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POLITICS
Reforms spark fears that fundamental research will suffer.
Chinese leaders released plans last week to expand the powers of the country's science and technology ministry (MOST). The beefed-up agency will continue to oversee science policy and major projects, but will take on extra responsibilities for funding research grants and for recruiting foreign scientists. Politicians say that the reforms will streamline government procedures, but some science-policy experts warn that the changes could weaken support for basic research.
The announcement came at the annual assembly of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing, where the government revealed that more than 15 ministries and agencies will be merged, restructured or abolished. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the major grant-funding agency, will no longer sit under the powerful State Council, but will be managed by the science ministry.
Other agency changes include expanding the office that oversees intellectual property, creating a ministry of ecological environment to monitor pollution and forming a conservation agency to help in the protection of endangered species, such as the Przewalski's gazelle (Procapra przewalskii).
The plans to expand the science ministry will have the biggest impact on researchers, and took many Chinese scientists by surprise. The NSFC funds modestly sized competitive grants that are initiated by individual investigators. In 2016, its budget of 26.8 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion)...