Note: The reporters interviewed in this article are Chen Jing and Liu Fangyuan, and it was first published in China Social Science News, and is hereby shared.
Academic awards are a very important thing in the process of academic research. True academic awards are sacred, full of honor and responsibility. The awarders are upright and impartial; The winners are well-deserved and honored; The latecomers thought it was a high standard and yearned for it. It can be said that serious and fair academic awards play an important role in promoting academic prosperity, deepening theoretical research, and carrying forward the fine style of study.
At present, various academic awards have sprung up in the academic world, and scholars often face various awards. Among them, there are many scientific and fair awards, which are recognized by the academic community; However, it is undeniable that impetuousness and unhealthy trends are also spreading and eroding academic awards.
Some scholars have reported that some academic awards have evolved into a free academic market, with similar forms and mixed rules, and the prevalence of professional awards, interest groups, and unspoken rules completely deviate from the main purpose of academic awards themselves.
Academic awards are mixed
Zhang Zhuoyuan, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who has served as the secretary-general of the Sun Yefang Economics Award for a long time, talked about the evaluation process of the award. He said that in general, about 100 books and 150-200 papers apply for the award each session, and the award cycle lasts 3-4 months. There are two ways for the awardees to apply: one is to apply by themselves and ask for expert recommendations; The second is to ask important publications, publishing houses and newspapers to recommend them. The members of the primary selection team are a researcher recommended by each research institute of the Faculty of Economics, and a professor from Peking University, Renmin University, Fudan University, Xiamen University, and Nankai University. Now it is in the form of a meeting, and the main thing is to do more preparations. He also stressed that some books and articles have to be evaluated and put forward by other experts because of the small number of relevant experts in the primary selection team.
Zhang Zhuoyuan said that in order to be as objective and fair as possible and to withstand scrutiny, the awards should be scarce rather than indiscriminate, and monographs and articles should be recommended to the award committee only when they form a relatively consistent opinion, otherwise experts will be constantly invited to read them. Even so, there are still attempts to influence the outcome of the award in various ways. Zhang Zhuoyuan confessed that he had encountered this kind of situation, such as someone who said that as long as he could win the award, he could not have a bonus, and he could even donate money. "The 'Sun Yefang Economics Award' is serious, and you don't charge a penny for applying for the award, and you must meet the standards before you give the award, and it is absolutely not okay to give favors."
At the same time, however, more than one scholar expressed his sentiment about some of the academic awards. The major misconduct of academic awards in their mouths can be roughly summarized into the following three aspects.
First, academic awards are becoming alienated, not awards, but judges; Instead of highlighting academics, it becomes social, it becomes a PR act. Academic awards have become academic communication fields, and scholars have transformed into "courtesans" who are "good at dancing".
Second, academic awards have become a good means to make a fortune, the awarders pull sponsorship, and the evaluated people gain fame and fortune, forming a chain of interests. Serious academic awards are tainted with the stench of copper and turn into profit-seeking business practices.
Third, some judges are both referees and athletes. Indiscriminate awards, bad awards, and academic awards have become academic vanity fairs for inbreeding and "raising awards without avoiding relatives".
The human factor is particularly complex
The award itself is an objective act, why has it become a major driver of academic corruption and academic misconduct?
Some review experts argued that this is closely related to the entire social atmosphere, and the number of applications is too large, many of them are works, and the award criteria are not easy to operate. Entrants questioned that unfair results could not be blamed on procedures and systems. A really good program does not guarantee that the result is correct, but it can ensure that the error is corrected in time. In addition, who will supervise the review experts?
The two sides insist on their own words, which also verifies the words of Sun Zhengyu, a professor at Jilin University who has been a judge of various philosophy and social science awards for a long time, "The award itself is indeed particularly complex and difficult. First of all, compared with the award project, the award is a kind of evaluation of the results, which has both a relatively easy to operate side and a more difficult side to operate. Good operation because it is not a review of something that is expected not to exist, but a review of what has been formed, and in this sense it has definite objects. Secondly, because it is something that has already been formed, the large workload brings a lot of difficulties to the reviewers. ”
Xue Fengxuan, director of the Institute of Contemporary China Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, said, "Hong Kong scholars rarely participate in the evaluation of mainland awards, because they suffer more in terms of interpersonal relationships, and mainland academics also have different views on SCI and SSCI."
Professor Ye Xianming of Capital Normal University was very emotional. He told reporters that academic misconduct in academic awards should attract greater attention in the academic community. Many scholars believe that this phenomenon is widespread, but the extent of the harm and the severity of the problem is only from an abstract point of view, and it is difficult for ordinary scholars to understand it concretely. Only one's own perceptual understanding at the time of the evaluation can prove the previous abstract understanding. In 2010, he participated in the award of outstanding achievements in philosophy and social sciences in a certain city, and although his book "Critique of "Knowledge Economy" was affirmed by all parties, it was "reversed elimination" in the award, and the relevant institutions have not given any reasonable explanation and explanation.
Ye Xianming believes that academic misconduct in Chinese academic circles, including academic corruption in other fields, often occurs in the middle of procedures, and the reason why it cannot be detected or is difficult to investigate is because it conforms to procedures, which requires further improvement of the evaluation system.
Some experts also pointed out that the humanities and social sciences are not as immediate as the achievements of the natural sciences, and their results are difficult to define, and some unfair awards are more likely to occur. In addition, there is room for some rules to be manipulated, so that there are often problems, so that many awards are not over, and some people know the inside story and know who will win the award.
The Hong Kong Academic Awards are designed to stabilize young scholars
What are the deep-seated reasons why the academic community is keen to award awards, scholars are keen to win awards, and the society is keen to hold awards?
Ding Guoqi, an associate researcher at the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the main reason for the award is that the title is more affordable, and many units directly link the evaluation of the title with the award; At the same time, generous bonuses are also tempting. In addition, the honor brought by winning the award and the recognition of my academic performance are important reasons for the award fever.
Unlike in the mainland, senior professors in Hong Kong are indifferent to whether they win the prize or not. Xue Fengxuan introduced that the eight major universities in Hong Kong do not have their own evaluation system, and the practice is to use the West as the standard, and see how many articles by scholars in SCI and SSCI have the impact factor, and winning awards is not linked to the evaluation of professional titles. In addition, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong have set up "Outstanding Research Awards" and "Young Outstanding Research Awards", which are mainly for doctoral and postdoctoral fellows who have just entered the university. For example, a young professor in the department whose contract is about to expire and wants him to stay and continue to work, then it is necessary to create conditions for him to stay and strive for this award.
Are Hong Kong scholars satisfied with the SCI and SSCI evaluation systems? "It's a big complaint," Xue Fengxuan said. Talking about the reasons, he analyzed that relying on the evaluation standards based on English in the West, there are objective places, and there are also non-objective and unscientific factors. For example, important papers in Japan, France, and Germany are published in their own magazines and in their own languages, but they are not necessarily reflected in these two systems, and some good articles in Chinese mainland are not reflected in the system. In addition, SCI and SSCI are only journal articles, not monographs, and there is no specific measurement standard for monographs. If there is a monograph, it depends on the individual situation, if it is published by a more famous publishing house in Europe and the United States, it will be valued, for example, the works published by Oxford University Press are equivalent to 8 articles of SCI.
Xue Fengxuan also pointed out that the total number of SCI and SSCI articles is 3000% different, and the number of citations of the former articles is 30 times that of the latter, and if the natural science article is cited 30 times, it is actually as important as the social science article is cited 1 time. SCI articles are relatively short, often written by many people, and the length is small; Social sciences tend to be dozens of pages long, and are written by one person, with a maximum of three or four articles per issue, and a recognized academic journal of natural sciences can publish up to 20 articles per issue. Therefore, there should be a conversion ratio between the two.