Translating transnational capital into professional development: a study of China’s Thousand Youth Talents Scheme scholars

Over the past decade or so, Chinese government has been strategically luring back overseas Chinese high-fliers to strengthen science, technology, and higher education. One of the major initiatives is the Thousand Youth Talents Scheme (TYTS) launched in 2011. By 2017, 2980 Thousand Youth Talents Scheme scholars (TYTSs) had been recruited into China’s universities, research institutes, and enterprises (Retrieved from http://www.1000plan.org). Enjoying favorable policies and possessing their unique capital, they are well positioned to transfer the knowledge, skills, and experiences obtained overseas to their home institutions, while at the same time face challenges and difficulties in their professional development at home. While China’s overseas talent policies, at both governmental and institutional levels, have been well documented, the lived experiences of such elite scholars have been little understood. Employing a qualitative method of semi-structure interviews, this article examines how they mobilize domestic and international resources and networks to construct their professional development spaces and navigate their careers in the Chinese academic environment. It reports that TYTSs have established advantageous conditions for their professional development in both national and global environment and participated in transnational knowledge production. They have made significant contributions to the development of their affiliated institutions by producing compelling publications, extending new research directions, and uplifting domestic academic communities.