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A senior scientist involved in the drafting of one of the most costly science projects in China said the project should be postponed immediately because it had funded studies with little scientific value.

Rao Yi, a member in the expert committee of the 100 billion-yuan (US$15.8 billion) China Brain Project, said on his social media account on Sunday that the committee had too much power, making their decisions on funding “impossible to be fair”.

Rao, president of the Capital Medical University and one of the few vocal critics in China to some of the government’s science policies, said the committee had about 20 experts, and “everyone could help their own institute, their own people to get a large amount of funding”.

“[The committee members] tend to avoid opposing proposals by others, so that their own proposals are easily approved. [The funding of] these proposals ranged from tens to hundreds of millions of yuan,” he said.

“The expert committee seemed to believe that the discussion of science is too troublesome, and any debate is a waste of time. [The members] should cut the talk and split the money as soon as possible.

“I have seen it with my own eyes.”

Rao said that most of the money had gone to a few institutes, some unqualified researchers had been appointed as project leaders, and intensive support was given to some research areas with less potential for original scientific discoveries such as monkey brain experiments.

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The China Brain Project was launched in September last year and has been funded until 2o3o, according to state media reports.

It is meant to unite the efforts of scientists around the country to make breakthroughs in 59 areas ranging from brain imaging technology to new AI algorithms that mimic human thinking.

When contacted about Rao’s comments on Monday, Professor Mu-ming Poo, chief scientist of the China Brain Project, said: “I will not respond to him.”

But in an interview posted on the Shanghai Observer news site on Monday, Poo defended the committee’s funding decisions.

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Poo said that unlike similar projects in the United States and Europe, which tended to support free exploration by scientists in small laboratories, the Chinese effort was more pragmatic, aiming for breakthroughs in applications instead.

He said this would inevitably lead to the concentration of resources to some research areas of the greatest interest for society but not necessarily for the academic community.

“The brain project is mainly targeting social, economic and health needs. To meet these needs, we have to reorganise the teams and coordinate to tackle key problems, rather than just focusing on independent exploration in individual laboratories,” he was quoted as saying.

“Although free exploration is a tradition in brain science, this model does not allow us to face the challenges of the present.”

Poo, a Chinese-American neuroscientist who founded the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, did not respond to Rao’s criticism that he had allocated a lot of resources to his own institute and appointed an unqualified team member as project leader.

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A Tsinghua University professor who declined to be named said Rao’s assessment was true and it was “only the tip of an iceberg”.

The professor said that with many projects overseen by the Ministry of Science and Technology, a few experts made decisions involving large funds and their decisions were often based on personal relationships rather than scientific value.

A researcher studying China’s science policy in Beijing said Rao’s criticism would likely put the ministry under enormous pressure.

“This could be a good thing. We need someone to raise the question, so that the public can pay attention to the issue and make improvements,” he said.

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