Translated from www.people.com

As the symposium to memorize the decade since the application of national young scientists’ fund opened in Beijing today, the reporter got the opportunity to interview the head of NSFC, Prof. Chen Yiyu. Here are some of the conversations:

Z: Zhao Yahui, reporter from People’s Daily

C: Chen Yiyu

Z: NBIC remains the theme under constant focus in this symposium. But what does NBIC exactly mean?

C: As a new concept recently introduced by the international community, NBIC means the coordination and merge of four thriving science and technological fields, namely nanotechnology, biology(including pharmaceutics and genetic engineering), information technology(including advanced computer and communication) and cognition( including cognitive neurology). People tend to put the abbreviation of these four fields together, thus comes NBIC.

Each of these four fields maintains its momentum in the rapid development nowadays. The combination of them two, three or even four will produce unpredictable results. NBIC converging technology represents frontier areas in world science and technology. With their development, human lives’ quality will be improved; intellectual technology will be upgraded and expanded, together with improving of social innovation ability and product level, thus the increase of national compatibility in the world. In the symposium this time, we invited five scholars to give speeches on their cross-disciplinary study of these fields. Besides, more than ten scholars would talk on different aspects within these topics in the divisional meetings. The purpose of us doing this is to promote the idea of NBIC converging science in China.

Z: As world science and technology develops so fast, the world, including China, kept their eyes on the Nobel Prize this year. What do you think of the Nobel Prize of Natural Science this year? Do you think China still lag a lot behind the western scientific research level?

C: This year’s Nobel Prize has given us a lesson: even trivial problems could trigger a big issue, shown by the fact that the prize winner Richard Aksell and Linda Bark just studied the olfactory system of human beings, which would be considered a very trivial research. But it is right such a seeming insignificant study that represents the highest level of biology and its direction.

As for Chinese science, in spite of a very rapid increase of basic science in the past decade, we have to admit that Chinese still lag a lot behind the world advanced level. But with the fast development of national economy, our scientific innovation ability will be raised too. We have reason to believe that so long as Chinese scientists take an active part in international communication and competition, Chinese science and technology can realize a leapfrog development.

Z: The National Fund for Chinese Young Scientists was started in 1994. What the purpose for setting up such a fund?

C: In the spring of 1994, the National Fund for Chinese Young Scientists was set up with the allowance from State Council. It is specially set aside for those outstanding scientists under the age of 45 for their study and application of natural sciences within China. The past decade has witnessed productive results, as more and more scientific staff and scientific leaders come into being with its encouragement.

Z: During the past decade, this fund has financed 1174 scientists in China altogether. Can we say that these scientists show the ability and academic level of all the young Chinese scientific staff?

C: I would like to say yes. Statistics show that 23 winners of this fund were selected academician of CAS and 7 the academician of CAES during 1997-2003. the newly elected academicians to CAS are all winners of the national fund for Chinese young scientists so long as they are under 50. Another figure shows that 15 the fund winners were also prized the second in National Natural Science . 50 out of the 150 national 973 Project have been headed by the winners of this fund. I would also mention the 76 innovation groups financed by NFSC, among which 67 are led by winners of National fund for Chinese young scientists.

Z: As is known to all that a nation depends on its young talents for prospering, how do you look at Chinese current situation of natural science workers?

C: looking back, we are happy to see the great change Chinese scientists have achieved, such as the increase of total number of scientific staff to 80,000 and the coming of young forces in the places of the senior forces. But we should also be aware of the four shortcomings Chinese face now: first, our general academic level is low, lacking first-rate scientists to lead our scientific research in certain aspects effectively. Secondly, compared with the standard percentage of a well-off country, Chinese scientific workers are twice or thrice of the total faculty numbers, far too many than the regulated 8%. Thirdly, administrative system of a scientific research institute needs improving. Finally, we have to talk about the disequilibrium of talents in China, with less than enough scientists working in the west.

Z: What do you suggest we should do to solve these problems?