“We are to resolve 100 issues in the future”, Zhang Jie, President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University lately raised a “special requirement” for the Academic Committee: to pose one hundred indiscoverable and cutting-edge questions in the fields of engineering and technology and organize the high-end R&D team of the university to make the breakthrough. “The motive of promoting ‘Innovation & Entrepreneurship Base for Overseas Chinese Talents’ lies not only in the vigorous input, but also the further improvement of research environment which can bring in and retain talents who are willing to devote themselves in the research work.

On January 9, 2009, Ji Xiangdong, former professor in Department of Physics, the University of Maryland, USA and director of Research Center for Basic Physics, took up office and became the new housemaster of Physics in SJTU. Shortly after he took the post, the Department has made “its voice” heard both at home and abroad, which has enhanced and accelerated the building of SJTU physics. As one enrollee of the “Thousand-Talent Program”, Ji Xiangdong is brought in and this reflects the success of ShanghaiJiaoTongUniversityin seizing the opportunity of the introduction of high-level overseas talents and building of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Base for Overseas Chinese Talents vigorously stepped up by the country. As one of the first national Innovation & Entrepreneurship Bases for Overseas Chinese Talents, Shanghai Jiao Tong University has so far organized over 30 councils on the talents introduction green channel, interviewed over 150 high-level talents and 10 talents have been selected.

In the overall framework of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Bases for Overseas Chinese Talents, Shanghai Jiao Tong University devised the “Talents’ Echelon Pyramid Project” to focus on the bottleneck of the development of the talent team and comprehensively promote the university’s new-round development. The university has set up five levels which are chair professor, special-term professor, academic leader, research fellow and “Moring Star” scholar, opened the green channel of talent introduction, and unveiled the supporting policy. In addition to allowance, the university also provides talents with a series of preferential policies and people-oriented service, such as research funds and settling-in allowance, etc. which is intended to assist them to take root in the university soil quickly and thrive.

President Zhang Jie described the talent prospect he would like to see: by 2010, the number of the academician and chair professors would amount to 50; the number of outstanding youth, Changjiang scholars, and academic leaders would amount to 100, with 150 special research fellows and 400 young teachers under the age of 35 and having development potential; by 2020, these figures will steadily double, and several disciplines will achieve the world-class standards.

After Ji Xiangdong settled down in Department of Physics, SJTU, a high-end R&D team was rapidly formed. At the beginning of 2009, SJTU established Instituteof Nuclear, Particle, Astronomy and Cosmology (INPAC). This is a first-class research team taking dark matter and dark energy as the main research topics.

As director of the institute, Chair Professor Ji Xiangdong also brought the special research fellow, Dr. Liu Jianglai of California Institute of Technology and others as the backbone of the lab. This team will apply rich experience accumulated in a number of international cooperation experiments to fill the gaps of experiment for direct detection of dark matter in China.

On the basis of the “Talents’ Echelon Pyramid Project”, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Bases for Overseas Chinese Talents of Shanghai Jiao Tong University is under construction in full swing. The base is formed by the combination of strong disciplines, such as naval architecture and marine engineering, mechanical engineering, electronic and communications, materials and life science. “The base” ensures the constant increasing of the talents. At the same time, it focuses more on the “quality certification” of talents.

To guarantee the high-level talents’ good working environment and let them quickly integrate into the university, SJTU has proposed the policy of “carrying out the work in detail and in practice”. The university implements the reform to standardize and humanize the talent enrollment procedure, sends specially-assigned persons to coordinate various matters of the university, clarifies the responsibility of relevant departments to implement the work and life necessities for the talents, and provide full service to the talents as far as possible. The university has applied the highway access card and airline VIP cards for Chair professors and talents with higher titles, and also uses the medical resources of its affiliated hospitals to offer the “Green Access for Treatment” to them. In addition, the university also takes the measure to purchase commercial assurance for overseas talents to dispel their worries about work and life. Nowadays, the three full professors drawn in by UMSJTU Joint Institute are all selected into the “Innovation & Entrepreneurship Bases for Overseas Chinese Talents”, which outshines the other university colleges across the country. The key factors to attract these international outstanding talents are not only the “hard” index of treatment, research fund supporting, and laboratory equipments, etc. but also the “soft” conditions of management modes, target concept and development opportunities, etc.