The national laboratory is the "national team" of a country's higher scientific research force. Implementing the strategy of innovation-driven development, China is actively and steadily promoting the construction of national laboratories. The Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development proposes to "set up a number of national laboratories in major innovation fields."

Today we are publishing an account of a Chinese scholar's experience at a US national laboratory. The national laboratory is the "national team" of a country's higher scientific research force. In the Chinese scientific community, the construction of national laboratories has received particular attention. Part of the reason is that since 2000, the Ministry of Science and Technology began to pilot the exploration and practice of national laboratories, has approved the pilot construction of seven national laboratories, in addition to some national laboratories into the preparation stage, but more than ten years later, these national laboratories in the preparation have not yet removed the word "chip", can be described as a "chip" Mo exhibition. In recent years, many people in the scientific community have put forward suggestions for the construction of national laboratories.

Since January 2016, as a postdoctoral fellow jointly trained by Tsinghua University and Stanford University, I have entered Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) in the United States to carry out research work, and have been able to observe the operation of this famous research institution up close. Here, my specific work is to use advanced light source equipment to study the mechanism of energy storage battery materials.

In the scientific community, LBL is almost synonymous with "extraordinary." As one of the national laboratories of the United States, the honors associated with it are like stars: 13 scientists have won the Nobel Prize, 15 scientists have won the National Medal of Science, 1 scientist has won the National Medal of Technology Innovation, 70 scientists are academicians of the American Academy of Sciences...

My co-supervisor, Professor Shen Zhixun of Stanford University and academician of the American Academy of Sciences, mentioned in a conversation with me that the operation mode of LBL is more representative in American national laboratories. His words made me pay special attention to the operation model of the national laboratory.

National laboratories' golden rice Bowl '

As we all know, national laboratories, as a form of worldwide scientific research base, emerged and developed before and after World War II, carrying out basic and strategic scientific research tasks around the national mission, and solving major scientific and technological issues related to national security and economic and social development through interdisciplinary assistance.

The national laboratory is an important part of the national innovation system. The Chinese government approved the establishment of 15 national laboratories successively in 2003 and 2006, but basically they are still in the state of preparation.

Until the National Science and Technology Work Conference in January this year, Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, proposed that in 2017, according to the principle of "mature one, start one", the formation of national laboratories in major innovation fields will be started. In my understanding, this means that China's national laboratory will be listed this year, and the word "funding" will be removed.

As a scientist, my concern is, how do we run our national laboratories? How much money do you get each year? Can the rest of us have access to the national laboratory?

Coincidentally, in March, the Advanced Light Source laboratory (ALS) where I work accepted the assessment of the US Department of Energy and disclosed the "ALS Report materials submitted to the US Department of Energy" to all laboratory personnel in the form of email. Combined with my experience, I would like to talk about the operation mechanism of the national laboratory in my eyes.

Like many new arrivals, I was confused about the relationship between LBL and UC Berkeley. LBL is part of the US Department of Energy, but interestingly, the US Department of Energy is not actually involved in running the laboratory, but is managed by the University of California. The director of the LBL is appointed by the Regents of the University of California and reports to the chancellor of the University of California, and about 20 Department of Energy employees are stationed at the LBL to exercise federal oversight of the LBL. This enables LBL to get rid of the excessive and even blind intervention of administrative forces in management, and to operate professionally in accordance with academic norms relatively independently.

This management mode enables the university and the national laboratory to form an effective complementary relationship, and the two can give full play to their respective strengths to carry out collaborative research. In the University of California system, the most closely associated with LBL is Berkeley. The natural proximity makes the two closely related: according to 2015 data, more than 200 LBL researchers are adjunct professors at Berkeley, and more than 500 Berkeley students conduct research at LBL, which has significantly improved the level of research at Berkeley, and some even claim that LBL has made Berkeley what it is today. This may seem like an exaggeration, but I personally think it is not entirely unreasonable.

It is worth mentioning that although LBL seems to be hosted by the University of California has "taken for granted" rationality - historically, the laboratory's founder and Nobel laureate Ernest Lawrence is a professor at Berkeley, and the two institutions are so close geographically - in terms of institutional design, there is a competitive elimination mechanism: Every five years, the U.S. Department of Energy conducts a review of the University of California to assess the level of management and quality of output of the LBL. To be precise, the reason why the University of California can manage LBL on behalf of the University is not only historical or geographical factors, but more importantly, effective management. Some national laboratories have had unfortunate changes of ownership in the past, such as: in 2006, Los Alamos National Laboratory was no longer under the management of the University of California, to Los Alamos National Security company; In the same year, the management of Argonne National Laboratory was changed from the University of Chicago to the University of Chicago Argonne LLC. This elimination mechanism breaks the illusion of "golden rice bowl" held by third-party institutions and is conducive to improving the management performance of national laboratories.

Why Scientists don't 'apply for projects'

How big is the LBL? It now employs 3,304 people. Under the Department of Energy's plan, national laboratories should focus more on the intersections of scientific fields rather than within them; The value of national laboratories lies in their ability to conduct interdisciplinary and comprehensive research that is difficult for universities or private research institutions to carry out. To this end, LBL has built five sets of large scientific equipment, and set up corresponding research teams, namely: Advanced Light Source Laboratory, Energy Science Network Center, Joint Genome Institute, molecular casting factory, Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.

In my opinion, large science installations and large research teams form a very obvious scale advantage of LBL: On the one hand, in terms of creative science, LBL has formed a strong impact on expanding the boundaries of human knowledge. Taking Advanced Light Source Laboratory (ALS) as an example, in the data disclosed at the forefront, during the three years from 2014 to 2016, ALS directly or indirectly contributed more than 3,000 research results (journal papers, conference papers, dissertations, patents, books, etc.). The equivalent of three new achievements every day; On the other hand, in terms of social contribution, LBL has also made outstanding contributions to the development of the national economy. Taking the evaluation result in 2010 as an example, the financial expenditure of LBL in the current year is about 690 million US dollars, and more than 3200 employees are employed, while its contribution to the US economy is as high as 1.6 billion US dollars, which is equivalent to the benefit of 2.3 US dollars for every one US dollar invested by the society. It also created 12,000 jobs in the United States, or 3.3 jobs per worker.

Therefore, the scale advantage of national laboratories should not be underestimated. In the layout and construction of national laboratories, China should fully consider the needs and advantages of universities and large industrial enterprises, effectively condense and integrate the country's financial resources and scientific and technological resources, and give play to the function of its national innovation platform and economic growth engine.

Is LBL bad for money? I can't generalize about all the LABS or research groups in LBL, but my ALS, or more specifically, my research group, is "not bad for money." ALS is one of the big scientific devices owned by LBL, and its personnel management system is representative to a certain extent.

I joined researcher Yang Wanli's research group during my visit to ALS. Interestingly, although we have our own research topics, he almost never applies for projects to get research funding. This kind of "not poor money" situation, behind the system to protect. According to statistics, there are currently 175 professional scientists working in ALS like Yang Wanli. The amount and usefulness of the funds are more open and transparent.

In terms of funding, ALS enjoys a financial grant of $60 million per year from the US Department of Energy, of which about 1/3 is for hardware and software costs, and the remaining 2/3 is for the salaries of scientific researchers. It is worth noting that ALS is very flexible in the performance evaluation of scientific researchers, and their salary level does not directly depend on their annual publication of articles, patent applications, and project completion; In addition, scientific research funds are relatively sufficient, and researchers have no motivation to apply for projects and fight for scientific research funds, which avoids a lot of tedious routine work. This kind of continuous large investment and relatively relaxed management can enable researchers to choose the subject direction more out of mission and interest, and engage in scientific research without distractions, and enable the laboratory to attract a large number of outstanding scientific and technological talents around the world, which is conducive to the creation of major scientific discoveries and subversive innovations.

Who has access to the national laboratory

While working at LBL, we can often see some visitors guided by the staff to visit the laboratory. Anyone can apply for a visit through the website, and the procedure is very simple and convenient. Of course, this is just a small microcosm of the laboratory's free and open style.

As the founder of the laboratory, Professor Lawrence himself strongly believes in a free and open academic research atmosphere, and he believes that individuals with different fields of expertise work together as a team to carry out scientific research better.

At the same time, in ALS, thousands of researchers from all over the world gather here every year, as users, with advanced light sources to carry out research in a variety of disciplines. The U.S. Department of Energy conducted a three-year assessment of ALS, and the disclosed report listed some basic conditions of operation from 2014 to 2016: in the three years from 2014 to 2016, ALS received a total of 7,320 light source users, a cumulative increase of 20% over the previous three years. This means that during the operation of the advanced light source, 60 to 120 users are simultaneously using it at any one time; Geographically, only 16 percent of the 7,320 light source users were from within LBL, while 34 percent were from the rest of California, 31 percent were from the rest of the United States, and the remaining 19 percent were from other countries. Of the 7,320 light source users, about 30% are from the life sciences, about 30% are from the materials sciences, about 15% are from the physics sciences, about 15% are from the chemistry sciences, about 8% are from the Earth ecology sciences, and about 2% are from other disciplines.

Through these data, we can intuitively feel the research atmosphere here, where researchers from different regions and different disciplines work together

The situation is very important for academic innovation, which is also a reflection of the national laboratory to play a platform advantage, promote interdisciplinary, and carry out comprehensive research.

Advanced light source as a large scientific device, researchers in any discipline anywhere in the world can in principle apply to ALS to carry out experiments, with a half-year cycle, users can submit the application for the use of light source in the last half year. According to ALS statistics, in the three years from 2014 to 2016, the average annual operating time of ALS was 5,000 hours, and the average annual application received was as high as 1,600 applications. That is to say, each application can get an average of 3 hours of use time, the experimental time of the light source is extremely valuable.

Then, how to determine the allocation of time has become a topic worthy of attention. Who can use the lab? How to exclude the influence of human factors on time allocation? For example, as a national laboratory in the United States, will ALS take care of domestic research applications?

In fact, in order to fairly and reasonably allocate the light source time, ALS has established a very large expert database, and the application is randomly submitted to a number of experts in the database for review. Experts refer to the content of the application, only based on the scientific value of the research topic, and do not consider the application of the region, the institution and make a difference. This academic-based review system removes human factors from the allocation of light time, ensuring that limited resources are spent on valuable research. This demonstrates the academic-based social responsibility and value orientation of national Laboratories in the United States.

Wan Gang, minister of science and technology, said at the National Science and Technology Work conference that the establishment of the national laboratory will be officially launched this year. This indicates that the construction of our national laboratory has entered the substantial operation stage; But at the same time, he also said that the current construction of our national laboratory, the key is to do a good job of management mechanism design and field selection.

In my opinion, any model or system is not a panacea, we need to develop strengths and avoid weaknesses according to their actual situation, we have the advantage of late, should establish confidence and determination, and strive to achieve the corner overtaking. One thing is certain: today, with the rapid progress of global economic and social development, the power of scientific and technological innovation has become the core of national comprehensive strength, and the construction of China's national laboratory is increasingly important and urgent.