Chinese Academy of Sciences

(Zhongguo kexueyuan)

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China’s supreme institution of science and technology, grew out of the former Central Academy and Beiping Academy in November 1949. GAS has over 650 academicians at home and abroad. The General Congress of Academicians serves as its top decision-making body, with the Presidium of the Academic Divisions as its standing agent, and the CAS President as its executive chair. The Academic Divisions—Mathematics and Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, and Technological Sciences—were formed on 1 June 1955, and function as the leading academic bodies. In 1984, the State Council made them the nation’s highest advisory bodies for science and technology.

In 1987, CAS initiated the concept of ‘One Academy, Two Operational Mechanisms’, namely organizing the main forces to serve national economic and social development, while retaining crack teams for basic research and high-tech innovation. One hundred and seventeen laboratories have been created. Their numerous achievements include a heavy ion accelerator, a 2.16m optical telescope, and the discovery of fauna that is 580 million years old. GAS also collaborates with fifteen provinces and cities on economic and technology development projects and has exchange and cooperative programmes with over sixty countries and regions in the world.

Since 1978, CAS has established graduate schools, with 431 master’s degree and 276 doctoral degree programmes, graduating about 12,000 students each year. CAS publishes over a thousand books and 290 periodicals annually, in addition to several hundred electronic publications. Of the more than 2,000 faculty members (most affiliated with the University of Sciences and Technology of China), 250 occupy leading roles in international organizations. CAS has also invited over 140 foreign experts as visiting professors.

HU MINGRONG