导读:近日一则“清华教授出走普林斯顿”的新闻引起人们极大关注，作为曾经的科技新星、清华骄傲，颜宁的“负气出走”引发了人们的思考。
The departure of a top Chinese researcher for an Ivy League university in the US has sparked soul-searching in China about whether the country’s unwelcoming research environment is sabotaging its efforts to retain its best talents.
近日清华教授颜宁出走美国普林斯顿大学的新闻引起人们极大关注，许多国人都在反思中国不友好的研究环境是否正在破坏国家留住顶尖人才的努力。
American-trained life scientist Nieng Yan is leaving Tsinghua University to rejoin Princeton University this autumn after a decade of working in China.
颜宁是一名留学美国后归国的生命科学家，而在中国工作10年之后她将于今秋离开清华再次回到普林斯顿。
Yan would take on a full-time professor role at Princeton’s department of molecular biology, state news agency Xinhua confirmed on Monday. Talk of Yan’s move had been making its rounds in the research community for months.
据新华社本周一证实，颜宁将担任普林斯顿大学分子生物学系全职教授。好几个月以来研究界一直在议论颜宁的举动。
Yan, 40, had been one of China’s most prominent examples of top research talents the country had managed to lure back from overseas in recent years amid a transition to an innovation-driven economy.
在中国目前努力过渡到以创新为驱动的经济这一大背景下，40岁的颜宁是中国近年来设法吸引人才归国的最著名例子之一。
She had been dubbed China’s “Goddess scientist” by mainland social media for her stylish looks, outstanding research work and willingness to openly criticise the country’s research environment.
因其入时的外貌、杰出的研究工作、以及公开批评中国学术环境的意愿，大陆的社交媒体一直称她为“女神科学家”。
For years, China has used financial incentives and patriotic appeal to bring back talented Chinese researchers who had studied and worked overseas. The Ministry of Education records more than 2.6 million “haigui”, or returnees from overseas, since 1949.
多年来，中国一直利用财政奖励和爱国诉求吸引留学海外的中国研究人员归国。教育部记录显示，1949年以来“海归”人数已经超过了260万。
But a reverse trend of “guihai”, or people returning overseas, has emerged in recent years, and Yan will soon join their ranks.
但是近年来出现了一个新的趋势“归海”，而颜宁不久之后也会成为其中一员。
The top researcher returned to China in 2007 after completing her post-doctoral research in Princeton. Aged 30, she became one of Tsinghua’s youngest professor.
2007年在普林斯顿完成博士后研究之后，颜宁回到了中国。当时30岁的她成为了清华最年轻的教授之一。
During her time in Tsinghua, Yan’s research team made important breakthroughs. In 2014, her team became the world’s first to discover the physical structure of a protein related to a wide range of diseases including cancer and diabetes.
在清华的日子里，颜宁的研究小组取得了重大突破。2014年，她的团队全球最先发现一种和包括癌症和糖尿病等多种疾病相关的蛋白质的物理结构。
But that same year, she posted on her personal blog a detailed account of how the government-run National Natural Science Foundation had rejected her team’s grant application, criticising fund management officials for their reluctant to support high-risk research.
但是也在那一年，她也在自己的个人博客上发表了一篇详细的文章，讲述了国家自然科学基金委员会是如何拒绝他们团队的资金申请的，批评基金管理官员不愿支持高风险研究。
“Aren’t key research funds supposed to support risky but important research? Or are they only to support projects with predictable results and guaranteed success? Is that the way for innovation?” Yan wrote then.
颜宁在文章中写道：“重要的研究基金难道不是本应该支持高风险的重要研究吗？还是说他们只支持结果可预测、且保证能成功的研究？这样就能创新吗？”
She updated her blog post a year later to say that her project had again failed to secure an interview with the funding agency.
一年之后她再次更新了自己的文章，说她的项目再次未能获得基金委员会的批准。
