Chinese university research audit finds little real-world impact

Questions are being asked about how Chinese universities spend their research grants after an audit found scientific projects funded with public money have little practical application.

The latest annual report by the audit office of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region investigated the governmental funding received by nine local higher education institutions from 2020 to 2022.

One university with accumulated funding of 131 million yuan (£14 million) invested in 862 science and research projects, and none of them were found to have resulted in “knowledge transfer” such as being used by industry to develop products, according to local media.

“Though knowledge transfer is not as simple as the public thinks, especially in basic science, the figure is still shocking and stresses many issues of the efficiency of funded research projects,” a professor of higher education based in Hunan, who asked not to be named, told Times Higher Education.

China’s research and development spending was reported to have surpassed 3 trillion yuan for the first time last year. The official figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China in August said 7.8 per cent of the spending went to higher education institutions.

According to the annual report on patents in China by its National Intellectual Property Administration, 16.9 per cent of invention patents registered by Chinese universities were authorised to be produced, of which 3.9 per cent were industrialised.

“The evaluation indexes vary according to different disciplines and different levels of projects,” Futao Huang, professor of higher education at Hiroshima University, told Times Higher Education. 

“Therefore, the problem lies in figuring out what types of projects are announced by Guangxi Province; what are the evaluation indexes for these projects, and whether all the results of the projects must become a transfer of knowledge and contribute for the market.”

According to an annual report by China’s National Center for Science and Technology Evaluation, the top three areas with the largest contract value by higher education knowledge transfer were manufacturing, science research and technology services, and health and social work in 2021.

The professor in Hunan pointed out obstacles in efficient funding management. He said: “The process relies heavily on self-discipline, which needs the collaboration between the relevant department and the finance office of the university. Another issue is that many academics put more effort in applying for the funding than the management afterwards.”

Professor Huang, who has conducted research on transparency in research funding in East Asia, added: “China has strict rules and regulations on the use of research funding, so researchers are required to put certain amounts of time and effort to fulfil the relevant responsibilities.

“But in terms of transparency, for example, researchers need to disclose all the details of the government-funded research projects, including the progress and results, which China needs to further improve.”

karen.liu@timeshighereducation.com