AbstractThe fast growing number of researchers in China makes the human resources management become a noteworthy issue in scientific research management. However, since the strictly limit to the number and structure of positions in Chinese scientific research management, the Chinese researchers are going to face a brutal promotion stress. This paper puts forward a quantitative method of estimating the research position demand gap as decision support based on the thought of dynamic programming. The personnel data from 2006 to 2014, which is abstracted from the Academia Resource Planning (ARP) system of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), are applied to the empirical analysis to estimate the human resource demand gap in the 13th Five Year Plan.