More than half of the presidents in top universities of China have been grown up in their original universities. According to the upper echelon theory, the "indigenization" characteristics of university presidents will have an impact on their cognitive level and thus affect the scientific research performance of universities. Based on data from the National Natural Science Fund Projects and the National Social Science Fund Projects of China from 2007 to 2016, as well as individual characteristics of presidents, this paper empirically investigates the influence of the growth experience of presidents in 115 "Project 211" universities on scientific research performance. The results show that the presidents who grow up from the original universities have a significant negative impact on national fund projects, especially on the national natural science foundation projects. This paper suggest that the reason maybe the insufficient motivation and less access to external resources for native presidents. Some corresponding policy recommendations are proposed for this purpose.