The U.S. National Science Foundation opened an office in Beijing Wednesday, aimed at encouraging greater collaboration between Chinese and U.S. scientists. The office hopes to stimulate ideas and programs in areas including physics, bioscience and information science, said the foundation's director, Arden L Bement.
He said scientists would conduct research into global problems like climate change, ecological disasters and the spread of contagious diseases, China Daily reported Thursday. The foundation has already spent $15 million in Sino-U.S. scientific research programs over the years.
Chinese scientists are facing a crisis of credibility. Earlier this month, more than 100 Chinese scientists living in the United States wrote an open letter to China's Ministry of Science and Technology, complaining that research standards in China were undermining the country's reputation, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
Also this month, a Chinese scientist acclaimed for his Hanxin digital signal chip was exposed as a fraud and his chip identified as a copy of a Motorola product.
In a ministry study of 180 PhD candidates, 60 percent admitted plagiarizing others' work, and 60 percent admitted paying bribes to have their work published.
