A scientific organization in the world's most populous nation is trying to lure foreign researchers to work on short-term contracts within its borders with offers of robust funding.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced last week that it will be offering outstanding foreign scientists funding that "will be higher than their research funding outside China," according to the chief of the CAS's international cooperation bureau Lv Yonglong, who was quoted by SciDev.Net.

The CAS is introducing two new programs: Specially Hired Foreign Research Fellows to attract foreign associate professors, and the Youth Foreign Scientist Project, for newly minted PhDs. Fellows will go to China for research collaborations lasting from three to six months, while young scientists can spend up to two years in China. The CAS hopes to attract about 200 foreign scientists per year and approximately 1,500 scientists in total. The CAS did not disclose exact funding amounts or the effort's total budget. "With this new talent project, China expects to break technological bottle-necks and enhance its research abilities and Sci-tech levels in the least time," the CAS said in a statement.

The Academy is also seeking to entice about 600 Chinese scientists working abroad to return to their country annually. Repatriating Chinese researchers and technicians will receive yearly funding in excess of $397,058, the amount the CAS offered returning scientists under a previous program.

Last week, the CAS also awarded three foreign scientists--president of the Japan Science Foundation Arima Akito, University of California at Berkeley physicist Yuen-Ron Shen, and Michel Che, a chemical engineer at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris--with the "2008 CAS Award for International Scientific Cooperation."


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