Genius of the Rules-Style System

Chapter 277: Chapter 199: This is just a staged play, isn’t it!

Yan Xuelin had predicted long ago that Zhao Yi would face a cold reception when seeking collaborators for research, just as when he appointed Zhao Yi as a researcher, his goal was to invest in the ’future’, not the ’present’.

The difference is quite significant.

Zhao Yi is a genius in mathematics and computer science. His conjectural paper on myocarditis pathology demonstrated his talent in medical research. However, he is still only a novice; he lacks even the basic knowledge to be considered a ’novice’.

Others share the same opinion. They know that Zhao Yi’s foundational knowledge is weak. He hasn’t even completed his undergraduate studies, so how can he design experiments or conduct research projects?

At the same time, many people feel that Zhao Yi’s conjecture on myocarditis pathology is somewhat down to luck. He only watched a simplified experimental process, made some conjectures in his mind, and then published them directly.

Although most of them have been proven to be correct, there is still a significant element of luck involved.

In subjects like mathematics and physics, inspiration often plays a pivotal role. Medical research, however, relies on continuous experimentation and data for analysis and summarization. Basic understanding is more important than inspiration.

Another issue is the system.

The Biomedical Research Institute operates within an organizational hierarchy. An Associate Researcher’s position is secure and paid a fixed salary. The primary pursuit for most of them is ’climbing the ladder’.

An Associate Researcher yearns to be promoted to Researcher, an Assistant Researcher seeks the security of an Associate Researcher’s position, and PhDs and graduate students just follow their mentors’ projects.

Under the current circumstances, Associate Researchers and Assistant Researchers are under a fixed leadership. Unless they’re extremely unhappy, it’s unlikely they’ll leave to collaborate with Zhao Yi on research projects.

Of course, there are some Assistant Researchers - the ’Post Docs in probation’ - who want to collaborate with Zhao Yi despite the slim chance of staying on.

The next day Zhao Yi met one-- Liu Chengjie.

Within the Biomedical Research Institute, Liu Chengjie ranks at the very bottom. He is even under the PhD students who work directly under their mentors.

Liu Chengjie previously worked in Li Hongshan’s lab. He was down on his luck. Li Hongshan had just completed a project and had been dispatched to Europe for an academic exchange, which lasted nearly a year.

The other members of Li Hongshan’s lab were not generous enough to share their projects with a ’Post Doc with slim chances of staying on’ since there are so many like him.

In every research institution, Post Docs are the most transient. Over two-thirds leave after two years to find a job. Staying on really depends on luck.

This is mostly due to rules. Incoming Post Docs need to achieve results within a short period of time in order to be promoted to Associate Researcher. Otherwise, they have to leave.

It is not easy for most PhD graduates to achieve results in a short period of time within a research institute, especially in the field of medical research. They usually need to be led by a Researcher.

So Liu Chengjie is very unfortunate. His contract with the institute was set to expire in half a year, and without any results, he was certain to leave and find a job. freēwēbnovel.com

At this point, Liu Chengjie decided to throw caution to the wind. He heard that Zhao Yi was looking for personnel, so he decided to try his luck.

Although others believed that it was unlikely Zhao Yi would achieve any results, collaborating with him was almost the same as working for oneself.

But... what if?

For Liu Chengjie, a glimmer of hope was better than none. He confidently said, "Zhao... Brother Zhao, I want to work with you. I know quite a bit too."

He wasn’t very confident.

Although he had worked in the research institute for a year and a half, as an outsider without a long-term mentor, Liu Chengjie was amongst the least skilled there.

"Don’t call me brother. I’m not that old. Just call me by my name." Zhao Yi was very pleased. He had thought that only Zhang Wei would join him, but now there was one more.

"Work hard!"

"Rest assured, working with me will definitely yield results!"

Zhao Yi was most happy that his lab team was shaping up. There was him, an ’intern with a researcher’s salary’, Zhang Wei the Associate Researcher, and now an ’Assistant Researcher’. They now had members at the top, middle, and bottom levels.

Excellent.

Zhao Yi, along with Zhang Wei and Liu Chengjie, began cleaning the lab, removing unnecessary items, and brought in some basic experimental tools from the storage room.

Afterwards, he went to the institute director’s office to look for suitable projects.

Yan Xuelin simply gave him a list, detailing the institute’s accumulated projects, a brief introduction, and remaining research and development funds.

"If you can complete any of these projects, the leftover funds are yours." Yan Xuelin said with a smile.

The stagnating projects in the research institute are those that had secured funding but had not been completed. Some were abandoned due to high difficulty, others due to unexpected incidents, etc.

Some of the funds for these projects had been spent. Reporting the expenditure directly would negatively impact the institute. So, these projects were held in abeyance.

It’s like police investigations. Some cases just cannot be solved and have to be set aside.

If someone else can complete a project using the remaining funds, it’s not only beneficial for the institute, but the higher-ups would also be thrilled to see this. They would no longer need to allocate additional funds for the same project, and they would also not need to report the direction of the subsequent funding.