Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS)
中国农业科学院

China

Planting talent at its core

The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences launches new talent plans to drive innovation at the country’s premier agricultural research institution.

The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) is China’s leader in agricultural technology. In the 60 years since CAAS was founded, it has always put its scientists at its core and has thus managed to accumulate a rich pool of talent.

CAAS has built a number of well-resourced research platforms. These feature: the world’s largest somatic cell bank for domesticated animals and poultry; the second largest genetic resource repository for crops; and, Asia’s largest national agricultural library. With two national key scientific engineering projects, six state key laboratories, 22 national crop and domestic animal breeding centres, multiple key laboratories under the Ministry of Agriculture, a number of field stations for scientific observation and testing and several quality inspection centres, CAAS is an agricultural research institution with the most improved and comprehensive facilities in China.

In response to the challenges of inadequate young academic leaders and inappropriate team structure of young talent, CAAS launched the Elite Youth Programme in 2013 as part of its plan to drive science and technology innovation. The programme has helped attract and cultivate a vibrant team of young and mid-career academic leaders.

To further enhance its young talent teams, in 2017 CAAS initiated a Young Talent Plan (2017–2030). This plan aims to increase the academy’s under-45 research cohort to approximately 4,750 by 2030 and it would mean that scientists under the age of 45 would account for two thirds of all staff scientists at CAAS. In order to make young researchers a driving force behind agricultural research, CAAS will also reform its human resource development system and incorporate 30 specific measures that address talent acquisition, cultivation, settlement and service support, as well as incentive mechanisms and researcher evaluations. With more open and fluid human resource mechanisms that select superior young researchers based on fair competition, CAAS will create a supportive environment for talent growth that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship.

For new recruits, supporting policies include: an additional subsidy of RMB 100,000–500,000 per year; research funds of RMB 800,000 to 2 million a year; and, a settlement subsidy of RMB 1 million or subsidized housing. In addition, CAAS provides promotion support and helps with graduate student recruitment, children’s education and spousal employment.

Aiming to build first-class disciplines and a world-class institute, CAAS is focussing on agricultural genomics and molecular breeding, agricultural information technology and big data, intelligent equipment, novel vaccines, agricultural nanotechnology and other cutting-edge research. It will also promote the innovation of core technologies for new variety development, intelligent agricultural operation, quality control and hazard identification for agricultural products, biological safety and animal nutrition, design and manufacturing of functional food, green agriculture, efficient resource utilization, and environmental control and remediation. CAAS sincerely welcomes researchers both at home and abroad to join it in its endeavours.

1 October 2017 - 30 September 2018

Region: Global
Subject/journal group: All

The table to the right includes counts of all research outputs for Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) published between 1 October 2017 - 30 September 2018 which are tracked by the Nature Index.

Hover over the donut graph to view the FC output for each subject. Below, the same research outputs are grouped by subject. Click on the subject to drill-down into a list of articles organized by journal, and then by title.

Note: Articles may be assigned to more than one subject area.

AC	FC
92	23.55

Outputs by subject (FC)

Subject	AC	FC
Life Sciences	72	17.93
Earth & Environmental Sciences	11	2.39
Chemistry	15	4.22
Physical Sciences	3	0.31

Highlight of the month

Unearthing the hidden environmental costs of importing food

Countries that import soybeans, instead of growing them for domestic consumption or export, risk increased pollution if they convert existing soybean farms to grow fertiliser-hungry crops.

It is generally accepted that food exporting countries are burdened with the environmental degradation associated with intensive farming, while importing countries reap all the benefits. A team including researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences examined global data on nitrogen emissions from farming soybeans, wheat, corn, rice, and vegetables.

They found that soybean farmland absorbs nitrogen, whereas the other crops use fertilizer less efficiently, leading to its overuse and accompanying nitrogen pollution, which can damage river ecosystems and water supplies. In China, the world’s largest soybean importer, a shift from growing soybean crops to corn and rice increased nitrogen emissions by nearly 125,000 tons between 2010 and 2014.

This highlights the need to re-evaluate the impacts of international trade on importing countries in order to achieve global goals of sustainably increasing food security, while protecting the environment.

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