Why does the Yangtze River Delta pay so much attention to scientific and technological innovations?

In terms of scientific and technological innovations, great hopes are placed on the Yangtze River Delta. In the Yangtze River Delta region, economic activity is active, the infrastructure construction is mature, scientific and technological innovation resource is abundant, business environment is sound. The effective collaboration in scientific and technological innovation must be realized in order to transform these advantages into a realistic driving force for the industrial development. According to Professor CHEN Qiang from Tongji SEM, it has two goals: one is to constantly make new breakthroughs in improving the quantity and quality of original achievements, and the other is to blaze a new trail in integrating scientific and technological progress with economic and social development.

Why is the “Scientific and Technological Innovation Passport” released at this time?

In CHEN Qiang’s opinion, in fact, “Free Delivery Area” historically has a natural origin in technical exchanges, and “the Sunday Engineer” at the beginning of reform and opening-up is a good case in point. Since then, as the Yangtze River Delta has become one of the world’s manufacturing hubs, the desire for scientific and technological innovation has been unabashed everywhere.

For example, Shanghai is building a “Science and Technology Innovation Center with Global Influence”, Zhejiang is building an “Internet plus a Highland for the World’s Scientific and Technological Innovation”, Jiangsu is building an “Industrial Science and Technology Innovation Center with Global Influence”, Anhui is building a “Comprehensive National Science Center and Industrial Innovation Center with Great Influence”. These three provinces and one city have all drawn up a grand blueprint for scientific and technological innovation, and their goals have the commonness, but also have different focal points. There are correlations between each other.

It is urgent to explore and make breakthroughs in institutional mechanisms on how the three provinces and one city can clarify the logical relationship between their respective goals, conduct top-level strategic design, fully reach consensus on the layout planning of major scientific research infrastructure, major science & technology plans and deployment action, etc., and take concerted action. In addition, collaborative innovation and “who will invest and how will the benefits be shared” are “very complicated questions”. These questions need to be examined through practice.

Who will be the ultimate beneficiary of collaborative innovation?

Although we still need to pay a lot of efforts on the way forward, but in CHEN Qiang’s view, this step must be taken. The goal of collaborative innovation is to “make the pie of scientific and technological innovation bigger and thicker, and constantly promote new scientific discoveries, new technological inventions and new industrial directions”. It is conceivable that in the future, “the level of scientific research in colleges and universities will be higher, the ability of the scientific research institutions to transform their achievements will be stronger, the products and services offered by the enterprises will be more competitive, the government’s financial resources will be stronger, and people’s lives will be better”.