This year’s Government Work Report identifies "upholding innovation-driven development and accelerating the development of a modern industrial system" as one of the major goals and tasks for economic and social development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and lists "promoting the high-quality development of the real economy through innovation and fostering new growth drivers" as a key priority for the year.

Winning the battle for core technologies in key fields hinges fundamentally on accelerating the improvement of the scientific and technological innovation system, building a sci-tech ecosystem conducive to original innovation, and advancing the modernization of China’s national sci-tech governance system and governance capacity in an all-round way. We should give full play to the institutional and organizational strengths of the new system, establish robust linkage, coordination, decision-making and evaluation mechanisms for scientific and technological innovation. Guided by national top-level strategies, we need to coordinate advantageous forces and resources across departments, regions, military and civilian sectors, and disciplines. We should fully implement the "tackling key problems by open tender" mechanism, resolve difficulties, eliminate pain points, clear bottlenecks, ensure that capable talents have the opportunity to take on challenges, and achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.

Basic research is the core driving force and inexhaustible source of scientific and technological innovation. We must strengthen the top-level design of sci-tech innovation, optimize the investment structure of basic research, accelerate the construction of national laboratories, increase policy support for basic and interdisciplinary disciplines, accurately target several cutting-edge fields to launch a number of forward-looking and strategic national major sci-tech projects, and effectively explore original scientific issues oriented toward the global scientific frontier in the areas of national security, industrial upgrading and the main battlefield of national economy.

Written by/Fang Wei & Zhang Jie Reviewed by/Jia Ming