Establishing Our National Magisterial Research Assessment System

With the advent of knowledge economy era, research is obviously more and more important in national development strategy. The status and destiny of a country or a nationality in the world will be determined by their knowledge and ability to discover and transform new knowledge. Regarding this, various countries have the very sober understanding and generally have increased the dynamics to support the development of research in the hope that they can occupy the vantage point in the fierce competition. With a lot of funds invested in research as well as the unceasing enhancement of democratic awareness, the people are generally eager to enhance accountability for this kind of activities expending large sums of public funds and want more rights to know. Following this call, many countries have established periodic research assessment systems based on the national leadership, which have experienced many years'practice and development and are improving and playing more and more vital role in these countries'research system. Through this kind of nationwide research assessment, the nation and the public may know the entire development status and level of national research, in some measure, and may also realize enhancing accountability for universities and research institutions and provide some reference or basis for the following research funds allotment and the reform of research funds distribution system.In the process of writing, this article firstly analyzed the present situation and problems of research assessment in China. For a long time, our country has paid too much attention to microscopic research assessment, but neglected mid-scopic research assessment. On the vacancy of mid-scopic research assessment, the microscopic research assessment for researchers will also lose its necessary guidance or directions. In the microscopic research assessment, different universities, different people, different places and different sectors have different research assessment methods or systems of their own at different times. Our present research assessments are almost controlled by the research administrative sectors. That means the assessors are frequently the research administrative personnel. The research administrative sectors, in view of their own operating features, set up the research assessment criterion which often draw support from other assessment intermediary, and are too simple, thus cause the research assessment to be partial and make the researchers pursue the research"quantity"and neglect to assess the"quality"of the research outputs. In addition, this kind of research assessment already has not met the need of science development in the 21st century and building innovation team in universities and research institutions, dispersed research teams'cohesive force, weakened the research innovation ability. So, after establishing our national magisterial research assessment system, our country, on the whole, can grasp the state of research development, know what kind of contribution to research and social development universities'and research institutions'outputs have and what position their research level is in the world.Next, this article also classified and analyzed some influential national magisterial research assessment systems in the world. This kind of research assessment can be sorted into three models. The first model is not associated with research funds distribution. For example, Holland and Germany assess research performance of universities and research institutions to change their reputation and ability to obtain external economic support. In this way, the two nations realize facilitating their universities and research institutions to improve research quality and enhance accountability. In the second model of research assessment, the score results will determine the national research funds distribution. For instance, Britain and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region have established the research assessment systems which directly correlate with the research funds distribution. So, they drive universities and research institutions to exchange their actual research performance for economic support. The third one is a mixed model of funding and assessment in which Peer review and performance indicator are simultaneously used to assess and rank research activity. Then the nation will reward the high quality research with performance funding. For example, the research assessment systems in New Zealand and Ireland pertain to this model. These research assessment systems are different and of various characteristics, but they are based on their own national conditions and have the aid of other nations'experience in the process of development, from which we can benefit in establishing the national magisterial research assessment system of our own.Thirdly, this article further analyzed the theoretical framework of the national magisterial research assessment system. The reason that we must establish this kind of research assessment system is fairness, accountability and encouragement. The national magisterial research assessment system is not controlled by the nation. The nation in the whole process of research assessment only acts the roles such as the convener, the supervisor and the resources provider, the concrete research assessment is completed by the domestic and foreign first-class scholars after the research assessment criterion set up. The assessment object is universities and research institutions. Although this kind of assessment is also based on the research quality and impact of the researchers in universities and research institutions in six years, but the score results will be announced at a discipline or a research domain level, and the results of individual staff appraisal will not be informed to universities and research institutions. Individual staff appraisal should be implemented by universities and research institutions. The national magisterial research assessment system has three objectives: prospering academic, providing a reference or basis for allotting research funds and the reform of research funds distribution system, assessing the research quality and impact of universities and research institutions. Therefore, the national magisterial research assessment system has some characteristics such as authority, people-oriented, assessment criterion diversity, encouraging research cooperation, concerning research quality and impact, etc.Finally, this article realized that the vacancy of mid-scopic research assessment system for universities and research institutions is the realistic root of establishing our national magisterial research assessment system, and also proposed my preliminary design about it. The nation appoints a national chief scientist who is not only an honorary duty but also in charge of the national magisterial research assessment; to establish the research assessment advisory committee that is in charge of providing advice on the research assessment for the national chief scientist; to establish the research assessment committee that is in charge of leading the research assessment moderation panel and the research assessment panels to assess the research quality and impact of universities and research institutions according to certain research assessment criterion under the national chief scientist; to establish the national science and technology development information center that is specifically in charge of providing the rear service and the information service for the research assessment. In addition, this article also designed some necessary complement systems for the national magisterial research assessment system, such as the challenge system, the announcement system and the expert database, thus outlined this research assessment system's basic framework.