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The organization of scientists and its relation to scientific productivity: Perceptions of Chinese stem cell researchers

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Abstract

Chinese government funding of R&D ranks third in the world. Yet China ranks only 17th in terms of scientific productivity per unit of investment. The author recently conducted fieldwork on the team structure of 22 Chinese stem cell research groups. Interview data suggest that although Chinese research groups closely resemble their international counterparts in many respects, there are also significant differences which are perceived by interviewees to affect levels of scientific productivity. One characteristic of Chinese research teams is a common deficiency in middle-layer positions. This shortage of experienced professionals is perceived by scientists participating in this study to have led to two consequences. First, inexperienced student researchers often form the backbone of scientific teams in China, which leads to frequent interruptions of research and extended laboratory training. Second, research teams consist of a relatively small number of personnel. These structural features are seen to create excessive social boundaries, which impede the exchange of information and further worsens the segmentation of resources. This article engages the question of the extent to which interviewees’ local ‘embedded’ understandings of these difficulties may make a productive contribution to the analysis of the structural, and infra-structural, organization of Chinese professional bioscience teams.

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Notes

  1. Data collected as part of PhD in progress at the BIOS Centre, LSE, titled ‘The Regulation of China’s Stem Cell Research in the Context of Cosmopolitanization’. These are by definition preliminary findings comprising part of a larger study. The themes in other parts of this PhD include Chinese scientists’ views on research motivation and systems of assessment, the nature of international collaborations, and how stem cell governance is impacted by government and institutional regulatory frameworks within China.

  2. I recognize that team structures in the United States may differ from those described in the European-based studies cited here. Although I have been told anecdotally that US teams are flat – not unlike the Chinese – I have yet to find studies to confirm this.

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Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics division who helped make this research possible through a PhD Studentship. I also wish to thank Professor Sarah Franklin, the anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of this article, Dr Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner and participants from ‘The Social Regulation of Stem Cell Research: Looking beyond regulatory exteriors in Asia’ conference at the University of Sussex, who provided helpful comments.

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  1. BIOS Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Joy Yueyue Zhang

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Zhang, J. The organization of scientists and its relation to scientific productivity: Perceptions of Chinese stem cell researchers. BioSocieties 5, 219–235 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2010.3

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