Chinese Academy of Sciences (PDF) - low res version

6
Chen Chusheng
“As a result
of the past 30
years’ effort,
we have taken
the leading role
among steady-
state, long-pulse
tokamak facilities
Li Can
in the world.”
of review that faculty must pass every four
years. “Our criteria are very simple. We say
that if you can publish in a recognized highquality
journal, then you are reviewed in a
sense by international peers,” he says. “If
you do not have really good papers published
in four years, then you have to show
the international review team that your work
has potential that deserves continuing support.”
Poo credits these high standards with
gaining international recognition for China’s
neuroscience research. “We have the same
practices you find in first-rate universities in
the United States or in Europe,” he says.
Another SIBS institute, the PICB, takes
internationalization even further. Founded
in 2005 as the world’s first center dedicated
to computational biology, PICB draws
both Chinese and foreign faculty members.
Though he admits that there were
some kinks to be ironed out in working at
the interface of two different administrative
systems, PICB’s founding director, Andreas
Dress, says it was worth the trouble. “Science
is not a zero-sum game, but a cooperative
game,” he says. “The more people
that are involved in science, the better it
gets.” Accordingly, Dress ensured that the
PICB built strong ties not only with institutions
in the West, but also with others in the
region. “There is good science not only in
the United States and Western European
countries… people working
on these projects all around
China need to cooperate
with each other,” he says.
While international cooperation
is a theme at most
CAS institutes, many also
have research programs
geared toward addressing
near-term national needs. In
CAS’s early years, geology
programs were focused on
finding natural resources;
these days, the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE,
see page 28) uses remote sensing and modeling to identify sites with gold
and other mineral deposits. But today’s CAS institutes also develop increasingly
sophisticated uses for the country’s resources. For example,
scientists at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) were the first to
successfully convert coal to light olefins, which can be used as fuel in lieu
of petroleum products. (Coal is abundant in China, petroleum less so.) The
institute licenses the technology to companies and runs its own commercial
plant, which made more than US$200 million in profits last year. Meanwhile,
DICP’s Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (DNL), officially
opened in 2011, is working on a range of energy solutions, from efficiency
to better storage to biomass and solar sources. “This lab was built with a
new concept,” says DNL Director Li Can. “We try to integrate academic
research from universities, institutes, and from industry, and also start from
basic research and take it through to commercialization.” One promising
area of research for the lab is artificial photosynthesis; scientists there are
designing catalysts that can use solar energy to both split water to generate
hydrogen fuel and convert carbon dioxide and water to methanol.
The focus on the environment goes far beyond the search for clean energy
sources. Beijing’s Institute of Botany has set up six field research stations
in Inner Mongolia to study best management practices for China’s four
million square kilometers of grasslands, much of which is used as pasture.
The institute has proposed setting up special zones in which practices like
fertilization and irrigation would increase productivity in some sections of
grassland, while others would be put aside for national parks and ecotourism
zones. This would increase productivity while reversing the degradation
found on 90% of China’s grasslands today, says institute Director
Fang Jingyun.
Across town, at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,
scientists are working on new ways to remediate water, air, and soil pollution.
In the first category, they have engineered wetlands near cities to improve
water quality, and are developing new ways to remove toxins such as
arsenic and fluoride in water treatment plants. Another project developed a
catalytic method to clean air, then licensed it to air purifier makers in China
and abroad. “Our research develops very quickly from the basic research
to application,” says Center Director Qu Jiuhui. “We put our research results
into practice, and also we use our practical experience to identify new
scientific problems.”
Education
Training the next generation of scientists has been a key part of CAS’s
mission since its beginnings. “In the 1950s, CAS was the initiator, together
with the then-Ministry of Higher Education, of the higher education system
in China,” says Lü. “The system was interrupted during the Cultural Revolution,
but in the 1970s, CAS was the first to resume the graduate education
system,” awarding the country’s first doctorate degrees in the 1980s. Today
CAS operates two universities, the Graduate University of CAS (GUCAS)
and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC); its 110
research institutes also play a key role in graduate education.
Students at GUCAS, China’s largest graduate university, follow a unique
program. The first year is spent completing coursework in Beijing, while
in subsequent years students fan out to CAS institutes to complete their
research projects. Many institute professors site this as an advantage of
the CAS system, since it frees them from lecture obligations while providing
GUCAS’s 35,000 students with a standardized curriculum and plenty of
hands-on experience.
USTC, located in Hefei (a few hours from Shanghai by high-speed train),
educates both undergraduates and graduates. With almost 18,000 current
CREDIT: PHOTOS BY RICKY WONG