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China's private enterprises are expected to play a bigger role in driving the basic research of original innovations to help the country gain more scientific breakthroughs and a global foothold amid rising technological competition, said industry experts and company executives on Monday.
They made the comments as 46 scientists were awarded 15 million yuan ($2.05 million) to 25 million yuan each to explore original breakthroughs over the next five years under the New Cornerstone Investigator Program, one of the largest social funds for basic research led by a group of scientists and Tencent Holdings, on Monday.
The New Cornerstone Investigator Program, a new type of basic research award, is an independent nonprofit funding initiative that pledges to provide a select group of exceptional scientists with stable and long-term support for discovery research.
The researchers, which mainly cover mathematics, physical sciences, biology and biomedical sciences, are encouraged to leverage the funds to focus on challenging research instead of publishing papers or meeting research goals.
"Original innovations are unpredictable and difficult to plan, but they can drive continuous breakthroughs at the forefront of basic research and the long-term development of China's scientific development," said Shi Yigong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Westlake University.
Yuan Junying, an academician of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a pioneer cell biologist of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of CAS, said such innovations cost time and come with greater uncertainties. "Thus, it is expected that more private enterprises can play a role in supporting basic research together with government forces."
In developed countries, nongovernmental sources or social capital play a substantial role in supporting basic research and scientific breakthroughs. In China, however, the vast majority of funding for such innovations comes from the central government.
The country is also encouraging private enterprises, especially platform-based companies, to give full play to their role in supporting technological innovations, as per the country's latest guideline to promote the development of the private sector in July.
Ma Huateng, Tencent's chairman and CEO, said: "The next 10-20 years will be a critical period for China's science and technology development. We hope to support a group of outstanding scientists to devote themselves to basic research and original innovation that are in line with the needs of national development."
China aims to scale up its budget for research and development by more than 7 percent annually during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). Consultancy McKinsey &Co said in a report that such a growth target will make China the world's largest R&D spender.
"Although the R&D intensity of China has been continuously increasing, the country's investment in basic research is insufficient, which directly leads to a relative lack of innovations based on complex, underlying supporting technologies and scientific research," said Liu Qiao, dean of the Guanghua School of Management of Peking University, in a note.
Liu said China's position index in the global value chain in 2018 was 0.01 while the US index was 0.29. Thus, the US continues to be at the absolute upstream of the GVC, with strong control over core technologies and raw materials. This gives it the power to create constraints downstream for other countries and economies in the GVC.
"To change this situation, China must increase investment in basic R&D and promote Chinese industries to move upstream in the global value chain. Only when breakthroughs are achieved in basic research can we truly break developed countries' vice-like grip on key technologies," he said.
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