Research infrastructure key to Nobel aspirations

Asking how Chinese mainlanders can win a Nobel Prize makes more sense than asking when it will happen.

Late last month, some members of the Nobel Prize Committee, during their first official visit to China, found themselves besieged by Chinese mainlanders with one question: When will there be a Nobel Prize laureate from China?

Some of the committee members predicted that it would take five to ten years for the prize to come to China. Some said the first one would come from the field of medicine.

But Anders Flodstrom, president of the Royal Technological Institute of Sweden who headed the delegation, later denied the prediction, saying it had been forced out in the heat of the situation.

Indeed, to predict a result would be foolish.

What can be answered, and what is therefore much more valuable, is the question of how to make the dream come true.

Anjan Thakor, a renowned finance professor who served as a member of the Nobel Prize in Economics Nominating Committee from 1993 to 2003 and is now a professor for Washington University-Fudan University EMBA program, provided some advice during an interview in Shanghai.

"Quite a number of Nobel Prize laureates, economists in particular, are from the United States, which so far remains the preferred place for scientists," said Thakor.

"They don't really care about which country they live in, but they care about the environment they work in."

•	Research infrastructure key to Nobel aspirations Shanghai Daily online (China), Tuesday, April 25, 2006 Byline: Wang Yanlin