ABSTRACT
The previous chapter discussed how more and more leading positions in the Chinese research system are occupied by researchers with foreign experience. This chapter explores how this development has affected the operational level of the research system. The central “expectation” of this chapter is that the gradual introduction of actors who have been socialized in other systems, at key positions in the research system, has been an important way of complementing or facilitating institutional changes aspired to at the level of the Chinese government. The introduction of returnees is thought to have facilitated the gradual transformation of the research system by reducing institutional resistance to change in the elite-level research organizations in which they are employed.
