Management review on transportation and vehicle engineering discipline of NSFC in 2020

Transportation and vehicle engineering became a new primary discipline (E12) of the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2020. The application, acceptance, assessment, and funding of science foundation project in the first year of the discipline's inclusion were reviewed. The funding fields, secondary codes and their connotations were outlines, and the discipline planning, future development, and project layouts of key and above categories were introduced. The discipline management, including the promotion of achievement transformation and future adjustment of application codes, was also elaborated. In 2020, there were 1 241 funding applications for the discipline of transportation and transportation engineering, of which 1 231 were accepted. Only 0.8% of the applications were not accepted after the formal review. In 2020, 260 institutes applied for funds for transportation and vehicle engineering projects, out of which the three institutes with the highest numbers of applications were Tongji University, Chang'an University, and Southwest Jiaotong University. Overall, 23.9%, 26.5% and 21.2% of general programs, youth programs, and regional projects were reviewed by the panel, respectively. In total, 197 projects were funded, and 89.70 million yuan was released. There were 102, 81, and 10 general programs, youth programs, and regional projects, respectively, and their average direct funds were 580, 240, and 350 thousand yuan, respectively. In future, strategic research should be conducted on the following issues: research power distribution, key scientific issues, future trends, medium- and long-term developments, major bottlenecks concerning development of China in the field of transportation, and optimized reform of discipline codes. The results of this research should provide guidance for future developments and policy making. In future, code optimization and research direction adjustment should highlight the characteristics of transportation industry such that researchers can focus on the unique development characteristics of different transportation systems and scientific problems behind bottlenecks. In this way, achievement transformation can be accelerated and technical improvements in transportation can be encouraged, allowing China to become a great power in the field of transportation. 6 tabs, 3 refs.