蒲先生对神经所所有学生及PI的信

Dear ION colleagues:



At the start of year 2003 and the beginning of my second term as the Director of ION, I would like to thank everyone for your contributions to ION and wish everyone another year of progress and success.  In the past week, I already had many exchanges with you on the future of ION.  It may be worthwhile for me to write down some of my thoughts, in part as a record to remind myself what lies ahead for ION.    



News media recently have plenty of good things to say about us.  It is indeed quite remarkable that a small institute of eight laboratories, with funding not too different from many other institutes in China, was able to publish 1/3 to 1/2 of all high profile papers in biological sciences in China in 2002 (according to Rao Yi’s calculation).  To me, this proved that publishing high profile papers in China is not that difficult.  All it takes is the determination to aim high and to be more persistent in raising our standards in publication.  What is more important is that we have gained confidence in our ability to be competitive in the international scene.  I expect that more and better papers will appear in the coming years, some of which may be truly “ground-breaking” and have lasting impacts on neuroscience.  Our goal is simple - to become a world-class research institute that is truly representative of a land that abounds with talents in all fields.



The road ahead of us will be difficult to travel.  ION needs to be ground-breaking in many ways.  In addition to scientific breakthroughs, we need to make breakthroughs in the institutional and educational systems in China.  Without thorough reforms in our institutional infrastructure, scientific culture, and educational philosophy and practices, breakthroughs in science will be hard to come by.  In the coming year, ION will be spearheading in instituting an international review system for the evaluation of our lab heads and research programs.  We will begin a truly merit-based system for promotion, salary increment and resource allocation.  We will continue our efforts in improving our graduate programs, the neuroscience course and thesis reviews.  While there are many old rules and conventions to overcome, it is my feeling that the most difficult barriers for reform lie within ourselves.  For examples, are we receptive and capable of thinking in rational terms when someone tells us straight in our face that our experiments are nonsense (as often appears in the referee’s report)?  How often do we have heated arguments about scientific rather than non-scientific matters?  Aren’t we always trying to “save face” for someone by not pointing out obvious scientific errors someone has made?  The hallmark of a great scientific institution is its strict adherence to a high scientific standard by the great majority of people in all aspects of scientific activities.  Establishment of such a tradition is difficult and requires conscious and persistent efforts by everyone in ION.     



I am fully aware that the research environment in ION is far from ideal.  For various reasons many students are not as productive as they could have been and are seriously worrying about whether they can achieve the immediate goal of graduation.  For this I must stress the importance of having truly rigorous and thorough thesis committee meetings.  For those cases that the clock is ticking fast, I hope that the responsible PIs would make extra efforts to spend more time with the students to ensure timely progress of their research.  Our students are spending the most precious and perhaps the most creative period of their lives in ION, I and all of our PIs have the responsibility and privilege to ensure that this ION period will be a rewarding and memorable (with perhaps bitter-sweetness) for every student.  



On my countless flights over the Pacific, I often ask myself – why am I doing this?  There may be glorious moments looming ahead in the distant future, having helped to achieve something important for China and for neuroscience at large.  I now realize that it is the immediate tangible reward I received in every one of my trips that kept me going – the reward of finding out that I may be able to contribute, in whatever small ways, to the improvement of the scientific life of our PIs and students.  What a delight it was to learn that a student had done a beautiful experiment that I have not even thought about!  What a delight it was to hear our students making thoughtful and interesting scientific arguments like mature and confident scientists, while remembering how naïve they were only a few years ago.
 

Everyone is facing some difficult tasks.  Our PIs all have many duties and obligations, besides the mounting pressure of ensuring productivity of the laboratory.  Our administrative staffs have to ensure an efficient support system for all of our researchers.  Students need to have good results in their bench work and, more importantly, make real progress in learning to become a good scientist.  Let us all keep our spirit high, and move forward in steady steps.