From August 14 to 15 2018, the 12th APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI) was held in Port Moresby, the capital city of Papua New Guinea. More than 100 delegates from 15 APEC member economies, including China, the United States, Australia and Papua New Guinea, as well as from Macao, China and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (“APRU”) and other regions and organizations attended the meeting. Pila Niningi, Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology of Papua New Guinea, attended and addressed the meeting. Deputy Director General Chen Linhao of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Science and Technology led a Chinese delegation to the meeting and chaired it as Vice Chair of the PPSTI mechanism.

During the meeting, delegates held in-depth discussions centering on issues such as priority themes for PPSTI in 2019, strengthening the participation of the private sector, internal institutional development of PPSTI, and enhancing the competitiveness of PPSTI projects, and reached important consensus. During the meeting, an innovation policy session on “Supporting Health Innovation: Roundtable with the Private Sector” was held, which led to a policy statement. In addition, the background paper on PPSTI which was drafted under China’s leadership and the concept paper inviting the private sector to become a“knowledge partner”of PPSTI, were also discussed at the meeting and became ready for adoption after the meeting.

The 2018 APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE) was also presented during the meeting. The theme of this year’s ASPIRE was “Smart Technologies for Healthy Societies”. Professor Madhu Bhaskaran, a young scholar at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, won the prize.
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, Beijing DiDi Infinity Technology Development Co., Ltd., International Technology Transfer Collaboration Network and Sichuan Institute of Nuclear Geology. At the meeting, the Chinese delegation voiced its views, participated in discussions on relevant issues, reported on project results, publicized new projects, and promoted science and technology innovation and policy exchanges among APEC member economies.

BACKGROUND: APEC is an important organization that promotes regional economic and social development and undertakes regional economic and technological cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region. PPSTI, one of the working groups of the APEC Senior Officials‘Meeting (SOM) Steering Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE), was formed in August 2012 by renaming the Industrial Science and Technology Working Group (ISTWG). The leading body of PPSTI is the management committee composed of a chair, two vice chairs and a principal advisor. The representative of China served as chair from 2015 to 2016 and is currently its vice chair. PPSTI convenes one regular meeting in the first and second halves of each year to discuss topics of cooperation in the field of science, technology and innovation within APEC. The Ministry of Science and Technology is China’s domestic body overseeing the cooperation mechanism and the point of contact vis a vis other PPSTI members.