Abstract: This paper employed evidence-based evaluation methods and selected 1352 innovative research teams as the research sample to investigate and capture the current state of China’s scientific research teams. Its questionnaire was designed for academic leaders and key members from such aspects as basic situation, team composition, operation mechanism, output performance and policy support role. Combined with depth interviews of 143 teams, four important prerequisites for shaping an excellent team are illustrated as follows: formation on the basis of long-term cooperation, rational structure of academic echelon with an outstanding academic leader, strong research ability and infrastructure, excellent culture of scientific research and effective operating mechanism. The policy recommendation to further improve and perfect China’s scientific research innovation team is proposed based on the findings, including speeding up implementation of central government’s science and technology plan, guiding team formation and operation, strengthening team support fund management, improving rules and regulations and operation mechanism, and the research provides an important reference for China to improve its support policies and plans for research and innovation teams.

Key words: R&D team, operation mechanism, empirical investigation, evaluation based on evidence