In recent years, the heat wave of think tank construction has been one after another, and the wave of the construction of think tanks in various places has been higher and higher, especially in the corresponding funds,talents and other resources to provide greater support. Therefore, many institutions want to take advantage of the east wind to establish think tanks.

However, the problem is that many organizations do not have a clear understanding of the basic concept of think tank, and the understanding of the meaning of think tank is often still in the internal strategic consulting department or "idea company", and there is a big gap with the real sense of "think tank".

Second, the phenomenon of rushing to throw money blindly still exists. With the increase in the number of think tanks year by year and the emergence of various think tank rankings,

many new or small-size think tanks tend to blindly pursue newspaper publication rate and approval rate in order to enhance their influence or to win in the competition, and even "buy" the results of specially hired experts.

In the name of think tanks, some institutions try to gain benefits from local project support and enterprise funding through the wave of think tank construction. Third, the problem of excessive pursuit of "short and fast" has gradually emerged.

Compared with academic research, think tank research has the characteristics of "short speed", but in the past two years, there has been a trend of excessive. Think tank research has a trend of being reported by the media,

competing for hot spots and competing for headlines. Especially after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus outbreak and in the face of a series of hot events at home and abroad recently,

supplemented by the communication advantages of new media, some think tanks or think tank scholars are eager to speak out in pursuit of hot topics, and express their views in unfamiliar fields.

In view of the problems that still exist, countermeasures can be taken from the following aspects to further promote the high-quality development of think tanks in the future.

Standardize the industry and introduce standards. After several years of development, the new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics has entered the stage of establishment of regulations after experiencing the pilot period.

In the past few years, the think tank community has issued a series of "opinions" and "plans" divided into types and fields, and next should introduce industry "standards" and "norms" in relevant fields, and formulate various "implementation rules".

The Evaluation Index System of Humanities and Social Sciences Think Tanks (GB/T 40106-2021) drafted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Evaluation is a useful exploration and breakthrough in this field.

The next step should promote the standardization of think tanks in various professional fields, especially the national standards related to the core business of think tanks, such as talent selection,

output, database construction, etc., should be introduced as soon as possible to guide the local standardization work based on the actual situation, and then standardize the think tank industry order and optimize the industry environment.

Unified understanding, clear atmosphere. On the basis of the standardization construction of think tanks, the understanding of the concept and positioning of "think tanks" is unified through the role of competent units,

and after a relatively free growth period of several years, the think tank industry should be "reorganized" in a planned way. First of all, it is necessary to standardize positioning,

and form a unified normative understanding of the concept of "think tank" in the whole society as soon as possible through publicity and other ways, which will not only help the healthy development of the think tank community itself, help all sectors of society to clarify the concept of think tank,

but also help the function of think tank to play more effectively. Second, institutions that pretend to be think tanks but are not really think tanks, or even those that use the name of think tanks to obtain resources and seek benefits,

should be strictly required to rectify within a time limit. Third, the local competent departments should carry out a thorough inventory of the think tanks under their jurisdiction,

so that they have a clear idea, and clean up the "fake think tanks" that do not meet the rectification standards or the "zombie think tanks" that are no longer operating in time to reduce the waste of public resources.

Encourage research, consolidate accumulation. In recent years, the spread of the spirit of scientists has led to the improvement of the spirit of scientific research, and the field of think tanks should also make efforts in this respect.

After a certain period of development, many mainstream think tanks have realized the importance of both basic research and applied research, but this does not mean that scholars in the field of applied research do not need to devote themselves to research.