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China Research Institutes
In the late 1980s, most Chinese researchers worked in
specialized research institutes rather than in academic or
industrial enterprises. The research institutes, of which there
were about 10,000 in 1985, were, like their Soviet exemplars,
directed and funded by various central and regional government
bodies. Their research tasks were, in theory, assigned by higher
administrative levels as part of an overall research plan; the
research plan was, in theory, coordinated with an overall economic
plan. Research institutes were the basic units for the conduct of
research and the employment of scientists, who were assigned to
institutes by government personnel bureaus. Scientists usually
spent their entire working careers within the same institute.
Research institutes functioned as ordinary Chinese work units, with
the usual features of lifetime employment, unit control of rewards
and scarce goods, and limited contact with other units not in the
same chain of command
(see Work Units
, ch. 3). Each research
institute attempted to provide its own staff housing,
transportation, laboratory space, and instruments and to stockpile
equipment and personnel. The limited channels for exchanges of
information with other institutes often led to duplication or
repetition of research.
Data as of July 1987
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