The Recruitment Of High-level Talents And Their Role In The Disciplinary Development At Public Research Universities In China

The competition for talents in universities is fierce,recruiting and using talents have become important strategies for the construction of universities and the development of their disciplines.Previous studies have focused on "double first-class" universities affiliated to the ministry,but lack systematic research on provincial "211 Project" universities and first-class discipline construction universities.This study takes University A as an example,which set up distinguished professor positions as early as 2003 and implemented the strategy of the recruitment of high-level talents,investigates the implementation of its policies of the recruitment of talents and the role of the recruited high-level talents in disciplinary development,and reveals the mechanism of the recruitment of high-level talents on disciplinary development.This study analyzes curriculum vitas of the distinguished professors recruited by University A to examine their demographic characteristics and academic background,and to establish their basic information database;combs the policies of the recruitment and management of high-level talents in University A;employs literature metrology to analyze the characteristics of the scientific research productivity and cooperation of 79 distinguished professors after being recruited,and interviews 12 distinguished professors to investigate their role in disciplinary development and their evaluation of the policies of the recruitment of talents and management system in University A.The main conclusions are as follows:First,the role of the recruited high-level talents in disciplinary development is mainly reflected in five aspects: high quality and large quantity of academic production,high degree and wide range of academic cooperation,implementing curriculum teaching and cultivating scientific research teams with graduate students and young teachers as the main body,establishing laboratories and teams and implementing effective management,and expanding the research direction and field of disciplines.Second,the interaction and mutual influence among resources,talents,disciplines and systems form the mechanism of the recruitment of high-level talents on disciplinary development.Resources and talents are the relation of attraction,restriction and dependence.Resources can attract talents to join universities,and the follow-up development of talents depends on the sustained support of resources.Unsufficient resources and uneven distribution will restrict the role of talents and lead to contradictions among different talents.Talents and disciplines are the relation of promotion,attraction and influence.Talents exert their subjective initiative to promote the development of disciplines,and disciplines are attractive and influential to talents.University system and service play a role in the management and guarantee of talents.Third,there are three types of interaction patterns between the recruitment of high-level talents and disciplinary development: ideal fusion,dynamic balance and conflict opposition.In the first two patterns,the recruited high-level talents both play a role in disciplinary development.The difference is that,in the ideal fusion pattern,the relationship among resources,talents,disciplines and systems is more harmonious,and the development of disciplines is sustainable;in the dynamic balance pattern,they are in the process of mutual game,and if the relationship between each other is not well balanced,the development of disciplines will be staged and unsustainable.Conflict opposition pattern greatly hinders the development of disciplines,and even leads to the "stagnation" of the development of disciplines.This study examines the mechanism of the recruitment of high-level talents on disciplinary development from the perspective of the interaction between structural factors of institutions and disciplines and individual subjective initiative factors,and proposes an analytical framework of the interaction of resources,talents,disciplines and systems,which enriches the research on the recruitment of talents and disciplinary development in colleges and universities.The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods further broadens the research ideas on the role of the recruited talents in disciplinary development.