中国科技评价政策的变迁与演化:特征、主题与合作网络

Changes and evolutions of science and technology evaluation policies in China:Characteristics,subjects and collaborative networks

科技评价是构建我国科技发展环境的重要基础。作为科技评价活动的纲领文件,国家层面科技评价政策本身的科学性与合理性将直接影响评价工作的效果与质量。以我国1978—2020年国家层面的科技评价政策为研究对象,基于内容分析法和社会网络分析对484篇政策文本的基本特征、政策主题以及合作网络的演化变迁进行系统的分析与总结。研究发现:我国科技评价主要经历了恢复重建期(1978—1984年)、评价探索期(1985—1997年)、评价发展期(1998—2011年)和评价完善期(2012年至今)四个阶段。总体来看,政策主题呈现多元化发展趋势,基本覆盖了科技活动的各类相关内容,但对科技规划、政策和发展领域评价关注不足;政策内容由最初的评价方式、方法和结果运用逐渐完善到方式、方法、程序、指标、结果运用等评价活动链的各个环节,但仍存在指导性和规范性意见偏多,实操性内容不足的问题;合作网络经历了"节点逐渐增多、合作频次大幅增加"的发展趋势,机构间的联系紧密性较为稳定,但机构间的权力分布稳定性不足,各机构在多数情况下还是以自定规则为主。为进一步提高科技评价政策效能,建议从合理分配政策注意力、提高评价政策的可操作性以及加强机构协同性,降低合作交易成本等方面进行改进。

The evaluation of Science and Technology(S&T)plays a key role in the construction of S&T environment in China.As an institutional document of S&T evaluation activities,S&T evaluation policies at the national level directly guide the practical evaluation and affect the evaluation effectiveness.Taking 484 China′s S&T evaluation policies from 1978 to 2018 as the research samples,this study analyzes and summarizes the changes and evolutions of its basic characteristics,policy subjects and collaborative networks through systematic text mining and network analysis.On the whole,the number of S&T evaluation policies in China shows a steady rising trend.After 2016,the number of policies showed the stage characteristics of"blowout"growth.Projects,organizations,personnel and funds are the top four evaluation objects.Pre-evaluation and post evaluation are the most frequently used evaluation methods.Therefore,S&T evaluation in China since the reform and opening up could be divided into four stages:the recovery and reconstruction period(1978-1984),the exploration period(1985-1997),the development period(1998-2011)and the improvement period(2012 to now).It also founds that with the deepening of the development of evaluation activities,the subjects of S&T evaluation policy show a diversified development trend,which basically covers all elements of S&T activities.However,the current S&T evaluation policies mainly focus on organization,personnel and project evaluation,and pay less attention on evaluation of S&T planning,policy and development field.The content of evaluation policy has gradually improved and enriched from the initial evaluation methods,modes and application of evaluation results to each link of the evaluation activity chain,including evaluation methods,modes,procedures,indicators,application of evaluation results,classified evaluation and constructive clauses.Among them,constructive clauses and classified evaluation have existed in different development periods of S&T evaluation since the 1980s and 1990s,and are still the high-frequency content of S&T evaluation policies so far.This shows that despite the frequent occurrence of policies,there are still some problems in policy documents,such as too many guiding and normative opinions and insufficient practical contents.The number of nodes in the collaborative networks has increased as well as the frequency of cooperation.However,the proportion of jointly issued policies in the total number of policies is not high.In most cases,each department still adopts self-made rules,which is easy to cause"fragmentation"management dilemma.In general,China′s S&T evaluation policies have formed a relatively complete evaluation system after long-term development.In the future,the government should rationally allocate policy attention and increase the evaluation of macro-objects,for example,S&T planning and policy.The executable policy documents should be restrengthened,so as to avoid the deviation of policy implementation.The government should also strengthen the coordination of institutions in order to reduce the transaction cost etc.