Beijing, 21 December, 2009 - Science News Bi-Weekly and Elsevier's Science and Technology division in China announced today that their joint "Scopus' Future Star of Researcher Award", the local version of Elsevier's "Scopus Young Researcher Award", identified a group of promising young scientists in the fields of Nanosciences, Information sciences, Environmental Sciences and Biological Sciences.
The Scopus' Future Star of Science award honors researchers under the age of 40. Twelve outstanding scientists were selected as winners, based on the evaluation of their high-citation papers and the judges of the selection committee. The winners are from the institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University and Sichuan University.
"This is the first evidence-based award targeting young scientists in China, and I believe the results will offer some reference for funding policymakers to make their decisions concerning the directions of funding," said Jia Hepeng, editor-in-chief of Science News Bi-Weekly, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
With nearly 400 applicants, the Scopus' Future Star of Science award attracted wide attention across Chinese academics. The final winners were selected by first evaluating their papers for innovative research, as indexed in Scopus, the world's largest abstract and index database. The short-listed candidates were then submitted to a selection committee consisting of leading scientists like Shi Yigong of Tsinghua University, Gao Fu, Wan Lijun and Chen Tongbin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Qian Depei of Beihang University. Finally, an advisory board consisting of several leading academics from within these fields helped to evaluate the final candidates.
Qi Hai, the 36-year professor of immunology at Tsinghua University who won the gold medal in the field of Biological Sciences stated, "The Scopus' Future Star of Science award is aimed to create a good environment for young scientists to grow. This is very important and we are very excited that such an award is now also available in China."
In addition to honoring the individual outstanding scientists, the institutions themselves were also evaluated on how to develop their younger scientists. The evaluation was based on three factors -- the per capita citations of high impact papers by younger scientists, their average age (with a bias towards younger scientists), and the number of leading early career researchers among the top 5 percent in their field.
Interestingly, the top Chinese universities, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University are not the one leading the rank. In the fields of Nanosciences, Information Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Biological Sciences, Central China Normal University, Harbin Institute of Technology, the Institute of Geochemistry of CAS (Guiyang) and Sichuan University rank first respectively.
"While further analyses are necessary, the results illustrate that an institution having the highest academic output may not be the one that is supported its early career researchers the most," said Peng Haoshu, chief investigator of Science News Bi-Weekly.
"The award has created an open and fair platform for early career researchers to exchange their ideas freely, which will certainly benefit the Chinese scientific community," said Phile Govaert, Managing Director of Elsevier S&T, who oversees the Chinese market together with other international markets. "We are delighted to team up with Science News Bi-Weekly to promote the growth of early career researchers across China, as they will be helping shape the future of Science and its contribution to economic growth," he added.
This is the second collaboration between the Science News Bi-Weekly and Elsevier S&T China. The two parties successfully held an "Evaluating Academic Talent Flow Summit" in June 2009, which generated much interest.
The Scopus Young Researcher awards are part of an Elsevier global initiative to support early career researchers.
Results of the award are available at http://star.science-weekly.cn.
About Science News Bi-Weekly
Science News Bi-weekly, operated under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is the first professional news magazine targeting science community in China. Its subscribers include academic leaders, CAS and CAE (Chinese Academy of Engineering) members (academicians) and leading scientists. It has closely partnered with ScienceNet.cn, the largest Chinese language science portal worldwide, which has daily independent IP visits of up to 50,000 and 180,000 subscribers of its E-magazine. Both are highly welcomed and widely read in the Chinese community.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including the Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell (www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
About Scopus
Covering the world's research literature, Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality Web sources with smart tools to track analyze and visualize research. Scopus was designed and developed with over 500 users and librarians internationally. Its unique database contains abstracts and references from over 15,000 peer-reviewed journals from 4,000 publishers worldwide, ensuring broad interdisciplinary coverage. In addition, Scopus not only offers users citation information about the articles covered, but also directly integrates Web and patent searches. Direct links to full-text articles, library resources and other applications like reference management software, make Scopus quicker, easier and more comprehensive to use than any other literature research tool. For more information about Scopus please visit www.info.scopus.com