The 11th Meeting of the APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI) was held at Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, from February 26 to 28, 2018. The meeting was attended by more than 100 delegates from a dozen APEC member economies including China, the United States and Papua New Guinea, China’s Macao, WIPO, APRU and APEC’s working groups on energy and human resources. A Chinese delegation headed by Deputy Director-General Chen Linhao of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China co-chaired the meeting as vice president of the PPSTI mechanism.

During the meeting, delegates focused on such themes as smart living and healthy aging, S&T-focused entrepreneurship among women, and data sharing for economic resilience, engaged in in-depth discussions on the PPSTI work plan for 2018 and on topics such as strengthening the participation of the private sector, promoting cross-mechanism cooperation and enhancing the competitiveness of PPSTI projects, and reached important consensus. The meeting also adopted a resolution that China will host the Second PPSTI APEC Centers and Long Mechanism Meeting in June 2018. As a back-to-back event of the meeting, the APEC International Technology Transfer & Interconnectivity Seminar was also held on February 28. This seminar was the Phase 4 event of the project “Training International Technology Transfer Managers and Promoting Science and Technology Innovation and Interconnectivity in the APEC Region” for which the Chinese side applied and won approval from the APEC Fund. Participants made suggestions on the project result APEC Guide to International Technology Transfer.

Members of the Chinese delegation came from China Science and Technology Exchange Center, APEC Technology Transfer Center, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Earthquake Networks Center, and International Technology Transfer Network. The Chinese delegation voiced their views at the meeting and participated in discussion on related topics, project results reporting and new project promotions, pushing forward exchanges between APEC member economies in science and innovation policies.
   
Background: APEC is an important organization which promotes socio-economic development in the Asia and Pacific region and carries out regional economic and technological cooperation. PPSTI is one of the working groups under the Steering Committee on ECOTECH (SCE) of APEC. It was renamed after the Industrial Science and Technology Working Group (ISTWG) in August 2012. The leading body of PPSTI is its management committee, composed of a chairman, two vice chairmen and a principal advisor. A Chinese representative served as PPSTI Chairman for 2015-2016 and is currently its vice-chairman. PPSTI holds one routine meeting in the first and second halves of each year to discuss topics of cooperation in the field of APEC science, technology and innovation. The Ministry of Science and Technology is the administrative department and liaison for PPSTI in China.