Information on academic conference arrangements for presenters is often seen, sometimes strangely, listing detailed titles of presenters, including administrative posts and academic honours, commonly known as hats.Recently, I was sent a notice of the arrangements for the report of a large-scale academic conference jointly convened by the two national level societies.This academic conference has more than 20 branch forums, almost involving the interdisciplinary features of these two disciplines with the times, is an important academic conference in the field.Such a large-scale academic conference basically has no communication and interaction links, mainly belongs to the display of results, but it is still very helpful for scholars to understand the progress of peer scientific research in a timely manner.I once pointed out that "attending academic conferences" is one of the relatively timely and convenient means to obtain peer research information, and it is a daily scientific research behavior of scholars to attend academic conferences in the industry.
However, the academic conference's sub-forum arrangements for academics present an interesting phenomenon when it comes to the identity of the rapporteur.There are three main reporting elements listed in these sub-forums: the first is a relatively normative tradition, specifically: reporting time, reporting title, name of the rapporteur, and reporting body.The second, similar to the first, adds only the titles of rapporteurs, such as professors, associate professors, researchers and associate researchers.Both situations are normal for academic conferences within the academic community.The third situation may reflect the phenomenon of "cap-only" characteristics of our country.For example, administrative hats, vice-chancellors, deans or vice-deans of universities, and even directors; academic honor hats have national (commonly known as big hats), national young talents, and chapter forums list reporters.The scholars present at the meeting told me that whether or not each sub-forum listed the title of rapporteur may depend mainly on the head of the sub-forum, not on the uniform requirements of the academic conference.
I will often attend relevant academic conferences at home and abroad due to various needs, and the academic atmosphere was relatively pure at that time, and the academic hat was relatively small.All presenters in these academic conferences have only names and institutions, much less the possibility of listing the identities of the presenters, especially administrative positions.Because of the general international academic conferences, scholars attending the conference are only interested in the content of the reporter's report, and they are not very interested in the identity of the reporter.One student told me that at an international academic conference, he saw a bull sitting on the ground in the field carefully looking at the poster paper.However, the academic community in our country often divides the report into categories based on the title of rapporteur rather than the content.Obviously, as scholars determined to fight for life in the academic siege, they should be "well aware" of the academic characteristics and representative achievements of scholars in their field of study, including their institutions and identities.So, when attending a meeting, it doesn't matter whether to list the "hats" of these famous scholars.In July 2012, I visited Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, where I was invited to give an academic presentation to their researchers. I was only asked to provide names, institutions and summaries of the contents of the presentation.Obviously, the head of this institution and his colleagues have paid attention to my academic papers published in international professional journals.In 2013, I was visiting relatives at MIT and was planning to visit a peer group at the University of Massachusetts near Boston, and the peer was very happy to invite me to talk and say that you have seen good results.We also often see overseas academic institutions inviting scholars to make reports, and generally do not need to list the detailed titles and honorifics of the rapporteurs.Because, in a normal academic environment, even Nobel laureates are just ordinary university professors, they don't receive much attention from non-academic elements, such as the usual classes for Nobel laureates at prestigious universities.Ding Zhaozhong often put Feynman's advice to him: "Don't think you're an expert just because you won the Nobel Prize.""This kind of scientific style is always worth learning.
In fact, the above-mentioned phenomenon of some chapters and forums paying so much attention to the title of rapporteur is not an exception in China, and it has long been a manifestation of the administrative color of academic management.Although the government has been calling for a breakthrough, it has had little effect.As a well-known scholar recently told me, the country has been advocating for many years, but the phenomenon of hat-only seems to be increasing.It is well known that even if a scholar's title is true, it is a "past tense", indicating only that the scholar has achieved corresponding achievements in the past.If such scholars use their hat status to turn to politics and leave the academic front line, they will gradually lose their academic voice and can only use administrative titles to "give orders" and seek resources.Not to mention, some title holders' academic achievements are not entirely realistic, perhaps due to various non-academic factors, which are indisputable facts in China's academic circles and one of the reasons for the public's concern about China's scientific development.The country must be broken, but it is difficult to break the blue sky.As I recently told WeChat to a newly elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: Congratulations!I hope you can contribute to the purity of our academic environment.He replied immediately, thank you, Mr. Liu, I will try to do the real thing.