Lucrative awards announced for doctoral-level talents

New incentives designed to attract a thousand doctoral and 150 post-doctoral talents over a five-year period have been announced by the Zhuhai city government. The city will also subsidize the building of 50 doctoral workstations and 50 other workstations, substations, and innovative practice bases for postdoctoral talents in that timeframe.

The Implementation Measures for Zhuhai Doctoral & Postdoctoral Talent Innovative Development were released on Feb 15.

Domestic and overseas full-time doctoral and postdoctoral scholars who are newly arrived in Zhuhai are to benefit. A full-time PhD degree holder under age 40 who meets requirements, whether employed or self-employed, will receive a living allowance of 250,000 yuan ($37,390) paid in equal terms over two years. Postdoctoral degree holders under 45 who choose to stay in or come to Zhuhai and meet certain conditions will each be awarded 500,000 yuan ($74,780) in housing subsidies, distributed in equal terms over five years.

Zhuhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone Post-Doctoral Program By-Health Station [Photo courtesy maigoo.com]

Also eligible are Zhuhai governmental units, institutions, and social organizations (including those based in Zhuhai at central, subordinate, and provincial levels), enterprises registered with tax obligations in Zhuhai, new-type R&D institutions, private non-enterprises and municipal public universities, as well as their newly recruited full-time doctoral and postdoctoral scholars.

For example, Zhuhai's research institutes, Grade-III Class-A hospitals, large industrial enterprises, and growing high-tech enterprises will be subsidized with one-off 500,000-yuan ($74,780) payments for building PhD workstations. Enterprises above a designated size that have their own R&D institutions may also apply.

Furthermore, doctoral workstations of scientific research institutions and Grade-III Class-A hospitals are encouraged to work with Zhuhai's small and medium-sized sci-tech enterprises. Cooperation scope includes transformation of scientific results and personnel training. Doctoral trainees at the workstations will be included in staffing of government affiliated institutions, and will retain that status for five years, guaranteeing their salaries and social insurance.

Those talents still at postdoctoral workshops in Zhuhai will be each granted a living allowance of 200,000 yuan ($29,910) per year for two years. They will receive the same annual free medical examinations provided to Zhuhai experts. If they come from the world's top 200 universities from overseas, they will be eligible for living subsidies of 300,000 yuan ($44,870) per person per year. A housing subsidy of 400,000 ($59,820) per person awaits them after they leave the workshops to work in Zhuhai. Those sums are provided by provincial finances but can overlap income arising from municipal preferential treatment. National fund grants and other policy supports including priority in professional title evaluation are also specified.

Implementation of issues not mentioned in the measures should accord with relevant national and provincial provisions. If there are differences, then Zhuhai policies apply, according to the Zhuhai Human Resources & Social Security Bureau.