国自然 z-bio 2025-05-21 4052

　　The annual application and evaluation work of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has always been a benchmark for domestic scientific research ecology.

　　On April 29th, as soon as the preliminary review results for 2025 were announced, it sparked widespread discussion: the total number of applications exceeded 430000, an increase of nearly 50000 compared to last year, with a growth rate of 12.9%, setting a new historical high; And only 997 projects were rejected, the lowest in recent years.

　　The continuous increase in the number of applications from National Natural Science Foundation of China is not only due to the expansion of the research team, but also closely related to the strengthening of the position of fund projects as the core indicator of academic evaluation under the background of "breaking the five barriers".

　　Taking 2023 as an example, the funding rate for general projects has dropped to around 16%, and may further decline to below 15% by 2025. This means that even high-quality applications may be submerged in the torrent due to the denominator effect.

　　Now, the preliminary review of the 2025 National Natural Science Foundation has ended, and the next step is the expert review of the letter review.

　　Evaluation Mechanism: The Game between Professionalism and Load Pressure

　　Previously, Jiang Hujun and others (Director of the Medical Department of the National Natural Science Foundation of China) published an article titled "Current Status and Analysis of Expert Assignment for National Natural Science Foundation Project Letters" in the Chinese Science Foundation Journal (China Science Foundation, Volume 37, Issue 5, 2023), revealing the entire process of letter review.

　　The article directly points out the current situation of the evaluation:

　　Difficulty in expert matching: About 63% -66% of the expert reviewers consider themselves as "small peers" (familiar with the research content of the project), but more than one-third of the experts belong to "partially familiar" or "unfamiliar" fields. The "semi blind evaluation" state leads to the differentiation of the authority of the review opinions. Small peers may reject them severely due to academic differences, and Datong may underestimate the value of technical details due to professional barriers.

　　Review of Load Erosion Quality: Nearly half of the experts have less than 2 hours to review a single application, and some experts need to complete more than 20 review tasks within a month. Under time pressure, reviewers tend to rely on explicit indicators to make quick judgments, and research logic is superficial. A very small number of overloaded experts may trigger "template based review opinions", weakening the pertinence of the review.

　　Intergenerational imbalance in the expert team: the proportion of review experts over 45 years old has increased from 66% in 2014 to over 70% in 2021, while experts under 35 years old account for less than 3%. The trend of "aging" reflects a reliance on senior scholars, but middle-aged and elderly experts may hold a cautious attitude towards disruptive innovation, and the forward thinking perspective and adventurous spirit of young scholars are difficult to fully express.

　　Change in the evaluation process: finding a balance between intervention prevention and fairness

　　The biggest highlight of this year's letter review is the widespread application of "dynamic packages" and "scattered packages".

　　The dynamic package breaks the traditional fixed combination mode, allowing the same project to face different competitors in different expert groups. This random design not only greatly increases the difficulty of "greeting" operations, but also ensures the objectivity of evaluation through multi-dimensional perspectives. And the "scattered package" assigns some projects separately to expert review, which may indicate that the National Natural Science Foundation is trying to expand the size of the review expert pool and attract more young scholars to participate in decision-making.

　　Behind this process optimization is a profound reflection by the National Natural Science Foundation on the fairness of evaluation. When the phenomenon of "gods fighting" is caused by keyword similarity in AI allocation, the dynamic adjustment mechanism provides experts with greater discretion.

　　For example, a certain group in the Department of Medical Sciences (H mouth) requires that the A+B ratio be controlled at 20% -25%, which means that only 2-3 out of 10 applications will be accepted. This pressure of "selecting the best from the best" forces the evaluation experts to establish more refined evaluation criteria.

　　Young people value logical innovation and overall achievements

　　Experts have pointed out that as the level of application writing improves, more attention is paid to the quality of the applicant's representative works in the evaluation process. If the level of the article is low, it will be difficult to obtain funding; However, some experts believe that the evaluation of the Youth Fund should not overly rely on papers, but should focus on the scientific and innovative nature of projects, and avoid burying their innovative ideas due to resource limitations on the Youth Scholar Platform.

　　Applicants should pay attention to this: if applying for the Youth Fund, they can reduce reliance on achievements, focus on project innovation and logical rigor, and demonstrate potential through clear argumentation and rigorous design; If applying for a top-notch project, it is necessary to solidify the quality of representative works, highlight their continuity and systematic research foundation with the project, and at the same time, regardless of the type, highlight the core scientific problems and breakthrough points of the project, avoid formal competition, and enhance competitiveness through substantive innovation.

　　In 2025, the number of applications from National Natural Science Foundation of China will surge while the growth of total funding will be limited, and it is expected that the funding rate will further decrease. In this context, only by deeply cultivating academic value and accurately matching evaluation requirements can we stand out in fierce competition. For researchers, nature is not only a battle for resources, but also a touchstone for academic rigor and innovation.