ONCE again Shanghai opens its doors wider to professionals from all over the world, seeking to recruit cutting-edge talent in sciences and engineering.

Recently the city announced 72 job openings in a global recruitment campaign for universities, research institutes and corporate research, offering salary of 300,000 yuan (US$47,081) to 500,000 yuan, a range of benefits and - most important - research funding. This is part of an ongoing nationwide campaign to recruit professionals, overwhelmingly overseas Chinese, utilizing their overseas education and expertise at home and sending the message that China is an international destination for first-rate minds.

Since the early 2000s, Shanghai has been in the vanguard of recruitment.

The "Gathering 10,000 Overseas Talents" project launched in 2003 by the city was the beginning of government-backed global recruitment, aiming to attract 10,000 professionals with world-class expertise to work in the city and boost its economy.

Preferential recruitment packages are very attractive. Consider Shanghai's ongoing "Oriental Scholar" project for 50 professionals each year. The Shanghai Education Commission and employing universities provide one-time research funding up to 1.6 million yuan, employment for a spouse and a guaranteed seat in a good school for children. The package includes housing and various benefits, as well as research and administrative assistants.

China has invested heavily in funding for research and development, and R&D is a powerful attraction for professionals working overseas where funding is limited. The mainland's investment dwarfs that in Hong Kong and many places in Asia as well as some Western countries.

Hong Kong, traditionally a magnet for overseas Chinese researchers, is feeling the pinch. Though it has an open, Western academic system, which is extremely important, it cannot compete in R&D funding.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology reports that the R&D expenditure of the mainland stands at around 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product and that figure is expected to rise to 2.2 percent by 2015. R&D spending in Hong Kong was only 0.79 percent of GDP in 1979, the latest year for which figures are available.

Why they come ?

It's the research funding.

During Fudan University's global recruitment video interviews, when one applicant was asked why he would return to China considering his achievements overseas, he cited research funding.

"It's increasingly hard to get a piece of the cake in research funding in the United States. But with its growing budget, the Chinese mainland has a much brighter prospects," he said, speaking for many researchers.

The overwhelming majority of applicants are Chinese who have studied abroad, obtained advanced degrees and conducted research at foreign universities and institutes.

Tony F. Chan, president of HKUST, told Shanghai Daily his university faces huge competition for professionals, since it cannot match the recruitment packages, notably research funding, offered by the mainland.

At a time when Western economies are slowing, many professionals look East.

But can a rich offering package retain professionals in the long term?

Indications are that research funding alone is not enough, especially in universities. After the initial funding period ends, Western-trained scientists, while retaining their salary, must compete along with their mainland colleagues for allocation of research funds.

Adapting to China's academic culture means currying favor with officials and funding committees through guanxi (connections), and this approach is difficult for many Western-trained professionals who are accustomed to merit-based funding.

Intense academic debate was stirred recently by the very public announcement by Rao Yi, dean of Peking University's School of Life Sciences, that he was dropping his bid to become an elected member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the nation's top research institute. The position of academician with the academy carries enormous prestige and is sought after by many scientists.

Rao, a neurology professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, was recruited in 2007 for the dean's post. But the outspoken researcher published several articles in his blog and in top scientific journals condemning what he called China's "unhealthy" research environment that he described as very unfair to returning professionals.

What's wrong?

In an article co-authored by Rao and another dean at Tsinghua University, the two returned scholars said many research funding decisions were make on the basis of guanxi, rather than the intrinsic value of research. They called this situation intolerable for researchers coming from an open Western academic and research environment.

One researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science said he had to work on various funding applications, write budget reports, respond to various requests, inspections and bureaucratic minutia.

Professor Zhang Mingjie, a mainlander graduating from Shanghai Funda University before he studied in Canada, is a case in point. He later chose to go to work at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "I don't need to worry about all that guanxi here. All I need to do is focus on my own research," said the professor who is now a member of the Chinese Academy of Science.

Worldwide, professors and researchers are judged by their achievements, findings, frequency of publishing and frequency with which their findings are quoted by other journals, preferably internationally respected and peer-reviewed.

But evaluation criteria in mainland universities places far more emphasis on quantity instead of quality, resulting in low quality, a significant amount of plagiarism, outright paying for publication and Chinese researchers citing each other in publications. And it is these criteria, in addition to guanxi that significantly determine salary and promotion.

Chinese scholars rank first in the world in sheer number of publications, but they don't make it into the top 100 when it comes to international citations, according to the China Youth Daily.

Many serious scholars are discouraged from working in China by what they see as an unfair evaluation system, dishonesty and academic arrogance in many mainland research universities.

"Most scholars don't want to make a fortune but they do want some achievements," observed HKUST president Chan.

Those who do accept attractive recruitment packages and funding promises find that after the recruitment campaign ends, much of their funding dries up. Then they find themselves in the shoes of colleagues who never went abroad and must scramble for funding.

Given this situation, how can we expect long-lasting benefits from heavily invested global recruitment?

Global recruitment campaigns have clearly attracted top-notch talent in the past decade but to retain professionals and reap long-term benefits the system must develop a more mature and honest academic climate.