The dark side of success in research? #ScholER The academic researcher, widely seen as an elite job for intellectuals, is gradually being labelled a "high-risk" occupation as tragedy after tragedy involving young death continues to occur in Chinese society. In August alone, news emerged of at least three young scientists employed at China's top universities dying. They were all rising stars in their respective fields, yet tragically lost their lives while climbing the career ladder. On August 4, Du Dongdong, a 35-year-old scientist at Zhejiang University's College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, fell from a building at the university's branch campus and died. He served as a doctoral supervisor and conducted research in areas such as fruit and vegetable harvesting equipment, agricultural robotics and biomimetic soft robotics. Mid-month saw the death of Huang Kai, an associate professor at the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT), who took his own life at the age of 41. According to informed sources cited in mainland media reports, he also fell from a building. Huang had just gotten married in July. The chemist graduated from Peking University with an undergraduate degree in 2006, going on to obtain his PhD from the University of Toronto in Canada in 2011 under the supervision of John Polanyi, a German-born Canadian chemist and Nobel laureate. Prior to returning to China, he worked at the University of Toronto and the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Germany. The most recent tragedy is the death of Dong Sijia, an assistant professor at Nanjing University’s school of sustainable energy and resources, who died at the age of 33. Her profile photo on the university's website has been changed to black and white, but no official notice has yet been issued. The oceanographer was considered a rising star in the field of deep-sea research. She had made internationally recognised contributions to marine chemistry, with her work featuring in an American textbook. Here are some headlines from the past months: Rising academic star who left US for China's 'unprecedented opportunities dies aged 33 https://www.scmp.com/news.. Shocked colleagues pay tribute to Chinese climate scientist Wen Xinyu, dead at 45 https://www.scmp.com/news.. Early deaths of top Chinese Al scientists raise concerns about industry pressures https://www.scmp.com/news.. However, none of the institutions that employed the three researchers have issued an official statement or published an obituary, leaving the public to speculate about the cause of their deaths by piecing together information from various online sources. Rumours circulated on Chinese social media suggested that Dong's death was caused by personal romantic setbacks, while others attributed it to her inability to adapt to the research environment in China as a scientist returning from overseas. These deaths have once again sparked criticism of China's flawed talent system, especially the ruthless race for more papers, grants, titles and, eventually, a tenured position. Apparently, the group is under greater pressure to compete for national funding than before. From 2011 to 2016, around 24 per cent of applicants received grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China – China's primary source of basic research funding – but by 2021, this figure had fallen to 16.51 per cent. It has continued to decline, with only around 12 per cent of researchers receiving support from the NSFC this year. Reflection on and even rejection of the "up or out" hiring system is growing. Typically, the system involves a fixed-term employment period of six years, during which time researchers must meet specific criteria to be promoted to associate professor and receive tenure, or face dismissal. Since the 1990s, some elite Chinese universities have begun adopting the US-style tenure track system. The intention was sound: as the supply of talent increased, introducing competition could incentivise research vigour and output, as well as modernising China’s higher education system. But nearly three decades later, the side effects of the imported system are gradually surfacing. Faced with challenges such as an increasing glut of PhD graduates, rising selection barriers and ambiguous criteria for securing tenure, young Chinese academics are being pushed to overwork and sacrifice their health, personal life and, in extreme cases, their lives. A Peking University scholar specialising in higher education told me that although China's tenure track is modelled on the US system, it is not entirely the same. One point is that whether academics in China can secure a tenured position relies on their competitors because the quota is fixed, creating rivalry among peers – even if they are not in the same field. In the US, however, evaluations are conducted on an individual basis, and the outcome depends solely on their own merit. As China’s innovation and self-reliance drive has shifted into high gear amid tech competition with the US, revamping its innovation ecosystem has become a national priority that extends beyond individual well-being. Recently, a handful of Chinese universities have begun to abandon this system, promising to provide their researchers with a stable environment. However, as some mainland mainstream outlets have noted, the issue with the "up or out" system does not lie with the regime itself, but with how universities implement it. Unfortunately, some universities treat it merely as a tool for pressuring researchers into producing more papers, thereby boosting the university's quantitative metrics, regardless of their career development. "The time has come to reform the system," a commentary published by CCTV.com at the end of August said.