Abstract:The question of research evaluation appears to be a bastion which is hard to breach, while the academia, government, and society have been continutely disputing and attempting to make breakthroughs, which is just like the hundreds of wildebeest wandering and attempting to cross the Mara River. This paper analyzes that the fundamental reason why China's research evaluation is difficult to solve is that it does not clarify the relationship between the government and the science, does not deal with the relationship between the overall advancement and the key breakthrough, and does not give the special policy and autonomy of the academic highland to paly the role as "Leading Wildebeest", so as to take the leap from the shore to the other, and to build reseach excellence-driven evaluation system. In this paper, we attempt to put forward the theory of "Leading Wildebeest", which is the breakthrough point of research evaluation reform in China, and put forward the corresponding policy suggestions in the light of the reality of China.