[thoughts]

editorial comment/note

In the face of the "bottleneck" in key core technology fields, the unprecedented fierce competition in science and technology and the complex and changeable international environment, it has become one of the major development strategies implemented by China to achieve high-level self-reliance in science and technology. In Report to the 20th CPC National Congress, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader emphasized that education should be given priority, science and technology should be self-reliant, and talents should lead and drive, so as to speed up the construction of a powerful country in education, science and technology and talents. Colleges and universities are an important part of the national strategic scientific and technological strength and an important support for the construction of China’s innovation system and the promotion of independent innovation ability. Organized scientific research in colleges and universities is an important form to realize the institutionalization of scientific and technological innovation in colleges and universities and serve the national and regional strategic needs in a systematic way. This paper is instructive to the analysis of what is organized scientific research and the characteristics of organized scientific research in colleges and universities.

1 The essential characteristics of organized scientific research

Organized scientific research in colleges and universities needs to be separated from the traditional faculty structure. Colleges and departments are the basic academic organizations in colleges and universities. The construction of college and department organizations is based on disciplines and is the product of the institutionalization of discipline teaching and scientific research activities. Discipline is essentially a classification of knowledge, and the organization of departments and colleges usually corresponds to a single discipline, and the structure of departments and colleges becomes the division of subject knowledge. Scholars from various disciplines form a "tribal" academic community, and carry out academic research in their respective fields of knowledge with the organization of departments as the carrier. For a long time, scientific research in China’s colleges and universities has been dominated by scholars’ academic interests. Scholars usually focus on a certain direction of a single discipline based on their own research interests under the organization of colleges and departments, and rarely involve the knowledge of other disciplines. Over time, due to the differences in discipline research paradigm, discipline system, discipline ownership and discipline culture, barriers to interaction have formed among discipline organizations. It can be seen that this scientific research model is based on departments, led by disciplines, driven by academic interests, and its research power is scattered. It is often unable to cope with complex, cutting-edge and major research problems that need to be overcome across disciplines. Therefore, organized scientific research needs to go beyond the traditional organizational structure of departments and avoid being fettered by existing strict organizational barriers. Organized scientific research is a scientific research model that can cross the boundaries of discipline organization in colleges and universities, efficiently integrate internal advantages and multidisciplinary resources to carry out task-oriented research. Through the reform and innovation of scientific research paradigm and organizational model in colleges and universities, and through the integration of resources inside and outside the school, scientific research tasks with clear goals can be carried out in a more flexible organizational system.

Organized scientific research in colleges and universities is oriented to respond to external needs. As an important source of knowledge production, universities should respond to the urgent needs of external stakeholders in a timely and effective manner. Responding to external demand mainly covers four dimensions. The first is to respond to the strategic needs of the country. Colleges and universities are important strategic scientific and technological forces of the country, and they should aim at key core technologies, national security and other major strategic issues related to China’s long-term development to carry out organized scientific research. The second is to respond to global strategic needs. The epidemic situation in COVID-19, environmental pollution, climate warming and energy shortage have become important problems that restrict the sustainable development of human beings. Faced with these global problems, the characteristics of the community of human destiny have become increasingly prominent, and universities should take the initiative to respond and organize research on these major issues. The third is to respond to the strategic needs of regional development. The ability of Chinese universities to serve regional high-quality development needs to be improved. On the one hand, universities should actively serve the major regional development strategies of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other countries. On the other hand, universities should provide kinetic energy for the realization of provincial and municipal development strategies, and carry out targeted and organized research on regional integration, regional integration, the development of strategic emerging industries in provinces, and the construction of innovative cities. The fourth is to respond to the development needs of industry enterprises. In view of the unsatisfactory situation of the integration of science and education and the coordination of production and education in China, colleges and universities should provide powerful scientific research services for the transformation and upgrading of industrial enterprises and technology optimization in an organized manner.

Organized scientific research in colleges and universities is the regulator of knowledge production and practical knowledge demand in higher education institutions. The pursuit of knowledge and truth has shaped the habit of university scholars to produce knowledge independently. Scholars’ independent knowledge production is introverted and aims at the growth and differentiation of their own knowledge system. However, this can not meet the actual demand for knowledge in practical problems, and there is a contradiction between supply and demand in knowledge production. The practical problems are often extremely complicated, not limited to a certain discipline, but interdisciplinary beyond the discipline territory and cross-border across universities as monopoly institutions of knowledge production. Organized scientific research in colleges and universities is an effective regulator to balance the discipline orientation and task orientation of knowledge production in colleges and universities. On the one hand, it promotes the symbiosis of task-oriented research and subject-oriented research in colleges and universities. Organized scientific research enables university teachers to combine their academic interests to carry out task-oriented research that meets the practical needs, so as to achieve the balance between scholars’ academic ambitions and funders’ interests, and prevent universities from only carrying out subject-oriented research that cannot meet the practical needs, or being drawn by interests to focus on task-oriented research and gradually ignore academic purport-oriented research. Academic purport research is often the source of major basic research findings, which is related to original innovation. Therefore, organized scientific research in colleges and universities should realize the symbiosis of the two. On the other hand, it forms the tension between subject-oriented research and task-oriented research in colleges and universities. Organized scientific research in colleges and universities should be divorced from the traditional faculty structure, and keep a proper tension with subject research, so as to avoid the "distortion" or impact on the traditional faculty research paradigm because of meeting the needs of external reality. At the same time, adhere to academic standards through subject research,To control the quality of task-oriented research.

2 University system to promote organized scientific research strategy

First, establish an organized scientific research carrier through multiple paths. Just as discipline-oriented research relies on the organization of colleges and departments, organized scientific research in colleges and universities also needs the support of corresponding carriers. First of all, colleges and universities can develop organized scientific research institutions through incubation paths. Flexibility is one of the important characteristics of organized scientific research in colleges and universities. Therefore, organized scientific research institutions should also show flexibility. In the early development of organized scientific research carriers, colleges and universities can establish non-entity organized scientific research carriers in the form of special plans or projects, and set up virtual interdisciplinary research teams around external scientific research tasks or specific scientific research goals. When the non-entity organized scientific research teams mature, they will be transformed into entity organized scientific research institutions, that is, they will follow the incubation development path from non-entity to entity organized scientific research institutions. Incubation development path can effectively guarantee the flexible addition, expansion and termination of organized scientific research institutions according to actual needs. Secondly, colleges and universities can develop organized scientific research institutions through derivative paths. For entity organized scientific research institutions, colleges and universities can give priority to establishing independent organized scientific research institutions, which are completely independent of departments and are on the same level as traditional colleges, so as to ensure that organized scientific research is not limited by the organizational structure of traditional departments and departments, and can flexibly carry out organized research on major strategic issues, cutting-edge issues and practical urgent issues beyond the boundaries of disciplines. After the independent and organized scientific research institutions have developed to a certain scale, other forms of organized scientific research institutions can be created, such as the establishment of inter-school organized scientific research institutions in which many universities cooperate to carry out organized scientific research.That is, follow the derivative development path from a single form to a variety of organized scientific research institutions.

Second, strengthen the overall integration of high-quality resources in colleges and universities. The discipline-based resource allocation in colleges and universities leads to the dispersion of high-quality resources in disciplines (colleges), which hinders the interdisciplinary gathering of high-quality resources in colleges and universities, and therefore restricts the development of organized scientific research in colleges and universities. Colleges and universities should establish corresponding mechanisms to allocate high-quality resources to ensure organized scientific research. First, establish a mechanism to attract high-quality teachers to join organized scientific research, formulate an organized scientific research plan or project selection system, allow outstanding teachers to join organized scientific research plans or projects as teachers of their original departments and members of organized scientific research teams, and establish corresponding evaluation systems to recognize and evaluate their participation in organized scientific research plans or projects, which will be included in the scope of assessment, promotion and reward; The second is to establish a sharing mechanism for large-scale scientific research instruments and equipment, so as to ensure that entities and non-entity organized scientific research institutions can share high-end instruments and equipment on campus, and avoid wasting resources due to repeated purchases of instruments and equipment; The third is to establish an organized scientific research promotion committee at the school level, led by the president or the vice president in charge of scientific research, with the participation of the presidents of colleges and the heads of scientific research institutions, to make overall plans for the development strategy of organized scientific research, the construction of organized scientific research institutions and the allocation of resources, to attract teachers to participate in organized scientific research across disciplines through seed funds and other incentives, and to coordinate the sharing of large-scale scientific research instruments and equipment, the mutual promotion and symbiosis between organized scientific research and traditional subject research, etc. The fourth is to establish a multi-level organized scientific research system and reorganize national and provincial scientific research platforms such as the State Key Laboratory of universities.It will become an important leading force of organized scientific research in China, and at the same time, it will vigorously develop the school-level organized scientific research platform, build an organized scientific research system in colleges and universities, and form a docking and financing mechanism for multi-level organized scientific research institutions.

Third, strengthen knowledge exchange among multi-agents. With the transformation of knowledge production mode, colleges and universities are no longer monopoly knowledge production institutions, and knowledge production presents new characteristics such as interdisciplinary, compound, application and social reflection. Therefore, colleges and universities should focus on deepening the external circulation of knowledge and strengthening knowledge exchange with external multi-subjects. First of all, colleges and universities can set up organized scientific research advisory committees covering government departments, leading enterprises and international organizations. Through the collaborative participation of external multi-key subjects, it provides direction and layout guidance for organized scientific research in colleges and universities, and strengthens knowledge exchange with countries, human society, regions and industrial enterprises. Secondly, training strategic scientists with the help of organized scientific research institutions. Through close knowledge exchange with external multi-subjects, colleges and universities will make organized scientific research institutions become knowledge exchange centers and have the advantage of cultivating strategic talents who are proficient in science and can take charge of the overall situation. Colleges and universities should become the main battlefield for training strategic scientists, and finally realize the organized scientific research activities of colleges and universities led by strategic scientists. Thirdly, efforts should be made to promote the integration of science, education and production. The integration of science, education and production can make the knowledge production in colleges and universities connect with the external knowledge demand efficiently. At the same time, knowledge exchange between colleges and external important stakeholders is an important way to realize the integration of science, education and production. Colleges and universities should strengthen scientific and technological innovation and output, and feed back college education and scientific research with science and technology; Strengthen cooperation with industry, attract industry enterprises to provide funds for organized scientific research in colleges and universities in the form of project tasks, and serve the upgrading and reconstruction of industry enterprises with new knowledge.

(Author: Jiao Lei, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Higher Education, South China University of Technology, and a special researcher at the Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Center, the supreme leader of Guangdong Province)