The State Council issued a circular on July 24 to streamline management of scientific research, giving researchers more autonomy in the use of funds to stimulate their initiative.

According to the circular, the application for scientific research projects will be simplified, as well as the evaluations, spot checks and audits in the process of projects. Financial and technical acceptance evaluations will be merged.

Researchers will be granted higher decision-making power to choose and adjust research approaches.

Incentives and evaluation standards will be upgraded for the benefit of innovation. Evaluations of projects and talents will be less dependent on the number of papers, degrees and titles. Researchers that undertake projects of core technology in critical fields will get a higher pay.

The quality and results of researches will be more emphasized, rather than process and quantity. Different types of projects will apply different evaluation standards.

Governments should respect authority of universities and research institutions on hiring, salary allocation and internal restructuring, and provide better public service, the circular said.

Pilot research management reforms which are based on performance, integrity and capability will be launched, such as simplifying project budgeting and granting researchers the ownership of or longtime right to use the research results.

The departments involved should improve service and supervision to safeguard research activities.