The science and technology of our country must be self-reliant and self-improvement. For this reason, we need enough backbone scientists. Based on the literature, this article presents a case study on several backbone scientists and concludes that they have basic commonalities, namely: solid professional foundation, strong scientific research talent and ability, strong sense of innovation, rich scientific research practice, broad ideas beyond science, and extremely powerful social responsibility. These commonalities are essential elements for them to become backbone scientists. Further analysis shows that the broad thought beyond science comes from the rich scientific research practice which is driven by the strong sense of innovation. The interaction and coupling of scientific research ability, scientific research experience, social experience, and broad thoughts beyond science may create two channels for the scientists, that is, the professional output channel and the spiritual radiation channel. The combined forces of the two channels will support the strong social responsibility of the backbone scientists.

self-strengthening and self- independent  /  backbone scientist  /  commonality