Among the 27 proposals for Sate key laboratories recently approved by China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), eight were from CAS. They involve various subjects, ranging from ecology, cryosphere science to robotics, further optimizing the disciplinary and structural arrangement of the centers of excellence in this country.
According to the application guide issued by MOST, the State key lab will be directly affiliated to a first grade corporate unit and have independent authorities in personnel and finance.
Of the eight labs, three will be located at the CAS S&T Cluster of Ecological and Environmental Science and Technology, namely the State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Sciences hosted by the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, the State Key Laboratory of Lake and Environment hosted by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and the State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Changes hosted by the Institute of Botany in Beijing. Authorities both from the Cluster and the institutes were actively devoted themselves into the application work, and the successful result all attributes to their hard efforts.
The other five will be: the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Robotics, the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials and Application, the State Key Laboratory of Rock and Soil Mechanics and Engineering, the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, and the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, respectively hosted by the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Wuhan Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanis, Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences and Kunming Institute of Zoology.
In accordance with the “Tentative Guideline for Construction and Management of State Key Laboratories,” the new labs are presently hunting for principal investigators, especially lab directors. Meanwhile feasibility studies over the construction plan will also be conducted. Those laboratories that pass the verification will enter the stage of construction and will be officially added into the State plan.
According to regulations, formal names of the labs as well as the research subjects should be made to stand out with their own advantages and characteristics to avoid vagueness and generality. Their official names will be released when the feasibility studies are finished.