Proposal application and funding status of NSFC projects in optics and optoelectronics in 2022

This article presents the major changes in the reform of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2022 as well as briefly summarizes the status of application, processing, and funding of the various projects and programs under NSFC. It first introduces the 12 reform measures in all aspects including the directions of the researches to be funded, mechanisms and processes of the evaluation, improved managements of the funded projects, increased focus on cross-disciplinary researches, cooperation among different research teams, and coordination among different funding agencies. The reform has a specific focus to experimentally form a new evaluation mechanism that prioritizes on responsibility, credibility, and contribution (RCC). At the same time, the article also presents statistical data on the application, processing, and funding of the general program, young scientist fund, fund for less developed regions, key program and excellent young scientist fund of "optics and optoelectronics" under the reform measures. In 2022, the category of "optics and optoelectronics" has received a total number of 3237 applications, among which 679 applications have been granted funds resulting in a 20.98% funding rate that slightly increases compared with that of 2021. The article has also covered the statistics of the funding based on (prioritized funding) research areas, the affiliations of the applicants, and the properties of the scientific problems, the results of which have all demonstrated rises in the number of applications compared with that of 2021 in all aforementioned aspects, suggesting a growing research community on "optics and optoelectronics" and the steadily increasing diversity of the research teams in this area. Next, the article overviews the implementation of RCC oriented evaluation mechanism through the feedbacks and opinions collected from the researchers in "optics and optoelectronics" category. The statistics cover 4384 feedbacks from the applicants to the general program and scientists fund towards the reviewing comments they received during the evaluation processes. Among 455 funded applicants to general program, 79% think the reviewing comments are very helpful and 17% think they are helpful, leaving only 3% and 1% thinking the comments not very helpful and not helpful at all; among the 1762 general program applicants who are not funded, 39%, 37%, 12% and 12% think the comments are very helpful, helpful, not very helpful, not helpful, respectively. Same statistics for young scientists fund go for 82%, 16%, 1% and 1% for funded applicants, and 54%, 28%, 9%, and 9% for applicants not funded. At the end, the article has also offered the insights and suggestions on further improving the evaluation mechanism for NSFC.