By Shi Huang

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As China drafts its 15th five-year plan – the next entry in a line of expansive blueprints that have set the tone for the country’s development over more than seven decades – we explore what China will do in the field of science and technology, particularly regarding the introduction of scientific talent. For more stories in this ongoing series, click here.
The appointment of Liu Jun, a former tenured Harvard statistician, as a “Xinghua distinguished chair professor” at Tsinghua University in August was more than just a ceremonial occasion.
With senior university leaders present, the event underscored China’s escalating bid to attract world-class scientific talent.
Liu joins an elite group of only three ever awarded this highest academic honour at Tsinghua, alongside globally recognised figures like climatologist Chen Deliang and materials scientist Gao Huajian.
All have returned to China in recent months from top overseas institutions.
Their homecoming reflects a broader and accelerating trend: China’s strategic pivot towards cultivating and recruiting elite scientific minds, both from overseas and within its own borders.

While earlier talent initiatives like the Thousand and Ten Thousand Talents plans set quantitative targets, the ongoing 14th five-year plan has focused on qualitative goals, nurturing internationally leading scientists, innovators and research teams.
This evolution is expected to deepen in the coming 15th five-year plan, with policymakers poised to double down on efforts to build a first-tier global science and technology workforce.
But beneath the success stories lies a complex reality. Universities compete independently for talent without a unified national strategy, while young domestic researchers face mounting pressure under rigid tenure systems.
In addition, language barriers, cultural integration and bureaucratic inertia pose challenges for foreign returnees and international recruits alike.
The Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, is a new private university with more than 100 professors for its inaugural class of 70 undergraduates, including 16 academic-level recruits.
It sits 150km (93 miles) from Westlake University in Hangzhou, another city in Zhejiang province, which has also drawn several faculty members from overseas.
Zhou Ming, an academician of the National Academy of Engineering, recently joined EIT.
“China’s global economic standing is certainly an important attraction for global talent, and geopolitics is also a factor,” Zhou said.
“Talent attracts talent. When more influential individuals wholeheartedly return to participate in the country’s development, it creates a snowball effect.”
“I believe this trend will accelerate even further in the next five years.”
The Thousand Talents Plan and the Ten Thousand Talents Plan, proposed in the 13th five-year plan, sought to introduce 1,000 strategic scientists and leading scientific talents and attract about 10,000 high-level overseas talents.
This description was removed from the 14th five-year plan and replaced with the goal of cultivating and developing more internationally leading strategic scientific and technological talents and innovative teams.

This approach is expected to be reflected again in the 15th five-year plan, stressing the continuous introduction of top scientists while still focusing on the cultivation of domestic talent in China.
China’s economic development and policies encouraging high-quality talent recruitment are driving the push. But the efforts have also been indirectly helped by the scientific funding environment under the administration of US President Donald Trump.
A survey by the journal Nature of more than 1,600 American researchers found that over 1,200, or about 75 per cent, were considering leaving the US. Most are early-career researchers.
According to Nature’s website, the primary reason cited was the Trump administration’s extensive cuts to research funding and related lay-offs.
Charles Lieber, a retired Harvard University chemist and nanoscientist convicted in 2021 for failing to disclose his involvement in a Chinese talent programme, joined Tsinghua as a chair professor in May.
Beyond public universities, Chinese enterprises and private universities are also successfully attracting top technological talent. In August, the journal Nature published a paper by DeepSeek on large language model mechanisms.
Like Westlake, DeepSeek is based in Hangzhou, and its core team members hail from top Chinese universities. Notably, the authors of the Nature publication included a high school student under the age of 18.
Within the past week, Westlake, a private research institution founded in 2018, has published articles in three top journals: Cell, Nature and Science.
As The New York Times reported in June, portraits of dozens of professors recruited from overseas adorn the main academic building at Westlake, including those of biochemist Guan Kunliang, materials engineer Cheng Jianjun and cell biologist Yu Hongtao.
While introducing top overseas talent, China is also actively developing local education and nurturing young talent. However, talent recruitment has proved difficult amid the lack of a unified national plan and universities often competing independently.

“Tsinghua will undoubtedly remain competitive in attracting great talent,” said Liu, the professor recently recruited from Harvard.
“However, there does not yet appear to be a proactive, forward-looking new plan specifically for attracting foreign talent. At least I haven’t seen one.”
The influx of top talent has intensified competition for local researchers, placing immense pressure on young faculty under the “publish or perish” tenure-track system in which a failure to meet promotion criteria can result in dismissal.
At the same time, in accordance with the 14th five-year plan, China will keep launching major scientific and technological cooperation projects, research the establishment of a global scientific research fund and implement a scientist exchange programme.
Support will be provided for the establishment of international scientific and technological organisations within China and for foreign scientists to hold positions in the country’s scientific and academic organisations.
However, this will also require a long time to promote and adjust.
The language and cultural environment in China can influence the integration of foreign talent.
Zhou said that even in a relatively internationalised environment like EIT’s, non-Chinese speakers encountered difficulties fully integrating.
When asked about attracting and cultivating global young talent, Liu said: “Overall, I think a stable, healthy, and relatively generous funding support, with encouragement for creativity and maybe tolerance to occasional failures, would perhaps be a nice environment for nurturing young researchers.
“The strategy of hanging a carrot in front of the eyes of all the horses may only be able to … create some donkeys!”
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