations by attracting more of the world's most advanced minds, said Miao.

Injecting extra world-class talent into its science and technology research would be a shortcut to success, she said, with the added bonus their international experience and shared practices would also help nurture young brilliant minds.

China's leaders have made filling the country's pool of talent a priority in recent years in a bid to reverse its long-term lack of sufficient input in science and innovation and to tap potentially unexplored fields, she said.

And they have not been alone. United Nations statistics show that by the end of 2006, around 30 countries had revamped their immigration policies to attract the world's leading minds, 17 of which were developed countries.

"The competition for human resources has always existed. But China didn't have much chance previously," added Miao.

High salaries and sufficient funding are necessary for attracting the overseas elite, but some still doubt whether professors will make the jump.

"I hope the plan can attract truly world-class talent to China," said Wen Xiaogang, a professor from the department of physics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. "In my opinion, China should attract those who can set up a world-class research group or lab in China and generate world-class research in the next 10 years."

To find out who fits that bill, however, Wen added recommendation letters from the leaders of each field were very important.

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