PI is the abbreviation of "Principal Investigator" in English. Principal Investigator corresponds to the fund project leader, "chief scientist", "research group leader", and Professor corresponds to the professional title of "professor" (university system), "

Researcher" (related systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences).

PI first appeared in European and American scientific research project applications.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) defines it as "an individual designated by the grantee and approved by the National Natural Science Foundation of the United States to be responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the project", and also points out that "this term is generally used in the field of research

”, while another term with the same concept, PD (Project Director), is mostly used in science and engineering education or other fields.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) defines it as “an individual identified by the applicant institution as having certain authority and responsibility to direct the projects or programs supported by the fund.”

In short, a PI is an individual who has the power to lead and direct the project he is responsible for, that is, the project leader.

It is worth noting that according to the definition of similar foreign institutions, as long as the applicant has received project funding, he can be considered the PI of the project, regardless of whether he is an assistant professor, associate professor, or professor, as long as he has sufficient scientific research funds.

Doctors, postdocs and scientific research and technical personnel come to work.

This qualification should not be granted by the applicant's unit administrative agency.

As long as the applicant obtains project funding, it can be recognized as the PI of the project.

This management model of scientific research projects is often called the PI system.

To sum up, the PI system is a scientific research management mechanism that uses PI as the core for human resource allocation, project funding umbrella cost accounting as the core for financial resource allocation, and the realization of maximum sharing of scientific research resources as the core for material resource allocation.

As an emerging scientific research organization and management model in China, PI production has received unprecedented attention and attention from the scientific community.

As an imported product, the domestic scientific community often adds Chinese labels when explaining the PI system. Some translations include "responsible for the research team", "project leader", "chief scientist", "academic leader", etc.