Gov't Gives Academics Failing Grade for Fraud in Research Funding

(Beijing) – A number of corruption scandals have tainted the reputation of the country's academics and raised concerns over worsening ethics in Chinese academia, prompting the government to overhaul its funding arrangements for research grants.

A major change was made to two major national research programs on October 20, when the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance issued a statement saying the current funding arrangement for the National Basic Research Program and the National High Technology Research and Development Program will be scrapped. Instead, all the funding plans for major state-backed research programs will be integrated into a new platform.