Seize the Opportunity Generated By the New Scientific and Technological Revolution

By Wang Zhenhong and Chu Xiaoliang,

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Seize the Opportunity Generated By the New Scientific and Technological Revolution

By Wang Zhenhong and Chu Xiaoliang,

Outlook Weekly Research Center

The development model based on tracking the developed countries advanced technology in the past has come to an end, if no difference is achieved in the technological innovation, it is difficult to get rid of the constraints of multinationals barriers and remain in a more passive position in the global competition.

No Innovation No Way Out.

The Suzhou Industrial Park experiences indicate that pure reliance on the re-processing by traditional manufacturing sector is difficult to sustain, and how to gather the scientific and technological resources, and speed up innovation-based knowledge-intensive industries leading the development has become imperative in the post-industrial era.

The Suzhou Industrial Park is a microcosm of China's economic innovation and development. This traditional manufacturing base has been defined as a "world factory", now gathering a large number of scientific and technological innovation-oriented enterprises and emerging industries.

Under the pressures of resources, environment and human cost, the desire for scientific and technological support by the Chinese economic development mode transformation is extremely urgent, but the traditional science and technology system is clearly not suited to the global progress of the new scientific and technological revolution.

The Financial Crisis Incubates Technology Changes

Historical experiences show that economic crises often breed a new scientific and technological revolution. In response to the current round of international financial crisis, technology plays a vital role and provides new impetus to economic and social development, leading and driving the global industrial structural adjustments.

A number of experts point out that a number of important areas of science and technology has shown a precursor to revolutionary breakthroughs. For example, scientists are able to regulate the single particle and quantum state, allowing us to explore the quantum world from "observation times" to "regulation era", bringing about breakthrough changes in the field of quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum networks, and quantum simulation to become an important means of human kind to manage demand on energy, environment, information, etc. Synthetic biology has made some important progress in our understanding of the laws governing life activities from the angle of the system as a whole and the microscopic quantum level, opened the door to the transformation from a nonliving matter to a living matter, and could lead to a revolutionary breakthrough in life sciences.

At present, a competition for seizing the future development commanding heights in the world has unfolded. Major powers in the world have introduced a series of innovation strategies and action plans and increased investment in scientific and technological innovation, strengthening layout in the important areas of new energy, new materials, information networks, biomedicine, energy saving and environmental protection, low-carbon technologies, green economy, vigorously maintaining the leading position at forefront of science and technology and seizing the high ground for the future development. For example, the United States prioritizes the technical innovations in keeping its competitiveness and wining the future. Japan begins implementing a transition strategy from a "technical nation" to an "innovative nation". South Korea makes scientific and technological innovations the primary choice and the core power for supporting the national development.

The data shows that the global total investment in science and technology jumped to US$ 1 trillion mark in 2008. Organizational forms for scientific and technological innovations are also undergoing profound changes. Network and IT provide powerful tools and platforms for innovation activities, and fragment the traditional organizational model for scientific and technological innovations. Innovative resources accelerate the flow on a global scale and rational allocation, innovation is everywhere and at all times, showing the new socializing, networking, clustering, ubiquitous features.

The competitive advantage of developed countries has been shifting from a monopoly of product and capital to a monopoly of technology and knowledge, the contemporary globalization has entered a new stage of competition for resources with knowledge and technology in the core. The development model based on tracking the developed countries advanced technology in the past has come to an end, if no difference is achieved in technological innovation, it is difficult to get rid of the constraints of multinationals barriers and remain in a more passive position in the global competition.

In recent years, the overall strength of China's science and technology has greatly enhanced, but some important indicators reflecting technological competitiveness is still in a backward state, the total scale of investment in R & D expands fast, but there are structural defects, enterprises investments lag far behind that of developed countries. The problem of irrational investment structure in science and technology gets increasingly prominent, and basic research feeds are in a serious shortage, accounted for only 4.69% of the total R & D expenses in 2010; scientific and technological achievements conversion rate is less than 5%, while the developed countries reach 40% - 50%.

Set Up An Enterprise-Led Industrial Innovation System

In the face of a new round of technological revolution, developed countries and developing countries stand on the same starting line. As a developing country, China can take advantage of global technology innovation resources, effectively draw in experiences from the path of technological development and take less walking detours.

In China’s industrial technological innovation system, enterprise-led innovation is not yet realized, and the prominent feature is cooperation "troika" of manufacturing, teaching and researching work in different directions, so the innovative elements urgently need to gather into enterprises. Currently, the evaluation of research results by a paper as the "ruler" in universities and institutes, leading to inconsistency with enterprises needs and to a lot of research projects out of touch with the actual demand. Meanwhile, due to the lack of benefit-associated mechanism, university teachers are unwilling to provide technical services. The evaluation criteria for the basic research in institutes are also papers-oriented while a competitive relationship exists between an enterprise and an institute after an applicable research result is put for use so it is difficult to effectively provide technical services for an industry. Many enterprises feel that they possess inadequate reserves of cutting-edge technology to catch up with the advanced. The proposed technology research projects by enterprises accounts for less than 20% while most come from universities, but they do not have the forward ability to track industrial technology and market so market cutting-edge needed by enterprises is not reflected.

In addition, in case of missing own R & D institution or being a weak R & D institution, there is strong demand for science and technology R & D platform by some companies, but the reality is the common industrial technology R & D support is inadequate. Many enterprises establish R & D institutions, but need to overcome the common industrial challenges, can not achieve the industry-wide research breakthroughs and technology sharing due to the split or closed mentality. Even if an Industrial Alliance is established, each still goes its own way. Therefore, institutional restructuring should be furthered in the following three aspects in order to solve these problems facing the technological innovation.

First,improve an interests-coupled mechanism among enterprise, university and institute; really allow enterprises to take the lead in proposing science and technology research projects. It is proposed that in the future, national topics for applied projects should solicit more from enterprises and industries; expert representatives from business community should participate in reviewing the projects and increase their discourse. Accreditation standards should cover not only academic evaluation, but also the actual demand of enterprise and market. It is proposed that more national R & D platforms such as national key laboratory or industrial technology center are incorporated with corporations, gathering researchers of universities, institutes and enterprises engaged in research of industrial technology through this carrier.

Second, improve the assessment mechanism, confirm contributions to industry by university researchers, encourage applied and engineering professionals to serve corporations and the society and reward their contributions.

Third, explore effective benefit-coupled mechanism to attract universities and institutes expert to serve enterprises. Cooperation through a variety of ways such as setting up joint research centers, jointly declaring research topics with university teacher, regarding distribution of benefits, the intellectual property rights belong to company, the paper to teacher or "project dividend approach", guide elements of social innovation gathered up at the industrial innovation chain.

In addition, it is suggested that a batch of back-bone enterprises be selected and nurtured from key industrial sectors as forerunners for implementing the national plans and exploring industrial technology direction, and industry -wide collaborative innovations be strengthened. Promote the building of national R & D platforms in backbone enterprises and strengthen the role of backbone enterprises in national science and technology decision-making. The Government should listen more to the views of enterprise when developing science and technology policy and arranging key scientific plans, and combine industrial and leading business needs to determine the R & D direction and field. Or also learn from foreign experiences, guide the university, institutes and industry chain together for joint research in key areas, concentrate superior resources to promote key technology breakthroughs and achievements conversion. Further push enterprises, universities and research institutes to establish industrial technology innovation strategic alliance to play an important role in developing technology standards, industry planning and technology policy.

Eliminate "Offside" and Make Up For "Absence"

Currently, China's macro-technology management system is not straightened out; Government departments have problems such as offside and absence regarding scientific management, restricting the release of China's scientific and technological potential.

First,to eliminate the "offside" is the key to rationalize the macro-technology management system. Experts point out that the Government in management of science and technology should shift to "limit" its power and provide "service", and create a good environment for innovation. Over the years, the scale of China's scientific and technological innovation institutions quickly expands, but the Government fails to find efficient, integrated management tools, so technology management increasingly becomes administrative, from overall planning, down to research funds spending, time limit, etc. the management department has decision-making power and influence, so science and technology institutions and the scientific community are marginalized.

If the Government controls too much, research will lose its vitality. It is pointed out that the administrative excessive intervention will tie the hands and feet of researchers, researchers consume a large amount of effort to cope with all kinds of administrative affairs, and is easy to breed unhealthy trends, and affect the quality of scientific and technological innovation. Government departments should shift to policy guidance from administrative-domination, shit to provide services from deep intervention, and create a good environment for innovation. In the process of science and technology management system reform, the Government should respect the science and technology law, attach importance to the microstructure management role of scientific and technological institutions and the scientific community, save resources for implementation of macro-management, such as regulation and control, developing science and technology innovation strategy, and planning a variety of supporting policies.

Second,to straighten out the macro-technology management system also needs making up for the "absence", and creating an atmosphere conducive to innovation. It is believed that the innovation resource aggregation and implementation of innovation activities are inseparable from the Government push and support. For example, in order to compensate for the failed market allocation, the Government would assume support responsibility for the basic, major strategic and nonprofit scientific and technological research projects; strengthen the technology infrastructure to optimize conditions for innovation; improve financial, tax, finance, government procurement and other supportive policies, and establish standards, promote and protect the legal system of scientific and technological innovation; develop science and technology intermediary service agencies, and foster technology services market system.

Third, to optimize performance evaluation system to promote the transformation of government functions. Experts emphasize that the current performance evaluation system makes leaders pay more attention to stimulating economic growth by resources, capital and other factors, rather than to scientific and technological innovation-oriented growth, inconsistent with the goal of building an innovative country. Greater efforts should be made for saving energy and reducing emissions, environmental protection, scientific research achievements conversion to gave birth to scientific and technological innovation needed by economic and social development.

Fourth, to break departments’ barriers and coordinate resource management. Experts point out that macro-organization structure for the current scientific and technological innovation is fragmented, involving the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, and relevant military departments as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation Committee and other scientific and technological institutions. High-tech innovation system operates with inefficiencies and waste of resources due to the management mode, so it is necessary to prioritize optimized macroeconomic coordination mechanisms and organizational structure by breaking barriers of departments, coordinating reconfiguration of resources, strengthening strategic decision-making, establishing an overall decision-making consultation mechanism and efficient organization structure for high-tech innovation.

Fifth, to separate management from operation, strengthen supervision and assessment. Some experts explain that the current management of science and technology is responsible for developing research programs, research and fund operation, research projects assessment, implementation, acceptance, etc. and is, on self-governing basis, the policy-maker, executor, and monitor. An Academician argues that in the field of scientific research, review and acceptance for many research projects become a mere formality to ensure every participant happy, but very dangerous to go on like this. There is lack of scientific and reasonable technology-innovation assessment mechanisms.

It is necessary to draw experiences and lessons from developed countries where the technology-innovation performance evaluation already is institutionalized and remarkable results achieved. In addition, in order to ensure the Performance Evaluation Conclusion scientific and objective, the evaluation should be entrusted to the scientific community as the third party and the assessment process and conclusions should be open and transparent.

Seize the "Good” Opportunity to Bring In Overseas Talents

After the outbreak of the international financial crisis, competition for jobs is fierce in the United States and Europe and many enterprises there laid off hundreds of people, so many Chinese students choose to return home. In recent years, a new round of returnee’s boom has been formed. According to data released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the number of returned students in 2008 was 6.93 million, and grew to 18.63 million in 2011. The number of foreign experts come to work in China also increases since 2008 and particularly to universities such as Guangzhou University, Nanjing University, Nanjing University of Technology, Lanzhou University, University of Science and Technology of China, Tsinghua University and a number of research institutes.

Experts say that, currently, Europe and the United States are in an economic downturn, so domestic economic development momentum defines the "12th Five-Year Plan" period a "gold window" to draw overseas talents, but the relevant policies need to be continuously optimized for vigorous introduction of foreign intellectual resources. State should also deepen opening-up in science and technology area, open up research SARs, optimize the relevant policies for foreign talents to apply for permanent residence status

In addition, funds, policies and other resources should be tilt to the high-level, short and capable scientific research personnel and teams to further enhance the attractiveness of overseas high-level talents. Some experts recommend appropriately relax the age-limit for high-level personnel research. For example, in recent years, Shenzhen has canceled subjects reporting age limit, but rather focused on the level and value of the project itself, and mobilized the enthusiasm of returned researchers.