来源：饶毅科学

1 问：为了吸引更多科学人才，无论是归国还是第一次来中国，中国需要做什么？更多经费？改变学术文化/出版压力？还是中国迄今每一样都做对了，只需要时间？

答：中国大量投入科学，过去二十年几乎是指数增长。所以，虽然需要经费增长，但它不是目前的关键。择优支持科学家及其好的科学是关键。有良心的一流科学家支持一流科学家，二流科学家或没有良心的科学家支持三流科学家。出版问题都从属于谁支持谁做什么。

18 年前，施一公和我在清华北大生命科学学院的改革就是支持最好的科学家做好的科学。现在这是金标准：合理的支持、最佳的结果。中国很多单位现在大量投入经费支持庸俗的科学，只以通过低品位编辑而发表文章为唯一目的。这种文章在中国认为是检验成功的公平指标。这带来了前所未有的问题，中国在高显示度杂志发表大量无意义的文章、在低显示度杂志发表大量造假文章。创造了世界历史上单一国家从未达到的绝对数量和相对比例。

2 问：看来，许多返回中国的科研人员大致可分为两类：一类是为数不多的已经功成名就的学者，其中一些人可能已接近退休年龄（或者是因为诸如「中国行动计划」等因素而被迫离开）；另一类是职业生涯早期的科研人员，他们在美时间不长且在美没有太多牵绊。似乎像您或施一公这样在美国已经功成名就但仍然相对年轻 / 处于职业生涯中期的回流学者并不多。您认为这是为什么？而中国吸引更多的此类人群是否重要？

答：中国已经制定了许多新政策来支持高年资人才招聘，比如：取消强制退休，并提供了个性化的一揽子待遇。但的确，最好能有更多的 50 或 45 岁以下的，正处于职业发展中期的人才，他们拥有足够的经验且未来可期。

问题出在双方：中国的大多数机构对高年资人才招聘持抵制态度，因为机构领导自私，尽管上级有指示，但他们并没有为机构的利益而工作；而在国外工作的大多数中国人缺乏责任感，只关注个人的短期利益，而不感到需要为中国的未来。

3 问：您在我们上次谈话中提到，当您那一代人去美国时，看到的是美国最好的一面 —— 开放、象牙塔等，并错误地认为它代表了整个美国。您能否详细说明一下您当时的意思？

答：在 20 世纪 80 年代初，中国和美国在许多方面形成了鲜明对比。对科研人员来说，中国的教学质量差且研究支持有限。美国的研究生所得的报酬几乎比中国资深教授收入的 30 多倍还多。科研的基本条件更是相差甚远。当时，有幸能去美国的中国教授们，会从他们访问过的美国实验室收集一次性试管，并带回中国重复使用。美国的教授和科研机构慷慨地欢迎中国学生，并为大多数无法支付学费的中国学生提供全额奖学金。美国的教学比中国的教学更加深入且广泛。在我在加州大学旧金山分校读研的第一个学期，我学到的东西超过了在中国两年所学的东西。

我们大多数人都对新知识感到兴奋，并且热衷于与美国的教职员工和学生交流。但在中国，我从未听说过有任何一位教授能够像加州大学旧金山分校的路易斯・莱克哈特一样，他是一位神经生物学教授，却攀登过珠穆朗玛峰；或者像布鲁斯・阿尔伯茨一样，他是《细胞分子生物学》这本全世界通用的教材的作者，并曾担任《科学》杂志主编；或者像罗恩・维尔一样，他是一位年轻教授，在《细胞》期刊上发表了 4 篇第一作者论文后发现了新蛋白质（驱动蛋白）。我的同学中有一位是哈佛大学的毕业生，曾在巴黎工作。那个时期 UCSF 的研究生中有一位是诺贝尔化学奖得主达德利・赫施巴赫的女儿，还有一位面试 UCSF 神经科学项目的学生是约翰・霍普菲尔德的女儿。在我在哈佛大学做博士后时，我的实验室同伴中有冯诺依曼的唯一外孙以及一位诺贝尔物理学奖得主的弟弟。他们超级聪明，同时又善良且勤奋。冯诺依曼的孙子在哈佛大学读研期间发现了 PI3K。我们被迎入了这样一个社区，那里为我们提供了一个即使是在现在的中国也找不到的智力环境。

4 问：您是否听到更多您认识的美国科学家最近表示他们打算回到中国？促使人们做出回国决定的主要因素有哪些 —— 政治因素（中国行动计划、签证问题）、经济 / 职业相关因素（科研经费削减、针对华裔学者的「竹子天花板 」）、个人因素等？

答：很多人都在谈论（离开美国）这个问题，不仅有美籍华人，还有非华裔的美国人。科学家需要稳定的资助来进行富有创意且高风险的科研工作。对美籍华人来说，意识到美国并非未来之光，而是有着根深蒂固的种族歧视的地方，这是艰难且苦涩的。我在 2005 年公开向《科学》杂志抱怨的「竹子天花板」现在已经成为一个小问题。另一个重要因素是，尽管许多美籍华人热爱和崇拜美国大学和教授，但现在他们意识到自己的这种崇拜是盲目跟风，直到今天，他们才发现，当美国政府将资金作为筹码时，美国大学和教授在道德上并不勇敢。很多过去十八年讨厌我警告的人现在意识到，我比他们曾崇拜的那些美国人勇敢，这已经不再是笑话。

5 问：北京大学和其他中国机构是否已经加大了招聘力度，以应对美国日益变化的环境？您在微信群中曾经提到，您愿意帮助任何想要离开美国并在其他地方寻找工作的人。

答：中国已经制定了许多新政策来欢迎来自其他国家的科学家，不论其出身。就我个人而言，我愿意帮助任何优秀的科学家，包括帮助他们找到合适的岗位，并协商一个合理优厚的一揽子待遇，我甚至会尝试看看他们未来在中国的工作所产生的所有知识产权是否可以完全属于他们自己。

我的想法是，中国和中国机构将支持科学家们开展优秀的科研工作，而不是为了知识产权。与全人类利益相关的优秀科研工作相比，知识产权在国家层面上只是一件微不足道的小事。我的想法是，中国应该成为所有优秀科学家的避风港，不是出于经济原因，而是出于道德原因以及全人类的共同利益。

6 问：那么阻碍人们回到中国的主要顾虑是什么？

答：对于美籍华人来说，他们心存疑虑的部分是因为他们不了解所有的政策变化。对于非华人，他们被西方媒体蒙蔽了，那些媒体非常无知且经常发布不真实的信息。

7 问：西湖大学的模式是中国吸引国际人才的最佳方式吗？宁波东方理工大学、福建福耀科技大学好像也类似？或者，中国的传统大学是否也开始成功地吸引人们从世界各地前来？

答：西湖大学当然是一个很好的模式。北京大学、清华大学、首都医学科学创新中心中心（CIMR）、北京脑科学研究所（CIBR）、北京生命科学研究所（NIBS）、南方科技大学、中国科学院都是很好的机构。

宁波东方理工大学是崭新的大学，很好的大学。福耀？我不能确定。有待观察它可以办好、还是瞎搞。并非像有钱人想象的有钱就容易办好大学。单有经费一项不足以办好大学。

8 问：您提到，像北京大学这样的中国大学仍在鼓励中国学生出国留学，但其实是学生们自己更不愿意去。这是为什么？当您鼓励学生出国留学时，您是否就是否留在国外或之后回国的问题给他们提供一些建议？

答：学生和他们的父母担心安全问题。没人愿意把孩子送去一个充满不确定性的地方。我希望那些已经在美的学生能够坚持下来，完成学业后再回国。但如果他们必须回国，中国会想出办法欢迎他们回来。

9 问：您说，考虑从美国转到中国工作的理工学科学者不必担心政治环境或政治限制会侵犯他们的工作或学术自由，这是正确的吗？

答：在中国，过去 40 年来，理工学科学者所研究的内容没有任何限制。在中国，理工学研究者享有完全的学术自由。我曾开玩笑说，我让实验室做研究是提供我讲笑话的资料。从来没人要求我收回这个说法，也没有任何机构试图干预。科学被交到了科学家手中。出于同样的原因，我会指责科研人员们所犯的错误科学和欺诈行为，并且不允许他们把责任推卸到机构上。

10 问：总的来说，在您回国后的这些年里，您是否注意到人们对您决定的态度发生了变化 —— 即从最初的惊讶到现在认为这是一个非常普遍或可以理解的选择？

答：不同的人在选择工作地点时有不同的理由。我的理由非常不同，许多人仍无法理解：科学家应该为高于个人有限利益的目的而工作。

· In order to attract more top-tier scientific talent — whether to return or to come in the first place – what does China need to do? More funding? Change to academic culture/publishing pressure? Or is it mostly doing everything right so far, it just needs time?

China has invested in science heavily, almost exponentially over the last twenty years. So, while funding should increase, it is not the key factor at this stage. Supporting scientists based on merit and their good science is the key. 1st rate scientists with good conscience recruit and support 1st rate scientists. Scientists of the 2nd rate or bad conscience support 3rd rate scientists. The problems with publishing are all secondary to who are supporting whom for what.

The reform that Yigong Shi and I carried out 18 years ago at Tsinghua and Peking Schools of Life Sciences have made sure that the best are recruited and supported for good science. They are now the gold standards: reasonable support and best outcome. Many institutions in China are simply pouring in funds for mediocre science: science with the sole purpose of publishing through editors with bad tastes, but such papers are viewed in China as objective and thus fair measures of achievements. This culture has resulted in historically unprecedented problem of lots of meaningless papers in high visibility journals and more fraudulent papers in low visibility papers. This has not happened with any other country either in absolute numbers or proportions of papers published by a single country.

· It seems that many of the returnees to China generally fall into two categories: a smaller number of very established scholars, some of whom may be approaching retirement age (or were pushed out by things like the China Initiative); and early career scientists who haven’t spent much time in the US and don’t have many ties there. It seems that there have not been as many returnee scholars like yourself or Shi Yigong, who were well established and successful in the US but still relatively young/mid-career. Why do you think that is? And is it important for China to attract more of that demographic?

China has instituted many new policies to support senior recruitment, eliminating retirement requirements and offering individual packages.

But you are right in pointing that out: it would be ideal to have more recruits younger than 50 or 45 years of age, with enough experience and much future. The problem lies on both sides: most Chinese institutions are resistant to senior recruitment because institutional leaders are selfish and do not work for the interests of their institutions despite instructions from higher-ups; most Chinese working in other countries do not have a sense of responsibilities and look only at their personal short-term interests but not the future of China.

· You mentioned in our last conversation that when your generation went to the US, what you saw was the best of the US – open-minded, ivory tower etc. — and you mistakenly took it to represent all of the US. Can you expand on what you meant?

In the early 1980s, there was a stark contrast between China and the US in many aspects. For scientists, training was poor and support of minimum. A graduate student in the US was paid more than 30 times that of a senior professor in China. The basic conditions for research were even more different. Professors in China, the lucky ones who had chance to go to the US, would collect disposable tubes from the US labs they visited, and bring them back to China for re-use. American professors and institutions were generous in welcoming Chinese students and offered full scholarships for most Chinese students who could not pay for tuition. Teaching in the US was much deeper and broad than that in China. In the first semester of my graduate studies at UCSF, I learned more than what I learned in two years in China. Most of us were excited in new learnings and in meeting American faculty members and students. I have never heard of any professors in China who could be like: Louis Reichardt at UCSF who was a professor in neurobiology but had climbed Mount Everest, Bruce Alberts who was an author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell used by the entire world, or Ron Vale who was a young professor after having published 4 first author papers in Cell discovering a new protein (kinesin). My classmate included a Harvard graduate who had worked in Paris. One graduate student in that period was a daughter of Dudley Herschbash, and a student who interviewed with the UCSF neuroscience program was a daughter of John Hoppfield. When I was a postdoc at Harvard, my labmates included the only grandson of John von Neumann and the young brother of a Nobel physic prize winner. They were super-smart, kind and hardworking at the same time. John von Neumann’s grandson discovered PI3k while a graduate student at Harvard. Being welcomed into such a community provided us with an intellectual environment that could not be found in China even now.

· Have you heard from more people you know in the US that they are looking to come back to China lately? What are the primary causes driving people’s decisions to return – political (China Initiative, visas), financial/career-related (funding cuts for research,『bamboo ceiling』for Chinese scholars), personal, etc.?

Many are talking about this, not only Chinese Americans, but Americans of non-Chinese origin as well. Scientists require stable support for creative and high-risk research. For Chinese Americans, realizing that the US is not a beacon of the future, and actually harbors deep rooted racism is hard and bitter. Bamboo ceiling which I publicly complained to Science magazine in 2005 is now a small issue.

Another important factor is that, while many Chinese Americans love and worship American universities and professors, they now realize that they have idolized those and found out neither American universities nor American professors are courageous morally when the US government put their funding on the line. It is no longer a joke that many who have hated my warnings over the last 18 years now realize that I am much more courageous than the Americans they used to worship.

· Have PKU and other Chinese institutions stepped up their recruiting efforts in response to the changing climate in the US? You mentioned in a WeChat group that you were willing to help anyone who was looking to leave the US and find employment elsewhere.

China has instituted many new policies to welcome scientists from other countries, regardless of their origins. Personally, I am willing to help any good scientist, including helping them with finding a good match, and negotiating a reasonable good package, to the extent that I would try to see whether all intellectual properties (IP) they generate in future work in China can completely belong to them. The idea is that China and Chinese institutions will support scientists for good science, not for IPs. Those are petty, at the national level, compared to good science for the benefit of the entire human kind. My idea is for China to be a safe haven for all good scientists, not for economic reasons, but for moral reasons and for the common interests of all human beings.

· What are the main concerns holding people back from returning to China?

For Chinese Americans, there are lingering doubts partly because they do not know all the policy changes. For non-Chinese, they are blinded by Western media which are often ignorant and put out images that are not true.

· Is the Westlake University model the best way for China to attract more international talent? Or are more traditional Chinese universities also starting to succeed in attracting people to return/come from around the world?

Westlake University is certainly a great model. Peking, Tsinghua, the Chinese Institutes for Medical Research (CIMR), the Chinese Institute for Brain Research (CIBR), the National Institute for Biological Sciences (NIBS), Southern University of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences are all good institutions.

· Is the Westlake University model replicable? I see there are efforts to do something similar in places like 宁波东方理工大学 and 福耀科技大学。 How do you see the prospects of this model becoming more widespread in China?

The Ningbo Eastern University of Science is a brand new one, and good one. Fuyao, I am not sure. It remains to be seen whether it is really run properly or messed up. Universities are not as easy as some rich people think. There is no guarantee that funding alone can make a good university.

· Has it become more difficult for Chinese universities to recruit overseas/returnee talent from the US given the restrictions on academic exchange and the difficulty for scholars in the US to travel to China?

That is a factor, but minor. It can not block people who really want to leave the US.

· You mentioned that Chinese universities like PKU are still encouraging Chinese students to go study abroad, but it’s the students themselves who are more reluctant to go. Why is that? And when you do encourage students to go study abroad, are you giving them any advice on whether to stay abroad or return to China afterwards?

Students and their parents are worried about security. No one wants to send a child to a place with so much uncertainties. I hope those students who are already in the US will stick out and finish their education before returning. But, if they have to return, China will work out a way to welcome them back.

· You said that STEM scholars considering changing from working in the US to working in China do not need to worry about the political environment/political restraints infringing on their work or academic freedom, is that correct?

In China, over the last 40 years, there is no restriction on what STEM scholars can work on. There is total academic freedom for STEM scholars in China. I once joked that I only get my lab to work so that I have more jokes to make. No one ever asked me to retract that statement, and no institution ever tried to intervene. Science is left in the hands of scientists. For the same reason, I blame researchers for bad science and frauds they committed, allowing them no shifting of blames to institutions.

· In general, in the years since you’ve returned, have you noticed a change in people’s attitudes toward your decision — i.e. From initial surprise to now it being a very common or understandable choice?

Different people have different reasons when choosing where to work. Mine is very different and many still can not understand: a scientist should work on purposes higher than one’s limited self-interests.

Chinese scientists have long flocked to American universities, lured by the promise of a world-class education and resources that their home country could not provide. In the 1980s, Chinese scientists who visited the United States would collect disposable test tubes to reuse in China, said Rao Yi, a neurobiologist at Peking University in Beijing,who studied and worked in the United States for two decades.

The admiration continued even as China’s economy boomed. In 2020, nearly one-fifth of Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering and mathematics awarded in the United States went to students from China, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Historically, the vast majority of those Ph.D.s stayed in the United States — 87 percent between 2005 and 2015, the data showed.

Professor Rao at Peking University said that China’s progress in recruiting international talent had also been hampered by jealousy among domestic colleagues.

Professor Rao Yi, left, watching students doing research in a laboratory at Peking University, in Beijing, on Friday.

Credit Andrea Verdelli for The New York Times

「While funding should increase, it is not the key factor at this stage,」 Professor Rao said. 「Supporting scientists based on merit and their good science is the key.」