Abstract: The core of postdoctoral system development is postdoctoral funding system, which directly influences the scale of postdoctoral admission, the training methods and quality. Presently in China, the postdoctoral funding system is characterized by the substantial increase in funding, having experienced six funding policy reforms from 1986 to 2015. However, the separate funding institutions have led to decentralized funding. Postdoctoral researchers have to apply for funding separately, including daily fund, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, housing fund and postdoctoral stations and supervisors' fund.#br#The research shows that in the past the decentralized funding did promote postdoctoral development through collective efforts. However, drawbacks of the financial funding system have become significant with the substantial increase in the funding of science and education which breaks the fragmented Tiao-kuai system. For example, the unfair funding has disturbed the system development; diversified funding subjects have made it hard to handle academic achievement attribution; the unreasonable timing of funding application has affected valuable projects application; conventional thought of planned economy has also increased the difficulty of postdoctoral management.#br#In China, the postdoctoral system is a national talent strategy, involving the interests of both central and provincial governments, 3,011 postdoctoral mobile stations and 2,755 postdoctoral work stations. Therefore, it's important that the reform of China's postdoctoral funding system should start with a top-level design in a systematic way, adopting a fully-funded approach. It's suggested in this article that the new funding system should integrate different funding categories, consisting of professor funding, government funding and postdoctoral station funding. Also, the timing of funding application should be improved. For example, the process of submitting and evaluating postdoctoral funding could be adjusted from before and after entering the station to before entering the station.

Key words: postdoctoral funding, funding system, top-level design, fully-funded