The Mechanism and Ethics of Academic Promotion in China’s Academia
- 1 Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 2 Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Abstract
Academic promotion is one of the major approaches for maintaining and enhancing the quality and efficiency of higher education and research activities. While a variety of parameters influence the process of academic promotion, implementing an unbiased mechanism for academic promotion is an uphill task for policy makers. In this article, we argue that although Chinese academic institutions have a great contribution to the advancement of science in the world, their social and academic impacts are not sufficiently significant. This is mainly because of institutional drawbacks originated from the strong administrative power of governmental institutions. By expressing the view of Albert Einstein about the academic promotion and comparing Althoff and Harnack systems as two extreme approaches in the history of science policy-making in Germany, we have discussed that a peer review system with limited autonomous authorities could be an efficient mechanism for establishing impartial academic promotion and protecting professional ethics in China’s academia.
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