China's top social science think tank announced in Beijing Wednesday it would establish honorary titles for the country's most prominent economists, linguists, theorists and legists.

Leng Rong, deputy president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said at an annual work conference that the academy has already completed preparations for setting up five academic divisions and selecting CASS academicians.

The five divisions will be humanities, economics, law and sociology, international studies and Marxist studies.

The first batch of CASS academicians will be chosen out of about 100 candidates recommended by 30-odd CASS institutes. The CASS will enroll new academicians every two years.

"The CASS aims to build an innovation-oriented system for social science studies," said Leng. "The establishment of the academy will help restructure academic research plans.

Originally part of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the CASS became independent on May 7, 1977.

The CAS started choosing academicians in 1955. Of the first group of 233 CAS academicians, 26 percent were from the Philosophy and Social Sciences Division, including big names such as Guo Moruo, Chen Yinke and Lu Shuxiang.

Only three such academicians, Luo Gengmo, Ji Xianlin and Yu Guangyuan, are still alive.

A senior researcher from the CASS said the social science community needs academic leadership and that the establishment of the CASS academic body might fulfil this role.

Academicians can be selected for CASS and its technological counterpart, the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), from any natural scientific and technological research entity in the country, including academies, universities and even industries.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2006)