An exploration on the flow of leading research talents in China: from the perspective of distinguished young scholars

Understanding the flow characteristics of talents is a task of great significance for talents cultivating, talent structure optimizing, talent policy making, etc. In this paper, we investigate the flow of leading research talents in China based on the academic career data of Distinguished Young Scholars sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. We explore the flow characteristics from perspectives of time, region, and institution type. We find (1) over 40% of the Distinguished Young Scholars have flow experiences and (a) the flow rate reaches the highest in 5–10 years of the scholars’ academic career or in 1–5 years before receiving the Distinguished Young Scholars Fund, (b) as the working year grows, scholars are more inclined to take on part-time responsibilities (as, e.g., visiting professors); (2) the flow of Distinguished Young Scholars mainly occurs in the provinces with the most sufficient science and education resources, while the inflow and outflow provinces are becoming more balanced in the recent years; (3) the flow of talents within colleges and universities is more frequent than research institutes, while research institutes are facing a severe problem of brain drain. We designed questionnaires for the Distinguished Young Scholars in hope of finding potential causes of their flows. We find that (4) the most influential factors (to talent flow) are personal research ability improvement, career development and work environment, followed by the (inflow) institution’s reputation, compensation and benefits, and the (inflow) province’s Science and Technology Policies environment.