News Guidelines for Sparkle Program
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has recently published the Development Guidelines for Sparkle Program in the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005). The Guidelines have defined priorities for the activities under the Program in the said period. Its major objectives are: promote the overall upgrading of innovation capacity of rural S&T activities through supporting the leading enterprises under the Program; promote the establishment of rural S&T innovation system through the construction of environment friendly to rural S&T activities; and improve farmers' cultural quality and living conditions through technical training and demonstration.
During the 10th Five-Year Plan period, the state will organize and stimulate local authorities to implement the follow eight priority activities under the Sparkle Program:
* Implement S&T activities related to agricultural industrialization process with agricultural produce and by-products processing as the breaking point;
* Strengthen innovation capacity building of leading industries under the Program, aiming at improving the innovation capacity of these enterprises;
* Implement S&T activities on rural information process, focusing on the construction of S&T information service network in rural areas;
* Organize demonstrations on modernized construction of small township in rural areas, aiming at improving the living environment of rural population;
* Tap up human resources in rural areas, focusing on improving farmers' quality;
* Implement the west development related activities under the Program, with priorities on demonstrations for sustainable development;
* Construct industrial belts under the Program, focusing on technical integration and resources optimization;
* Internationalize Sparkle Program, aiming at enhancing the international competitiveness of industries under the Program.
The Guidelines stipulate that government at different levels shall enhance their input in Sparkle Program through strengthening their leading role in Sparkle activities, and construct fine environment for the implementation of the Program, establishing new operating mechanism for the Program and ensuring the smooth implementation of the Guidelines.
Public Bidding for Major R&D Projects
To fully embody the principle of fairness, openness and justice, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has opened on October 9,2001 six of its priority projects under the National Key Technologies R&D Program for the 10th Five-Year Plan period for public bidding. Under the general topic "Research and Development of Scientific Instruments", six sub-topics made their debut. They are research and development of chromatograph and dedicated components, spectroscopic analyzer, nuclear magnetic resonance chemical analyzer, electrochemical analyzer, general software platform for scientific instruments, and supporting devices and system of scientific instruments.
The following targets shall be met through research and development activities under these topics: realize leap forward development in the fields of underground nuclear magnetism, electrochemistry and software, find solutions to a number of world advanced technologies, successfully turn out 20 or more series of new products of independent intellectual property rights and advanced technologies, and obtain 30 or more patent rights, so as to improve the R&D level of China's analytical instruments and raise the domestic market equity of China-made analytical instruments from 27% at the end of the 9th Five-Year Plan period to 40%, double the export volume of China-made instruments, create 2 to 4 analytical instruments manufacturing bases whose respective sale revenues exceed RMB 100 million, develop a relatively stable scientific instrument R&D contingent and enhance the sustainable development capacity.
Up to date, there have been 43 bidders registering for the tendering of the said six projects. Among these bidders, sat the representatives from research institutions, universities, large and medium enterprises and more eye-catchingly，the ones from private businesses.
China's Manned Space Program
At the High Tech Forum for China Space Industry held recently in Beijing, Mr. Luan Enjie, Administrator of Chinese National Space Agency expressed that China has defined its targets for the development of its civic space activities in the early 21st century as follows: establish satellite based public platform, develop new generation carrier rocket prototypes, create integrated space-earth network system; and conduct space research and deeper space exploration and manned space flight.
To realize the targets, the field of remote sensing will see the establishment of a space-earth based integrated network system equipped with multiple remote sensing tools and capable of long-term stable operation; in the field of satellite based navigation positioning, a satellite based navigation positioning applications industry shall be preliminarily established; in the field of satellite based telecommunication, domestic market needs shall be basically met through creating China's own satellite based telecommunication industry, which is to strive for entering the international market; the field of carrier rockets will witness the fully enhanced overall capacity and level of China's carrier rockets and the development of new generation carrier rocket prototypes, which will enhance China's competitiveness for international commercial launching activities, the realization of manned space flight and the creation of China's own manned space system; in the field of space science and deeper space exploration, space scientific studies and deeper space exploration aiming at moon expedition will be conducted so as to win China an important position in the world space community and raise China's deeper space exploration technology onto a higher level.
China's Modernized Mapping Industry
It is reported that China's mapping industry has basically materialized the scheduled changes from its traditional mode to the modernized one. Remarkable achievements have been made in a number of areas such as digitalized mapping production and applications, research and applications of space positioning techniques and fast development and extensive applications of geographic information system techniques. The industrialized applications of advanced mapping technologies also applauded for fine progress.
To meet the demands of the national economy and the social information process, R&D personnel in the field of mapping industry have established in the country a number of digital mapping production bases of advanced technical level and certain scales through the applications of 3S and networking techniques and created digital production lines integrated with data collection, processing, updating and distribution.
On the said basis, they have worked out database for geographic features and names at 1:250,000 and basic geographic information products for the seven major rivers and valleys in the country. In addition, they have kicked off the construction of basic geographic database at 1: 50,000 and 1: 10,000 for the whole nation as well as localities, and basically established a national high accuracy GPS control network and earth database. Progress has also been made in the construction of geographic information system tailored to China's own needs. Chinese mapping community have provided fine mapping services for more than 100 major projects related to scientific research, engineering construction, resources survey and environmental protection including monitoring China's earth crust movement, population census and fast disaster analysis.
Intellectual Property Demonstration Park
China's intellectual property demonstration park was put into operation on September 21, 2001. Wuhan based Donghu New Technology Development Park became the first of the said demonstration in the country.
It is briefed that being a focus on intellectual property activities in Wuhan Municipality, the Park has developed numerous high technologies and associated businesses of independent intellectual properties. As shown by the statistics provided, last year had witnessed 428 domestic patents applications filed by the Park, or 24.3% of the total patent applications filed by the city in the same year, and 8 international patent applications，and 350 trademark applications, or 19% of the city's total in the same year.
It is reported that during the 10th Five-Year Plan period, the Park will establish a dedicated mechanism for coordinating intellectual property management covering patent, trademark, software and IC layout design and protection of new plant species as well as improve social brokerage services for IP agent, litigation, evaluation, information consultation and technology ownership trading. 95% of the high tech businesses, universities and research institutions stationed in the Park will establish their own IP management system.
Preliminary Progress for China's Biochips
The United Medical School and Tsinghua University created Beijing Bo'ao Biochip Co. Ltd. on September 2000 with an initial investment of RMB 200 million by the State Treasury as its equity. As of July 2001, thanks to the further investment of 5 other venture capital investors, the registered capital of the company has gone up to RMB 300 million. To meet the needs of R&D and associated industrialization, the State Development Planning Commission approved the establishment of Beijing National Engineering Research Center on Biochips. On September 25, 2001, the said Center broke the ground at Zhongguancun Life Science Park for its official construction.
Bo'ao and the engineering center have worked out the world-first active electric magnetic biochip, filed 21 patent applications and published 20 academic papers both at home and abroad and three monographs in the United States. Bo'ao has also achieved a series of high caliber results on neuro-biochips, 2-D capillary electric pulse chips, protein chips and medicine screening chips. In addition, Bo'ao has harvested phased results of 16 series of gene diagnosing chips for 140 epidemic diseases, nanometer based probes, 3-D sophisticated mechanical arms. Its first products for the applications of research and development are expected to make their debut at the end of next year.
3-D Identification Techniques
The so-called infinite 3-D code generation and identification system jointly developed by the Photoelectric Research Institute of Shenzhen University and Shenzhen Hebihui S&T Company has recently passed the verification checks organized by the Chinese Ministry of Information Technology and Industries. It is briefed that compared with laser based identification techniques, the said new system is of better confidentiality and while compared with the traditional one or two dimensional techniques, it has higher information intensity and larger volume. The system can not only work out inimitable ID documents that can be identified by terminal electronic equipment but also can provide strong online dynamic or static management for different ID documents, enjoying a wide application perspective on identification and management of IDs, invoices and products marks.
China's New Anti-cancer Drugs
The research team headed by Prof. Jiao Binghua of No. 2 Chinese Military Medical School have worked out new generation anti-cancer drugs of low toxicity on the basis of their decade efforts. The project named restructuring human new cancer necrosin was recently rated as a fine R&D result derived from National Key Technologies R&D Program for the 9th Five-Year Plan period.
Prof. Jiao and others started their in-depth researches on cancer necrosin since 1986 under the support of National Key Projects R&D Program for the 8th and 9th Five-Year Plan periods, Chinese Military Medical Fund and Shanghai Municipal S&T Development Fund. They developed for the first time in the world two rounds based genetic expansion and augmentation approach and successfully have new human cancer necrosin restructured with low toxicity and high efficiency. Clinic applications on 300 and more cases have proved that the said new drug is of an efficiency of 30%-35% on the treatment of lung, liver, kidney, breast and lymphatic cancers without apparent toxicant reaction.
China's Highway Information Demonstration Platform
Thanks to their painstaking efforts for more than two years, China Highway Information Demonstration Network Project, a priority under the National 863 Program implemented by nearly 1,000 S&T personnel organized by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology passed the experts' verification checks on September 29,2001.
Up to date, there have been only two or three countries in the world who are able to manufacture key equipment for providing new generation Internet services. The establishment of China's highway information demonstration network will stimulate the development of China's entire online information industry and win China a precious advanced position in the world information technology community.
The said highway network is connected to Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Post and Telecommunication University. It is briefed that the network is able to transmit the data equivalent to 10,000 books with 250,000 Chinese characters in each in a matter of just a second, or the entire information of a large library in a minute.
It is reported that the network has so far shown fine performance and is ready for expanded applications. The research team working on the network will, under the strong support of the state, continue their efforts for a new milestone: super highway network during the 10th Five-Year Plan period.
Birds Gene Studies
Following their studies on rice and domestic pig genomes, Chinese scientists recently announced that they would soon begin their studies on birds genome. The said efforts will mainly aim at domestic poultry as they possess almost all the genetic features of birds. Experts believe that a clear genetic map on domestic poultry may lead to the solutions to many scientific puzzles related to birds life.
It is briefed that up to date there is no country in the world having launched large-scale studies on birds genome, though scientists have long wanted to find answers to some puzzles such as birds' blind flying and capability for magnetic positioning and direction telling in pitch dark night. It is believed that the studies of birds genome will help to solve these puzzles.
China's First Air-born Biological Base
Dongfanghong Air-born Biological Industrial Base, the first of its kind in the country and enjoying the world advanced level announced its official inauguration on September 28, 2001 in Beijing. The Beijing Dongfanghong Biotech Co.Ltd. subordinated to China Space S&T Group has invested RMB 20 million to have the said base constructed in the short period of one year. Consisting of large biological lab center, pilot workshop and GMP standardized production sites, the base is able to materialize its production through an integrated production line from R&D to pilot manufacturing and further to its terminal mass production.
It is reported that being a core of China's space biotechnology, Dongfanghong will kick off the so-called China Air-born Biotech Incubators Project so as to take full advantage of its own superiority in the field, encouraging the organic marriage between capital and air-born biotechniques, continuously working out the products of internationally advanced level and rendering further contributions to promoting China's air-born S&T industry.
China's Magnetic Suspension Aircraft
It is reported that the agreement on China-US joint development of US designed magnetic suspension aircraft was inked on September 26, 2001 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. According to the agreement five parties from both China and US will jointly make the investment in the establishment of the said joint venture. Taking advantage of the US patent technology, the said joint venture will make itself a base for manufacturing magnetic suspension aircraft. It is expected that the first magnetic aircraft able to house 100 and more passengers will be off the assembly line in 2004.
China's Largest S&T Library
New Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the largest and most intelligent of its kind in China made its debut on September 28, 2001 in Zhong Guancun. With an area of 18,000 m2 and floor space of 40,000 m2, the New Library claims an inventory with as many as 3.2 million books and 1 million non-printed publications. The New Library also has the Lecture Hall equipped with sophisticated equipment and spacious Exhibition Hall, Hall of Fame, Functional Hall and Education and Training Center. Its Archives House is proud of the collection of 550,000 volumes of different documents and files.
To improve the modernized management level and service efficiency of the Library and Archives House and take full advantage of their functions and roles, the new structures have been applied with numerous sophisticated technologies and high intelligent systems such as automatic building control, security control, integrated lining system, electronic conference, able to provide safe, efficient, comfortable and convenient working environment for readers.
Bodao's National Post-Doctorate Station
Thanks to the joint approval of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education, the Post Doctorate R&D Station created by Ningbo based Bodao Shareholding Co. Ltd. announced its official inauguration recently. Having placed the constant personnel training and S&T innovations in the first place, Bodao now has a professional R&D contingent made up of 200 people including 20 or so with doctorate degrees. The contingent has turned out series of major R&D results that filled domestic technical blanks on paging system in Chinese, stock information paging system and PDA mobile telephone. The establishment of the said station will become a strong back-up for the Company's future R&D efforts.
Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Cheng Jiayi, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594 http://www.most.gov.cn
