The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) recently issued rules for standardizing appraisals for government-sponsored S&T projects.

Shi Dinghuan, MOST spokesman, said the rules were the first of its kind in China, and they were expected to encourage innovation and commercialization of research achievements.

Although positive attempts and fruitful efforts have been made regarding S&T evaluation over the past years, says Shi, there are problems causing serious concern of the S&T community. For instance, applying one evaluation criterion to different S&T activities, one-sided stress on quantity at the expense of quality, and imperfection of expert evaluation and credit systems.

To deal with the issues, a directive to improve S&T evaluation had been issued earlier this year by governmental departments and institutions, including the MOST, Ministry of Education, CAS and Chinese Academy of Engineering, and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The proclamation of two regulations regarding S&T assessment within one year shows the resolution of the authorities to solve problems in the aspect, says Xu Guanhua, minister of science and technology. The first one aims at providing a guiding principle for the practice while the second offers specific methods.

MOST stipulated that appraisal teams should consist of specialists from research bodies, universities and even companies. In some frontier areas in which consensus has yet to be reached among home scientists, the regulation says overseas scientists are also qualified to be enlisted into the talent pool.

As for key national and local S&T programs, Shi said, strict appraisals must be required before, during and after implementation.

The regulation also stresses the moral integrity of appraisers. Any inappropriate behavior, if verified, will be recorded.

"An effective appraisal for projects by using public money will help create transparency of our budgetary planning and governmental administration," Shi said.