How to recruit assistant professors in the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Hong Kong [reprint]

I haven't had time to write blog posts for a long time. Today, I remembered to write the topic of recruiting assistant professors, but because it involves some confidential information, I can't write it directly, so I can only say it briefly.

After our department stopped recruiting for many years because of funding cuts, donated one billion yuan to HKU in Li Ka-shing, and several outstanding scholars who stayed in the school for many years were promoted to assistant professors, we finally ushered in another open recruitment last year. About 100 people applied for the position of assistant professor. After reviewing and discussing the materials by several colleagues, the candidate of 10 was finally selected for telephone interview. The candidates are all in Europe and America, and most of them go out from the mainland. Although some local applicants in Hong Kong are excellent, and even a few have published some good papers, we hope to recruit people who are better than ourselves and can complement us in professional direction, so none of them are qualified. Although I feel sad for the local postdoctoral doctors, I am also gratified by the realm and mind of my colleagues in charge of recruitment. All the selected candidates have a fairly high-level masterpiece, at least published in PNAS, many of which are CNS or its sub-journals, and several good papers published in other magazines. This threshold is still relatively high, basically in line with the standards of better state universities in the United States. After a telephone interview, we selected three or four people for an interview. The interview procedure includes meeting with the recruitment committee, all professors in the department and other related professors, making academic reports public, and visiting laboratories. In fact, I think all the scholars who came for the interview were excellent, but only the best one was chosen. As a result, only one selected scholar won the unanimous support of the recruitment Committee and all professors and got the letter of appointment as an assistant professor. I think the key to his success lies in his enthusiasm, big ideas, sincerity to others and his ability to complement each other professionally, which makes us think that he is most likely to succeed after coming to HKU.

Similar to the recruitment process of world famous schools, the scholars selected after the interview are often not the best, nor the largest number of papers. Once, a familiar young friend came to our school for an interview. He studies in a university in England, and his English is very good. He also published three or four papers higher than PNAS (including Cell Journal). However, when making an academic report, he seems to be talking about other people's work. He is lifeless, bitter and difficult to understand, obsessed with some technical details, unable to grasp the hearts of the audience at all, and even exposed his weaknesses when answering questions. As soon as the report is over, he is doomed to be out. What should we pay attention to during the interview? Of course, the first is the candidate's love and pursuit of science, and other important factors include the planning and foundation of the work to be carried out (whether there are good ideas and whether there is any hope for funding), the attitude of treating people (whether they can get along well with colleagues and interact well), the professional complementarity with existing colleagues (whether they can enhance the strength of the department) and whether they are sincere in taking up their posts. If the following problems are exposed in the interview, it may be fatal: people feel more like postdocs than assistant professors; Do not pay attention to grasp the time or even seriously overtime when making academic reports; Cowhide is too big, and the meaning of one's work is too high and too wide, which makes people feel unreal; Completely unaware of other colleagues' academic achievements or directions or deliberately pandering; You can't explain your work in simple language, which is unattractive and so on.

Professors are the most valuable assets of universities. Without first-class professors, there is no first-class university. I am glad that the University of Hong Kong still adheres to the educational philosophy in the fierce competition and has the ambition to accommodate outstanding scholars and students from all over the world. I am also very happy that the University of Hong Kong can invite outstanding scholars to join us today. In my personal feeling, our system and process of recruiting assistant professors are basically fair and just, which is one of the important reasons why HKU stands firm. However, just because you can get a good professor today doesn't mean you can always get one. In recent years, the scientific research conditions in China Mainland have advanced by leaps and bounds, and many places have surpassed Hong Kong. With the support of the state, the recruitment of Beijing Institute of Life Sciences and even some institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences has reached international standards. How to continuously improve and enhance the competitiveness of the University of Hong Kong is a major challenge we are facing at present. HKU is the wealth of Hong Kong and the country, but many people still can't see it. If the SAR Government waits until HKU professors take to the streets to demonstrate, it will really attach importance to HKU and change its foolish behavior of refusing to substantially increase investment in higher education and scientific research even though the government has a huge fiscal surplus, which will only highlight the governance problems of the SAR Government again. On the other hand, American academic and scientific circles attach great importance to lobbying the government and parliament. I think this article deserves the attention and imitation of colleagues in Hong Kong. It should be normal for scholars to go out of the ivory tower and explain and struggle for society, enterprises and government.