科研管理 ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (1): 192-199.

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

海外经历能否加速职业发展:以长江学者为例

李峰1,唐莉2   

  1. 1.河海大学公共管理学院,江苏 南京211199;
    2.复旦大学国际关系与公共事务学院,上海200433

  • 收稿日期:2018-12-19 修回日期:2019-06-08 出版日期:2022-01-20 发布日期:2022-01-19
  • 通讯作者: 唐莉
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金面上项目:“科研人员流动与职业成就的关系研究”(71874049,2019.01—2022.12);
    国家社会科学基金一般项目:“高校高层次海归人才引进成效后评估”(18BGL219,2018—2020)。

Can overseas experience speed up career advancement? ——An empirical study on Changjiang Scholar Program

Li Feng1, Tang Li2   

  1. 1. School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing 211199, Jiangsu, China; 
    2. School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • Received:2018-12-19 Revised:2019-06-08 Online:2022-01-20 Published:2022-01-19
  • Supported by:
    A mechanism research of Knowledge modular for generalized manufacturing system oriented industry cluster

摘要:     随着知识经济和全球一体化的日益深化,科研人员的国际流动日益频繁,海归学者群体内部的差异性也日益显著,但这一议题尚未引起学界广泛关注。本文聚焦我国高层次人才 “长江学者奖励计划”,以1999—2017年间入选的科学技术领域长江学者特聘教授为研究样本,以入选国家高层次人才计划时的年龄为职业发展速度指标,分析了不同类别和不同层次的海外经历对高校科研人员职业成就进展的影响。研究发现:海外经历对高层次人才计划入选时间的催化剂作用具有异质性。获得海外博士学位即归国以及海外经历仅为短暂求学/访问的科研人员在职业发展中均不具优势,而全职海外经历缩短职业成就时间的效果明显。此外,海外经历的加速效应因科研人员所在研究平台的不同呈现异质性。入职“双一流”高校的海归学者往往更快入选国家高层次人才计划。基于研究发现,论文对我国公派访问政策和高校当前的人才引进实践进行了讨论。

关键词: 国际流动, 海外经历, 职业成就, 高层次人才计划

Abstract:     Against the backdrop of global talent war, the international mobility of the highly-skilled is heatedly debated and receives growing attention from academia and policy makers.  With the "Sending out and Attracting back" policy, an increasing number of domestically trained researchers go broad sponsored by the Chinese central or regional government, university or foreign hosting institutions as visiting scientists, postdoc fellows, or joint doctoral students. The growing phenomenon of different types of researcher mobility across national borders has made the demarcation line between returnees and locals increasingly murky. Yet such heterogeneous impacts, if any, due to various types of overseas experiences and characteristics of recruiting institutions have not captured sufficient attention in the extant literature. To fill in some research gap, this study utilizes a novel vitae dataset of Changjiang Distinguished Scholars (hereinafter CJS) to further explore this topic. We investigate the impact of different types and levels of overseas experiences on the speed of Chinese scholars′ career advancement moderated by recommending universities′ status when CJS titles were awarded. 
     Our finding reveals heterogenous impact of overseas experience on the speed of Changjiang Scholars′ career advancement. Overseas PhD training experience alone does not speed up scientists′ career progression. Only when overseas PhD training experience is combined with other types of overseas experience, the positive catalyst role of overseas experience can be observed. The impact of temporary overseas experience is insignificant either. The study also finds that ceteris paribus fulltime overseas experience speeds up scholars′ career advancement. Changjiang Scholars with more types of fulltime overseas experience tend to obtain the prestigious title at younger ages holding the other confounding factors in the model constant. Established returnee scholars who had got tenured abroad demonstrate slower career advancement than early-career returnee scholars. And finally, academic reputation of recommending universities matters. Scholars at dual first-class universities tend to be awarded with titles at younger ages.
     This paper ends with a discussion of its implications on talents policies at both country and institution level.  Our analyses suggest that the extant visiting scholar programs may involve negative self-selection of researchers. Scholars encounter career bottleneck period may be more likely to apply for and thus be selected into visiting scholar programs. Secondly, we argue at institutional level, the recruiting department should have a leveled playing field for applicants regardless where they got their Ph.D. degrees. Thirdly, in addition to attract the established highly-skilled, Chinese universities may also consider how to bring in early-career returnees with great potentials. In contrast with the high cost of attracting and retaining the established overseas scholars, recruiting early-career overseas scholars seems more cost effective. Last but not least, we appeal that Chinese universities should adjust their talent recruiting policies according to institutional status of research excellence. 

Key words:  international mobility, overseas experience, career advancement, high-end talent programs