The death of the material scientist at 47 from the hemorrhage raises the culture of the long hours in China | News

The work culture of Chinese universities was recently lit at the beginning of this year after the death of a 47 -year -old professor of materials science at Zhejiang University. The family accused a “crazy” workload for the death of Liu Yongfeng by cerebral bleeding after South Chinese morning post.

An open letter published online by his wife calculated his working hours between March 2024 and January 20 of this year. The legal number of working days for this period was 183, while Liu worked 319 days post reported. For 277 these days, Liu either traveled in the shop or did not leave the work earlier than 9 p.m.

'From the time when he joined [Zhejiang University] In 2007 he worked for 18 years at such a very intensive pace that worked at such an intensive pace. post Cited from the letter. The family said they spoke partially for hard -working young and medium -sized researchers. Liu was a material scientist whose research mainly focused on hydrogen storage materials.

The death of the material scientist Li Haizeng from a heart attack last year at the age of 34 shocked the Chinese research community. In mid -April, another material scientist and nanotechnologist, Li Haibo, died suddenly at the age of 41, which led to further questions about the workload of the academics. Previous reports have highlighted the early death of eight researchers of the early and medium career.

Over a decade ago, the Chinese Ministry of Education introduced reforms for press academics to produce more research and increase the tension between teaching and research. A study of 2021 showed that the health of Chinese employees who worked for a long time may have suffered from factors such as poor nutrition and lack of movement. Another study found that the transformation of education in China had subjected researchers to teaching and research obligations, which made it difficult to achieve a balance between work and life.

Cong Cao at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, says China, says that many Chinese academics, including himself, work overtime, “among other things under pressure on publications, grants, promotion, term, title, including”. He adds “some of us suffer”.

Xin Zhao, environmental engineer at Northeastern University in Shenyang, China, believes that work culture in China is different in the USA or in Europe. “The Chinese are used to a kind of diligence … and there is a lot of competition. So we have some tiredness, but this also varies from person to person,” he explains.

The overarching pressure on doctoral students on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macau The pupils urges the course work, the participation of the conferences and the teaching support, according to a recently carried out study. It also encourages the students to consider their superiors as publication agents and their colleagues as competitors and not as an employee, and [it] Marginalizes the commitment with external stakeholders.

Public pronouncement in China can be difficult. An academic Chemical world said that he was not available for an interview for “national security laws and unstable circumstances”.

However, China is not the only country in which scientists work long hours. A report by Wellcome in Great Britain 2020 showed that 37% of 2751 researchers surveyed worked 41 to 50 hours. 20% 51 to 60 hours and 11% more than 60 hours a week. Most of the respondents (57%) agreed that there was a long culture at their workplace. 48% felt under pressure to work for long hours.

In the same report, 78% of the respondents agreed that a high level of competition created unfriendly and aggressive research conditions. A report by Nottingham Trent University from 2019 showed that 94% of the institute's academics believed that their workload violated their mental health.