(Ecns.cn)--In the U.S. and Europe, the honorary title of "academician" is awarded to excellent scholars and scientists, but has little affect on their positions, salaries or research funding. In China, the title carries a different historical connotation and is increasingly subject to questionable profiteering, and even outright corruption.
Yuh-Nung Jan and his wife Lily Yeh Jan are "academicians" at the United States National Academy of Sciences and professors at the University of California, San Francisco. They say that in the U.S. people do not think highly of the title, and academicians are not likely candidates for easy funding.
Things are very different in China, where academicians are given top priority among many institutions and schools, and enjoy huge popularity as prestigious scholarly "brands."
As a result, the title has triggered fierce competition among scientists and scholars, sometimes resulting in controversy. The most widely known case is the imprisonment of Xiao Chuanguo, a urology professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, Hubei Province, who hired thugs to assault outspoken fraud buster Fang Shimin (also known as Fang Zhouzi) in November 2010.
Scarcity fuels competition
Once titled as academicians, scholars become hot commodities for schools and research institutes, helping them achieve a sharp rise in social status.
In 1991, Yang Shuzi, a professor at HUST who became the school's first academician, was advised by school authorities not to travel by air lest he should die in an accident.
"Though it has become a standing joke, I did not dare travel by plane for a couple of years," recalled Yang during an interview with China Newsweek.
Chen Sizhong, Yang's former assistant and now vice head of Wenhua College at HUST, explained that "the episode revealed that HUST was dying to recruit academicians, and attached significant importance to them."
Chen said that as more academicians joined the school more research funds came pouring in, amounting to about 160 million yuan ($25 million) in 1999.
Not only the schools, but the scholars themselves profit hugely from the title. Chen added that the Wuhan University of Technology promised 1 million yuan, a 200-square-meter apartment and 500,000 yuan ($78,000) in relocation compensation for each academician at the school.
Chen admitted that academicians are more influential than young scholars, who are often more competent in high-tech fields.
Because of their scarcity, many academicians have been employed by several schools or institutions simultaneously, working as "moonlighters" and pocketing tidy profits.
To attract more local academicians, the government of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, even allows them to influence companies by becoming board directors.
Mr Lu, director of the Science and Technology Bureau at the Ningbo National Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, told China Newsweek that an academician could become the director of the company where he or she is registered, holding at least 25% in shares.
But academicians do not stay in Ningbo all year round. Instead, they travel to other provinces and get involved in other projects, a phenomenon that has aroused heated discussions among web users.
Some say the academicians are in it purely for the money.
