Paying attention to the topics concerned by young scholars： an essay report on the theoretical innovation of young people in Exploration and Contention

On August 2nd, 2021, the special issue of China in Academic —— Celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the fourth (2020) national conference on theoretical innovation of young people were held in Shanghai Social Science Hall. At the same time, the fourth (2020) national youth theoretical innovation essay analysis report of Exploration and Contention was released. The following is the full text of the report.

First, the organization of the essay

(A) "Young Scholars Support Program" overview

Four combination punches of "Exploration and Contention" and "Young Scholars’ Support Program": 1. National essay on theoretical innovation of young people; Second, the outstanding young scholars support program; Third, the outstanding thesis support program for young scholars; Fourth, the annual forum of outstanding young scholars in China.

In the process of the growth of young scholars, it is the unshirkable responsibility of academic journals to "help the horse and help it". With the concept of "academic care for reality", the magazine has played a combination boxing to support young scholars. "National Youth Theory Innovation Essay" is aimed at young teachers and students in colleges and universities all over the country, advocating the idea of actively intervening in China’s practical problems, deeply explaining China’s practical problems, and looking forward to solving China’s practical problems, and discovering outstanding young scholars; The "Outstanding Young Scholars Support Program" aims to find outstanding young scholars for continuous and in-depth support; The "Young Scholars Excellent Thesis Support Program" is intended to search for excellent papers and forge them in advance; The "Annual Forum of National Excellent Young Scholars" is a national essay activity for young people’s theoretical innovation, which is planned and organized by young scholars themselves, and the editorial department provides academic support.

(2) Review of the first three essays

"Youth makes the country prosperous, while youth makes the country strong"! As an academic publication that insists on "growing with young scholars" as its mission since its birth, Exploration and Contention magazine has always attached importance to unity and support for young scholars. Under the leadership of the Party Group of Shanghai Social Federation, with the support of the National Social Science Fund, the Propaganda Department of Shanghai Municipal Committee and the special funds of Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau, since 2014, Exploration and Contention has launched an essay for young scholars and young students under the age of 40, and has been held for four times so far, with a total of more than 3,600 submissions and nearly 100 award-winning papers selected.

In 2014, Exploration and Contention launched the first national essay on theoretical innovation of youth with the theme of "comprehensively deepening reform and the path of China’s modernization". More than 800 contributions were received throughout the year, and 21 winning essays were finally selected. On January 31st, 2015, the Youth Forum of "Reinterpretating China and Comprehensively Deepening Reform" and the First National Youth Theoretical Innovation Essay Awarding Conference of "Exploration and Contention" were held.

In 2016, "Exploration and Contention" launched the second national youth theoretical innovation essay activity, with the theme of "Problems in the Transformation of China". In the whole year, 872 essays were received, and 25 winning papers were finally selected. On March 21st, 2017, the 2nd National Youth Theory Innovation Essay Awarding Conference of Exploration and Contention and the Youth Forum of China’s Transformation were held. At that time, Yan Shuang, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of Shanghai Municipal Committee, party secretary and full-time vice chairman of the Municipal Social Welfare Association, attended the meeting and delivered a speech.

In 2018, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, Exploration and Contention launched the third national youth theoretical innovation essay activity with the theme of "From new era to new era: China’s reform starts again". More than 900 papers were received, and 26 papers won prizes. On March 29th, 2019, the 3rd National Youth Theory Innovation Essay Awarding Conference and the Youth Forum of China Knowledge System Construction and Youth Mission were held. Xu Jiong, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of Shanghai Municipal Committee and director of Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. On the occasion of commemorating the centenary of the May 4th Movement and the 70th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC), a collection of some outstanding award-winning papers was published in the 5th issue of "May 4th Youth" in 2019.

(III) Overview of the Fourth Essay

From January to December, 2020, Exploration and Contention launched the 4th National Youth Theoretical Innovation Essay Activity with the theme of "Technological Innovation and Civilization Reconstruction: New Problems and Challenges". The object of the essay is young scholars and students born after January 1, 1980 in universities and scientific research institutions all over the country. The requirements for essay writing must be unpublished original papers or in-depth investigation reports; Do in-depth theoretical research on new phenomena, new needs and new problems caused by technological innovation in social, economic, political, cultural, humanities, communication and education fields, especially encourage interdisciplinary research; The research results are original and forward-looking, which can combine academic research with practical care, provide unique ideas for explaining and solving the China issue, and conform to the style of selecting articles in Exploration and Contention, with "academics as the bottom and thoughts as the banner".

The essay-writing activity has been strongly supported and responded by young scholars all over the country. In the whole year, 925 papers were received, and 885 papers were effectively submitted, and 24 winning papers were finally selected. Among them, 1 first prize, with a reward of 10,000 yuan; 3 second prizes, with RMB 5,000 each; 8 third prizes, with RMB 3,000 each; There are 12 nominations, and each 1000 yuan will be awarded.

(4) Review process

From January to April, 2021, based on the principles of fairness, openness and justice, the editorial department selected the contributions according to the procedures of initial review of the editorial department, re-evaluation of anonymous communication by experts and final evaluation of anonymous on-site by experts.

1. The preliminary examination is divided into social science group and humanities group. Each subject group in the editorial department is responsible for the primary election, and each group submits 30 articles to the experts to enter the anonymous communication review session.

2. In the re-evaluation, the evaluation experts give each article a rating (excellent, good and average) from the aspects of topic selection value, argument originality, argument quality, material application and writing level. After summarizing the experts’ evaluation opinions, the editorial department determined that 12 articles entered the final evaluation.

3. After carefully reading and evaluating the candidate articles, the final evaluation experts, through on-site discussion and voting, produce a list of candidates for the first prize, the second prize and the third prize.

4. The editorial department shall, according to the expert review opinions in the early stage, negotiate to produce the nomination award candidate list.

5. After all the candidate lists of awards are produced, they will be reviewed by experts and political experts, and then reported to the party group of Shanghai Social Federation. After approval, the winners will be publicized to the public.

On the whole, this essay on young people’s theoretical innovation has achieved the expected goal of the editorial department. After the essay-writing activity, the editorial department of Exploration and Contention conducted a survey on the topics of contemporary young scholars’ concern, their research methods and paradigms, the distribution of young scholars’ disciplines and schools, and the characteristics of award-winning papers in schools and professional titles reflected in this essay through statistical analysis of the manuscripts, internal discussions in the editorial department, and listening to experts’ opinions, so as to summarize the successful experiences and shortcomings of this year’s young scholars’ theoretical innovation essay, and understand and grasp the young scholars. This report will summarize and show the experience of this essay activity from the following aspects, report the essay results to all parties who care about and support this activity, and provide reference and prospect for the future development and perfection of this activity.

Second, the analysis of contributions

(A) the author’s title/academic analysis

The object of this essay is young scholars under the age of 40, and the authors are mainly young teachers, doctoral students and master students in colleges and universities. The analysis shows that young teachers and doctoral students in colleges and universities are the main force of this young theoretical innovation essay. Among them, young teachers in colleges and universities contributed 363 articles, accounting for 41% of the total number of contributions, and lecturers (assistant researchers) and associate professors (associate researchers) accounted for 34% of the total number of contributions; 235 doctoral students contributed, accounting for 26.5% of the total contributions; Postgraduates contributed 113 articles, accounting for 12.7% of the total contributions. It can be seen that young teachers in colleges and universities, doctoral and master students are enthusiastic about research and have strong research ability and thesis writing ability. This is also closely related to the theme of this essay. At present, young and middle-aged people constitute the main body of research in emerging fields such as technology and artificial intelligence. They have strong ability to accept emerging things and can adjust their research direction to the trend of social development. On the other hand, the distribution of professional titles/academic qualifications in this essay also reflects the scientific research pressure generally faced by young teachers and doctoral and master students in colleges and universities. It is understood that doctoral students in most universities in China basically need to publish 1-2 CSSCI journal papers, and graduate students in some universities also need to publish a CSSCI journal paper. For young teachers in colleges and universities, 2-3 CSSCI journal papers a year have become the "standard" for evaluating professional titles and performance appraisal. Sure，Scholars born in 1980s and 1990s have become a new force in the research of philosophy and social sciences, but we should also see the factors of "being forced to submit papers" and "making papers" due to performance appraisal or graduation requirements. In any case, the strategic guidance and support for the growth of young scholars can not be ignored.

(B) analysis of the contribution area

The sources of manuscripts are widely distributed, covering almost all regions in China except Qinghai, Ningxia, Shanxi and Xizang, and some articles from overseas. Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Hubei and Jiangsu are the concentrated sources of manuscripts. On the one hand, the distribution of the contribution enthusiasm of young scholars in China reflects the influence of the journal Exploration and Contention, on the other hand, it also reflects the future development potential of regional academics.

(3) Subject distribution of contributing scholars

The essay activity involves more than 10 disciplines, including Marxism, law, management, literature, sociology, philosophy, education, politics, economics, history and communication. The distribution of disciplines shows the following characteristics: First, the number and proportion of submissions from law, communication, literature, philosophy and Marxism are significantly higher than those from history, art, education and economics. Among them, the number of contributions from the first five disciplines is 173, 121, 102, 101 and 96 respectively. This is mainly because these disciplines are most sensitive to the changes brought about by technological development, such as personal information and privacy issues in law disciplines, blockchain and artificial intelligence contracts; Topics such as nationalism and national position, technological transformation and people-centered in Marxism; The ethics and man-machine relationship of artificial intelligence advocated in philosophy; Literature focuses on topics such as artificial intelligence writing, algorithms and cultural landscape. These topics are outstanding problems and distinct changes brought about by the development of technology, and also constitute the forefront of current research in these disciplines. However, disciplines such as history and art are relatively "conservative" and have their own development context, and they are less dependent on technology, so scholars in these fields are relatively lagging behind in their involvement in technical issues.

(D) Analysis of young scholars’ research methods

In this essay, young scholars pay more attention to empirical research and quantitative analysis in research methods, which reflects that contemporary young scholars have received good training in social science methods and can demonstrate their arguments solidly and rigorously. What is slightly insufficient is that some articles are slightly lacking in ideological and theoretical aspects because they pay too much attention to the refinement of methods.

(E) Analysis of topics of concern to young scholars

Through the analysis of high-frequency words in the contributions of various disciplines, we can find several interesting phenomena:

People and society have always been the core of the research on technology and civilization, and the concern about numbers and technology has permeated all disciplines. As far as the theme of technology and civilization is concerned, the involution of pedagogy, art and philosophy is obvious; There is almost no history in the contribution of the history group.

(VI) Thinking and Enlightenment

1. Walk with the times and write the paper on the motherland.

The editorial department of "Exploration and Contention" is writing essays for the whole country with the theme of "Technological Innovation and Civilization Reconstruction: New Problems and New Challenges", aiming at guiding young scholars to further analyze the social development mode and national governance mode brought about by technological development from their own research fields. In academic research, the trinity of "transitivity", academics and concern for the times is very important. Talking about problems and doing research without the reality of China’s development will fall into the trap of nihilism. In this essay, most of the articles can start from a specific research field, study the problems brought by technological development to practical practice, and pay attention to the social transformation in China. With the help of the theme analysis of the award-winning papers, we can find that the policy dominance of the country and the government’s concern affect the vision and problem orientation of academic research.

Taking the winning papers as an example, some discuss the role and influence of drawing technology in the formation of modern world order from the past to the present; Taking root in reality and discussing the spatial order and right order of homestead; There are hot spots to discuss the challenge of the rise of platform power to state power; There are those who discuss technical nationalism and the prospect of artificial intelligence between China and the United States based on the international situation.

In addition, there are many topics such as "virtual acquaintance society", "platform credit mechanism" and "civilized communication in games". These themes have taken care of the process of social reform and development in China since the information age from different angles, and found various obvious or hidden, macro or specific, classic or trendy problems. These young scholars can conduct in-depth and forward-looking research on these problems from their own knowledge structure and put forward unique solutions. These articles make us feel the keen vision and theoretical enthusiasm of contemporary young scholars in China, and also make us believe that contemporary young scholars are deeply concerned about social development, and they are trying to practice the academic mission of "writing papers on the motherland".

2. The interdisciplinary trend is obvious, actively practicing the innovation of China’s academic discourse system.

This essay takes the subject words of the article as the analysis variables, and finds that the hot topics concerned by contemporary young scholars have high similarity, such as "governance", "data", "algorithm" and "technology" have become common high-frequency words in all disciplines. Although this has something to do with the theme of the essay in the editorial department, through the analysis of the content of the essay, we can find that the research objects and research methods of this essay have a lot in common, which reflects that under the background of the construction of new liberal arts, interdisciplinary research has become the mainstream trend, which also reflects the future direction of China’s academic discourse system. For contemporary young scholars, interdisciplinary research has become a method, and their research has gradually changed from a small research within the discipline to a grand narrative that cares about social reality.

Through the analysis of word frequency co-occurrence of essays, "country" has become the ultimate concern of young scholars’ academic research, and taking discipline as the method and country as the purpose has become a major feature of this essay activity. Take the winning papers as an example. No matter the concepts such as cartography, power diaspora, virtual acquaintance society, technical nationalism and institutional art, professional analytical methods and research ideas are adopted in the beginning of the article, but at the end of the article, the themes are all guided to the grand narrative level of social development, state governance and civilization dissemination. Many papers do not stick to a specific discipline paradigm. Some pay attention to the development of China at present, especially in the post-epidemic era, from a unique perspective today. By deeply exploring and thinking about the issues of the times, they pay attention to trendy topics, such as games and cultural entertainment, new technology and labor transformation, algorithms and machine ethics, etc., and innovate discourse expressions, which have distinctive youth characteristics and characteristics of the times, and can make in-depth and valuable analysis and discussion. It can be seen that problem-oriented and breaking discipline barriers are becoming an important feature of contemporary academic development.

3. The problem of academic involution needs to be solved urgently, and the academic ecology needs further improvement.

In this essay, we also found a prominent problem, that is, the homogeneity of research is high, and the scope of research is still not wide enough. For example, the protection of personal information in the law discipline, nearly 30 articles in the law discipline contributions selected this topic; Another example is the man-machine relationship in philosophy, which also accounts for a considerable proportion in the contributions. Although these topics are very important, at the moment when the existing research results are already rich, if we don’t open up new academic fields as soon as possible, we will easily fall into the trap of low-level repetition and academic involution. For journals, this trend also reminds them to be "forward-flowing and backward-flowing", set up topics actively by predicting the new trend of social development, and lead the academic circles to carry out innovative research; At the same time, we should also criticize the current "technology fever" and refine the big ideas and true views that meet the needs of society.

Generally speaking, in this essay on theoretical innovation of young people, many young scholars have put forward many original ideas in combination with their own research fields and the development of China society in the digital age. This is highly consistent with the editorial department’s idea of warm academics and academic concern for reality. Although some studies are slightly lacking in theoretical depth and breadth, many experts admire the courage and spirit of daring to face real problems and put forward new ideas and new thinking. I believe that after a period of academic training and practice, these young scholars will become the core strength of various disciplines.

Third, the analysis of awards

Judging from the distribution of awards, award-winning scholars are mainly distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu and other places. There are 27 winners from 24 papers from more than 20 well-known universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Sun Yat-sen University, Central Party School, Sichuan University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University, Guangzhou University and Huazhong Normal University, and the universities with the most winners are also. On the one hand, it reflects that young scholars all over the country have a high enthusiasm for participating in this essay activity, on the other hand, it also reflects that the influence of Exploration and Contention has expanded to all parts of the country, and it also proves the fairness and justice of the award.

Judging from the winning status, among the young scholars, there are 11 doctoral students, 7 lecturers, assistant researchers and postdoctoral students, 7 associate professors and associate researchers, and 2 master students. This not only shows the improvement of the academic enthusiasm of young students in today’s academic circles, but also echoes the purpose of this essay award: everything is based on the quality of the article, not on academic qualifications and past achievements. The essay activity is not only to find excellent articles, but more importantly, to find some forward-looking academic views and explore outstanding young talents. Judging from the award-winning content, keen awareness of problems, solid analytical methods and exquisite ability to refine concepts are more likely to be favored by experts, which highlights the unanimous pursuit of new theories in the new era.

Fourth, the overall evaluation and improvement of the essay activity

Training young scholars and growing up with young students has always been one of the aims of the journal Exploration and Contention. As an important part of the young scholars’ support program, the 4th National Youth Theory Innovation Essay Activity inherited and carried forward the fine traditions of the previous three activities, cut into China’s social practice with cutting-edge topics, focused on the training of young scholars, and achieved good publishing, academic and social benefits in combination with the country’s reform and exploration of major practical issues in the information age.

(A) through excellent contributions to create a brand of publications, improve academic standards.

During 2019-2020, our magazine published many outstanding contributions of young people’s theoretical innovation essays, and achieved good academic influence and social response. In the future, we will still select outstanding award-winning papers. These high-quality contributions will undoubtedly enhance the attraction of Exploration and Contention to young scholars and play an important role in promoting the cutting-edge viewpoints and academic standards of Exploration and Contention.

(B) found a large number of outstanding young authors, expanding the ranks of magazine authors.

Our magazine has always attached importance to supporting the growth of young scholars. Many young scholars are still the core authors of our magazine after they have grown into the backbone of various schools and disciplines. This essay on theoretical innovation for young people has brought together a large number of outstanding young scholars from universities all over the country, which has made the team of young authors of our journal take a step forward in depth and breadth.

(3) Encourage young people to care about the transformation and reform practice of China in the digital age.

The editorial department takes the topic of "technological innovation and civilization reconstruction" as an important starting point to guide scholars to think deeply about the problems faced during the period of national transformation and social development, which has important practical significance. Generally speaking, this essay activity of the editorial department closely combines the research of academic issues with the major theoretical and practical issues in the development and transformation of China in the new era, which clearly embodies the characteristics of the journal. This essay activity encourages young scholars to think about the major issues of national and social development from their own research fields, which not only guides young scholars to inherit the fine academic tradition of applying what they have learned, but also makes young people more responsible and closely links their academic life with the destiny of the country.

(D) the construction of innovative academic communities

The editorial department insists on organizing four essay-writing activities, which is a useful attempt to innovate the construction of academic community. We hope that by building an academic community composed of major academic journals and young scholars, young scholars with academic potential can have a higher and bigger stage and display their academic talents and ideals.

(V) What needs to be improved

1. The academic innovation of essay writing needs to be strengthened, and the new problems and phenomena brought about by technological innovation need to be further explored. The thesis of this essay activity for young people’s theoretical innovation has some innovative ideas in some fields, but generally speaking, the thinking on the transformation of technological development and social development is still insufficient. On the one hand, there are not enough innovative ideas and viewpoints; On the other hand, young scholars still focus on theoretical thinking and seldom combine theoretical innovation with practical problems.

2. Although the editorial department of "Exploration and Contention" has accumulated a lot of experience in the first three essay-writing activities and made every effort to hold this activity, there are still many places to be improved due to the shortage of manpower. For example, the publicity is still insufficient. After the essay-writing activity, young scholars still contribute to us, which also reflects that our publicity is not in place and young scholars are not aware of the deadline for submission. Moreover, due to too many contributions, there are also many excellent manuscripts, but because of the limited awards, the editorial department and peer review experts have to reluctantly give up what one favours. In the process of evaluation, how to coordinate the relationship between comprehensiveness and discipline, and the specific evaluation procedures and rules need to be further optimized. In addition, the editorial department has not paid enough attention to the follow-up growth of award-winning young scholars and has insufficient information. In the future, it should take various forms to keep in touch with award-winning young scholars and establish a closer academic community.

Finally, the editorial department of Exploration and Contention expresses heartfelt thanks to all the young scholars who participated in this essay-writing activity! I would like to express my high respect to all the judging experts and people from all walks of life who care about this essay activity!