National Astronomical Observatories in China

Abstract

In her News Focus article “In china, publish or perish is becoming the new reality” (23 Feb., p. [1477][1]), Ding Yimin says that I, as director of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory (now the National Astronomical Observatories), “decided that no one over the age of 50 could be chosen for KIP [the Knowledge Innovation Program].” However, this is not the case. Of the 91 staff members at the observatory who were chosen for KIP, four are over the age of 60, and a further 20 are over the age of 50. Regarding publishing incentives, we do indeed have a limited bonus scheme here to encourage staff to publish in journals listed in the Science Citation Index ( SCI ). Average earnings from bonuses amount to 10 to 15% of an individual's total income. However, this should not be confused with recruitment or funding policies. At this observatory, basic research is conducted side by side with technological development and the making of astronomical observations. We therefore recognize that research papers are just one, albeit very important, aspect of an observatory's output. Decisions about whom to support under KIP are made by a selection committee that takes publications as well as other contributions into account. There is certainly no policy here to support only those researchers who have published a paper in a SCI -listed journal or one such paper per year. In fact, 60% of our staff members receiving KIP support have not published a paper in such journals in the last 2 years. I also note that my name was misspelled throughout the article. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.291.5508.1477