A conference was held to launch projects of the 973 Program, a national key basic research development program in Beijing on 10 October 2006. CHENG Jinpei, Vice minister of Science and Technology and WANG Zhixue, Deputy Secretary General of MOST attended and addressed the conference and awarded letters of appointment to chief scientists of the projects. Nearly 300 people participated in this conference, including chief scientists of the projects initiated for 2006-2007 and representatives from project undertakers and relevant departments.

Through three rounds of expert evaluation, a total of 65 projects were approved by MOST in 2006. They relate to the fields of agriculture, energy, information, resources & environment, population & health, materials, cross-disciplinary and cutting-edge technologies.