工科学者的研究选题策略问题研究——以水利工程领域为例

Research on the Strategy of Engineering Scholars’Research Topic Selection——Taking Hydraulic Engineering as an Example

研究议题选择是科研人员职业发展中的重要事件,也是影响科研人员职业发展的重要因素。目前针对我国工科学者的研究议题选择研究较为匮乏。以近二十年水利工程领域优青/杰青项目获得者为研究对象,基于博士学位论文、国家自然科学基金项目等信息,从研究主题和研究领域两个方面分析了水利学者的研究议题选择行为,以及研究议题选择策略对水利学者职业发展的影响。水利学者倾向于保守的研究议题选择策略,大都在水利工程领域内部围绕着博士论文相近主题开展研究工作。但是,保守的研究议题选择策略不利于水利学者的快速职业发展。研究主题的适度创新、临近工科领域的跨领域研究、研究方法的延续均有助于水利学者更快获得优青/杰青项目。研究结论对鼓励工科学者开展跨领域、跨主题研究提供了理论依据,也为工科学者在职业发展中如何选择研究议题提供了参考。

Choosing research themes is an important decision during a researcher’s career,and also an important factor of a researcher’s career development.There is very little research on Chinese engineering scholars’behavior in research themes selection.This study targets at nearly two decades of the winners of Excellent Young Scientists Fund and National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in the field of hydraulic engineering.After collecting data from scholars’PhD dissertations and their research projects funded by National Natural Science Foundation,this paper explores hydraulic scholars’behavior in research theme planning from two different aspects—the research topic dimension and research area dimension.Then,this paper analyzes the impact of research theme planning on hydraulic scholars’career development.Hydraulic scholars tend to have a conservative research theme planning strategy,and mostly choose research topics within the field of hydraulic engineering and highly related to their PhD dissertations.However,the conservative strategy is not conducive to the rapid career development of hydraulic scholars.Moderate innovation in research topics,cross-disciplinary research in the engineering fields,and continuation of research methods are all helpful for hydraulic scholars to win the Excellent Young Scientists Fund and National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars faster.The results provide a theoretical ground for encouraging engineering scholars to conduct cross-field and cross-topic research,and also provide a reference for engineering scholars to choose research themes benefiting their career development.