Bidding and Evaluating Research Topics
To be part of the reform of topic selecting and distribution process for national research programs, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance and the State Economic and Trade Commission have recently under the approval of the Chinese State Council jointly issued the Interim Act for Management of Bidding Process for National Research Programs and Interim Act for Evaluation and Approval of National Research Topics. The development has indicated that China will place the management of its research programs and topic selecting entirely under a bidding and evaluation system, which will play a positive role in establishing an open, just, fair, scientific and efficient research management mechanism.
As stipulated by the Interim Act for Management of Topic Bidding Process for National Research Programs, the topics under national research programs with defined research objectives and contents, time limit for the completion and evaluation and approval standards shall be granted through bidding process. The Act has made clear provisions on the whole bidding process and associated legal liabilities. On the basis of PRC Law on Bidding, the provisions on bidding process of research topics have taken into account the special aspects of research topics and are of positive significance to optimizing the distribution of S&T resources, improving the utilization of research budgets and promoting fair competition.
The Interim Act for Evaluation and Approval of National Research Topics stipulates that national research programs shall employ evaluation and approval mechanism when determining research topics. The governmental decision making process shall take full advantage of the roles of experts and non-governmental brokerage firms. The Act has made explicit provisions on the main contents of evaluation and approval of research topics and associated budget, and the requirements for the qualification of evaluating agency and experts and associated evaluation behaviors. In addition, the Act has defined clear legal liabilities for the whole evaluation and approval process. The introduction and implementation of the Act will be of importance to enhancing the transparency of topic selection process and improving the scientific nature of research topics management.
It is reported that from now on all national research topics meeting with bidding conditions shall be established through bidding process and those unqualified for the bidding shall be subject to assessment or approval.
China's Basic Studies Aiming at the Nobel Prize
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will make its basic research activities in the early 21st century aim at the Noble Prize level. This means China will work out the world first-class research results before 2025, create a number of new orientations and fields dominated by Chinese scientists, achieve major basic research results in major cutting edge areas and brew up research findings of Nobel Prize winning quality on Chinese soil.
It is reported that CAS will adopt a series of measures to translate this goal into reality. CAS will give its priority support for cutting edge research topics related to national economic and social development and national security, and screen out key S&T issues closely linked with the economic and social development. CAS will also intensify its efforts for breakthroughs through selecting major scientific orientations that may result in revolutionary impacts on the technical and industrial development.
Facing increasingly enhanced trends of interweaving, infiltration and marriage of different disciplines, CAS will secure its priority support for major cutting edge studies, especially the ones calling for the involvement of multiple disciplines. In the meantime, priority support will be given to the basic studies needing large scientific experimental devices and massive involvement of research teams. Equipment will be selected to make platforms for multi-disciplinary studies and technology development. In addition, CAS will construct high caliber scientific research bases and comprehensive inter-disciplinary research centers.
CAS will continuously support basic studies of strategic importance to the construction of national economy and needinglong-term accumulation. On the basis of the basic activities such as collecting, observing, analyzing and consolidating basic scientific data and information, gathering and preserving samples, basic studies will make fine foundations for the national macro decision making process and sustainable economic and social development.
400 Millions for Water Efficient Farming
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has recently announced that to address the shortage of farming water resources and outdated water efficiency technology in the same field, China will budget an investment of RMB 420 million including RMB 200 million from the state treasury to develop key technologies for modern water efficient farming in the 10th Five- Year Plan period(2001-2005). Aiming at establishing a modern water efficient agricultural system of Chinese characteristics, the said project will focus on improving agricultural water resources utilization, crop moisture utilization and agricultural production earnings with a three-level design for cutting edge and key technologies for water efficient agriculture, research and development of key equipment and major products and associated industrialization and technology integration and demonstration for the same purpose. Priorities will be placed on the organic combination of biological, technical and engineering approaches to water efficiency plus administrative measures.
It is reported that upon the completion of the project, China's water efficient agriculture will reach the internationally advanced level in the mid 1990s with 90- 100 new materials for drought resistant varieties, 20-30 large water efficient farming equipment and products manufacturers and 10-15 modern water efficient agriculture technology demonstration zones.
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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION |
A Chinese University Becomes the AMS Member
The AMS experiment, looking for counter and dark matters in the cosmos, with a budget of USD 100 billion has officially absorbed the Chinese Southeast University to be a member of its research efforts. Zhaozhong Ding, a Noble Prize winner and Chinese-American scientist inked an agreement on the cooperation with Guanqun Gu, President of Southeast University on May 30, 2002. Starting from the date of signature, the University participates in the instrument manufacturing and personnel training of the Lab, and the Data Analysis Center to be established on the campus will have a direct reception of data transmitted by NASA in 2005 for independent data analysis. Before the launch of the sounding unit, the University will be allowed to send its scientists to work at NASA's Kennedy and Johnson launching centers. In the meantime, the University will be involved in the manufacturing of a number of important experimental instruments.
The AMS II sounding unit with the University's involvement in its manufacturing has been scheduled for its launch in 2005 by spaceshuttle for a 3-5-year operation at the international space station. The project is the collaborative efforts among 16 countries including the United States, Sweden, France and China.
Vegetation Variations
Study findings jointly revealed by Chinese and Belgium scientists not long ago in Beijing have shown that climate change, serious water resources shortage and the increase of human activities are the major contributors causing the changes of vegetation coverage in China's northwest regions. The findings of "Remote Dynamic Monitoring System for Vegetation Variations in Northwest China" jointly worked out by China 5-Province Remote Sensing Center, Belgium VITO and UCL have indicated that China's northwest section can be divided into two periods in terms of air temperature, namely cold climate period from 1940 to 1970 and warm climate period from 1970 to 1990 with limited changes in precipitation but remarkably reduced cumulative temperature in a period of 5 decades. Scientists believe that climate change is one of the major elements causing vegetation variations over the region.
On the basis of collected and processed data, VITO worked out the ten-day vegetation data charts for the years of 1990 and 2000 respectively, and established remote sensing dynamic monitoring system for vegetation coverage. UCL, in collaboration with remote sensing centers of Shanxi, Ningxia and Xinjiang and with the help of land utilization and cover classification approaches, studied dynamic elements related to vegetation coverage, variation rate and potential implications over the northern part of the Loess Plateau, Maowusu desert rim sitting in the northern part of Ningxia, the northern section of Ningxia and the middle and lower reaches of Talimuhe River in Xinjiang. In addition, they combined the study with relevant analysis of data on social and economic development in the regions.
It is reported that Belgium has made a fund support of 15 million Belgium Francs available for the collaborative study. The smooth cooperation between the scientists of the two countries has led to the production of a series of data and findings on the vegetation variations over the northwest regions and the completion of assignments ahead of schedule.
China-France Cooperation in Electric Vehicles
China-France Steering Group on Electric Automobile recently had its meeting in Beijing with the participation of relevant authorities and experts. The meeting has reached the following 4 agreements:
1) Chinese and French standardization committees will start their exchanges and cooperation in the field of standards related to pure electric automobiles;
2) China and France will have exchanges on electric automobile related policies such as urban application planning, taxation and environmental protection.
3) Both sides will support the cooperation and exchanges at local levels in establishing the demonstration park for electric automobile applications. Both sides will support the cooperation between Wuhan and Bordeaux, Qingdao and La Rochelle, and work out relevant local policies. Meanwhile both parties will support the cooperation between Beijing and Paris and encourage the applications of electric autos in the Olympic Games.
4) China will send a technology delegation to visit the relevant research centers and fuel battery manufacturers in France and France also expressed its willingness to receive the visit so as to promote the technical exchanges and secure concrete collaboration institutions in the field of PDR.
China-German S&T Show
Being part of celebrating the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between China and Germany, an Exchange Show, or China-German S&T Exchange and Cooperation Exhibition lifted its curtain on June 10, 2002 in Berlin. The Show displayed bumper harvests reaped in the course of S&T exchanges between the two countries from repairing ancient terracotta soldiers to cutting edge nanometer technology, and from exploring the mystery of genes to seeking for the road leading to sustainable development. The exchanges and cooperation in numerous fields between the two countries have gone into a deeper and broader perspective.
The Show introduced renowned Chinese and German scholars who started to build the bridge of science and culture exchanges between the two nations 400 years ago and rich results achieved in recent years in the fields of space exploration, molecule medical science, nanometer technology, biotechnology, agricultural environment and soil and architecture. In the meantime, the Show reported the exchanges and cooperation between the two nations in the fields of education and culture.
Campus S&T Parks Blooming
China has witnessed eye-catching achievements in its construction of campus S&T parks. As is shown by the statistics, 22 campus S&T parks have been established with the existing campus or associated resources. These parks have recorded a constructed area of 13,000mu (1mu=0.0667ha.) of total planned area for 29,000 mu and an area approaching 910,000 m2 for incubators. It is reported that 2,564 enterprises have stationed in these parks with 245 enterprises incubated out from within and 1,486 others in the process of incubation. As of 2001, these campus S&T parks had produced an annual output value of RMB 28.7 billion with 4,813 proprietary new products, of which 2,191 were rated as national priority new products, and 9,184 patent applications, of which 3,482 were granted with patents. Campus S&T parks are becoming the bases for spinning off university research findings and incubators for high-tech industries as well as the ties linking universities with social and economic development and new economic growth point.
Campus S&T Parks Blooming
China has witnessed eye-catching achievements in its construction of campus S&T parks. As is shown by the statistics, 22 campus S&T parks have been established with the existing campus or associated resources. These parks have recorded a constructed area of 13,000mu (1mu=0.0667ha.) of total planned area for 29,000 mu and an area approaching 910,000 m2 for incubators. It is reported that 2,564 enterprises have stationed in these parks with 245 enterprises incubated out from within and 1,486 others in the process of incubation. As of 2001, these campus S&T parks had produced an annual output value of RMB 28.7 billion with 4,813 proprietary new products, of which 2,191 were rated as national priority new products, and 9,184 patent applications, of which 3,482 were granted with patents. Campus S&T parks are becoming the bases for spinning off university research findings and incubators for high-tech industries as well as the ties linking universities with social and economic development and new economic growth point.
Innovative Productivity Promotion Center
As is shown by the statistics, as of December 31, 2001 there were 701 so-called productivity promotion centers in the country, of which 631 are at local level and 70 sectional level with a total population of 9,564. 45.9% of the employees working for these centers are of bachelor's degree. With a total asset of RMB 3.12 billion, these centers have enjoyed the input of RMB 390 million from government at different levels and a total revenues of RMB 1.13 billion. Under these centers, there are 49,600 service enterprises providing 9,293 pieces of technical service for the development of common technologies, products diffusion and testing with sale revenues amounting to RMB 40.7 billion, and profits and taxes RMB 6.89 billion. These centers also created employment opportunities for 345,000 people and provided 339,000 person/time training for both enterprises and society.
Li Jian, Director of the Dept. of High and New Technology under the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) recently expressed that productivity promotion centers should further enhance their core competitiveness including creating new working platforms for these centers through the implementation of national S&T programs and relentlessly promoting "productivity promotion action for west China".
In the next few years, MOST will allocate RMB 30 million to support the construction of information infrastructures of productivity promotion centers in the west and associated personnel training, so as to improve the technical innovation capacity and market competitiveness of small and medium enterprises in the west.
Productivity promotion centers will also introduce full-fledged quality management and standardization service and further stimulate their system and mechanism innovation.
S&T Support for the 29th Olympic Games
China's Science and Technology Committee for the 29th Olympic Games (Olympic S&T Committee) announced its establishment on June 7, 2002 in Beijing. With its members from 10 organizations including Beijing Municipal Government, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education, the Olympic S&T Committee is a non-standing advisory and consulting organization providing major science and technology related consultations for the organizing committee of the 29th Olympic Games and promoting the implementation of Olympic S&T Action Plan for 2008.
Following the Olympic S&T Action Plan jointly proposed by ten organizations including the Ministry of Science and Technology and Beijing Municipal Government and the selection of the first 60 Olympic S&T projects, to further screen out priority targets in the construction of S&T Olympics, nine major S&T Olympic projects were preliminarily defined to meet S&T requirements of Beijing Olympic Game. These projects are: planning and implementation of Beijing urban intelligent traffic system, electric automobile demonstration, R&D and industrialization, clean energy demonstration project, Beijing sand prevention and control technology development and demonstration, high performance land observation mini satellite technologies and applications, multi-linguistic intelligent information service network system, analeptics testing technology and associated instruments, key food security technologies, and key simulation and testing technologies for the Olympic information security and software system.
Innovative Productivity Promotion Center
As is shown by the statistics, as of December 31, 2001 there were 701 so-called productivity promotion centers in the country, of which 631 are at local level and 70 sectional level with a total population of 9,564. 45.9% of the employees working for these centers are of bachelor's degree. With a total asset of RMB 3.12 billion, these centers have enjoyed the input of RMB 390 million from government at different levels and a total revenues of RMB 1.13 billion. Under these centers, there are 49,600 service enterprises providing 9,293 pieces of technical service for the development of common technologies, products diffusion and testing with sale revenues amounting to RMB 40.7 billion, and profits and taxes RMB 6.89 billion. These centers also created employment opportunities for 345,000 people and provided 339,000 person/time training for both enterprises and society.
Li Jian, Director of the Dept. of High and New Technology under the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) recently expressed that productivity promotion centers should further enhance their core competitiveness including creating new working platforms for these centers through the implementation of national S&T programs and relentlessly promoting "productivity promotion action for west China".
In the next few years, MOST will allocate RMB 30 million to support the construction of information infrastructures of productivity promotion centers in the west and associated personnel training, so as to improve the technical innovation capacity and market competitiveness of small and medium enterprises in the west.
Productivity promotion centers will also introduce full-fledged quality management and standardization service and further stimulate their system and mechanism innovation.
S&T Support for the 29th Olympic Games
China's Science and Technology Committee for the 29th Olympic Games (Olympic S&T Committee) announced its establishment on June 7, 2002 in Beijing. With its members from 10 organizations including Beijing Municipal Government, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education, the Olympic S&T Committee is a non-standing advisory and consulting organization providing major science and technology related consultations for the organizing committee of the 29th Olympic Games and promoting the implementation of Olympic S&T Action Plan for 2008.
Following the Olympic S&T Action Plan jointly proposed by ten organizations including the Ministry of Science and Technology and Beijing Municipal Government and the selection of the first 60 Olympic S&T projects, to further screen out priority targets in the construction of S&T Olympics, nine major S&T Olympic projects were preliminarily defined to meet S&T requirements of Beijing Olympic Game. These projects are: planning and implementation of Beijing urban intelligent traffic system, electric automobile demonstration, R&D and industrialization, clean energy demonstration project, Beijing sand prevention and control technology development and demonstration, high performance land observation mini satellite technologies and applications, multi-linguistic intelligent information service network system, analeptics testing technology and associated instruments, key food security technologies, and key simulation and testing technologies for the Olympic information security and software system.
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
