Chinese researchers are using “a huge amount” of government funding to buy personal items, including home appliances and skincare products, and claiming them as laboratory expenses, according to a recent paper.
Two researchers at the People’s Public Security University of China in Beijing highlighted the issue in a study published in the Journal of Guizhou Police College.
Their analysis of 70 audit reports across 43 higher education institutions showed that Chinese universities had long suffered from misuse of funds, chaotic asset management and poor expenditure tracking.
With Beijing accelerating its innovation-driven development strategy, the steady growth of university research budgets meant governance efficiency was now “directly tied to the goal of achieving greater self-reliance in science and technology”, the authors wrote in their paper published in May.
The “traditional, extensive management model” was no longer suited to the demands of high-quality development within China’s higher education sector, they added.
Nearly half of the audited reports flagged irregularities in how research funding was used, with significant amounts of non-project spending disguised and “mixed into” legitimate research costs.