Science and technology in the People's Republic of China
Encyclopedia
Science and technology in the People's Republic of China has been growing rapidly. As China develops and becomes more connected to the global economy
, the government has placed a stronger emphasis on science and technology
as an integral part of the socio-economic development of the country. This has led to increases in investment, improved scientific structures, and more funding for research. These factors have led to many advancements, including in the fields of agriculture, medicine, genetics
, global change
and space science
.
(CAS), schools of higher education, industrial departments, national defense departments and local scientific research institutes. The over 160 national scientific and academic organizations affiliated to the China Association for Science and Technology
, as well as its branches in various large and medium-sized cities, are also important forces in scientific and technological research.
The Beijing-based CAS is China's highest academic institute and comprehensive research center in natural sciences. Its academic divisions include mathematics and physics, chemistry, geography, biology, technological sciences, and it has more than 100 research institutes throughout China. Before 2010, the CAS plans to found some 80 national research institutes specializing in scientific and technological innovation and continuous development.
There are approximately 700 CAS Academicians—the highest life-time academic title the government grants in science and technology. The average age of the 58 elected in 2003 was 58.86, the youngest group ever, the two youngest being only 37 years old. The Chinese Academy of Engineering
(CAE) is the highest honorary, consultative institute in engineering science and technology, conducting strategic studies of the state's important engineering-related issues, providing consultation for decision-making, and promoting the development of engineering science and technology. There were 663 CAE academicians, including 62 elected in 2003.
The role of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(NSFC) is to support basic research
and some applied research
projects using government appropriations in line with the state's guiding principles and sci-tech development policies. Over the past dozen years, the NSFC has subsidized thousands of diverse research projects and about 60,000 scientists working in basic research.
. The third and fourth generations
of leaders come almost exclusively from technical backgrounds. Jiang Zemin
and Zhu Rongji
were trained as electrical power engineers. Hu Jintao
was trained as a hydraulic engineer.
According to some Chinese science policy experts, distortions in the economy and society created by Communist Party of China
rule has hurt Chinese science. Before the 1990s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS), modeled on the Soviet system, placed much of the PRC's scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry. However, as a result of Chinese economic reform
, most Chinese scientific institutions have been encouraged to commercialize their activities, and Chinese scientists have increasingly begun to "Xiahai" (enter the sea) or go into business.
Reforms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences continue even as many Chinese scientists debate what institutional arrangements will be best for Chinese science. The average age of Chinese researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has dropped by nearly ten years between 1991 and 2003, as the older generation retired and younger researchers, many educated in the United States and other foreign countries, took their place. CAS also cut the number of its institutes back from one hundred and twenty in 1998 to ninety-eight in 2005.
Chinese university undergraduate and graduate enrollments more than doubled from 1995 to 2005. The universities now have more cited PRC papers than CAS in the Science Citation Index. Some Chinese scientists say CAS is still ahead on overall quality of scientific work but that lead will only last five to ten years.
R&D investment by Chinese enterprises is increasing rapidly. Total investment for technological innovation by Chinese enterprises in 2003 totaled 96 billion RMB (about US$10 billion) 62% of the PRC total. That year state research institutes and universities contributed 26% and 10% of the total funds invested in technological innovation. In 2003, China’s 22,276 large and medium-sized enterprises spent 159 billion RMB on S&T expenses (keji jingfei) an increase of 5% over 2002 and 46% of the national total. In 2003, the enterprise R&D workforce totaled 656,100, about 60% of the national total. In 2003, the R&D workers at state research institutes and at institutions of higher education were 19% and 17% respectively of the total R&D workforce. Patent applications by Chinese enterprises rose 48% to 54,869 in 2003. Breaking down patent application categories, invention patents (faming zhuanli) rose 131%, design patents rose 30% and external appearance patents rose 57%.
Cooperation between enterprises and institutions of higher education has grown rapidly over the past several years. During 1999 – 2003, S&T work fees received by institutions of higher education from enterprises rose from 5.3 billion RMB to 11.2 billion RMB.
Nonetheless, there are serious shortcomings to China’s national innovation system. There are problems with services to help turn S&T work into results and the allocation of national funding to support S&T is far from optimal. Sometimes researchers become short-sighted if they get too close to the market. Another serious problem is that companies facing severe competition look first to purchase foreign technology rather than investing in developing technology and technology development capacity at home in China. Many of the patent applications come from medium sized enterprises (70%) since small enterprises invest little in research.
Central Committee and the State Council, on May 6, 1995 issued the 'Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on the Acceleration of Progress in Science and Technology'. The 'Decision' set the goal of overall (both public and private) to attain Chinese R&D spending equivalent to 1.5% of GDP by the year 2000. It urged scientific academies and institutes of higher education to set up high tech companies. The 'Decision' noted that science and technology are the chief forces of social and economic development. The leadership directed Chinese science and technology problems such as population control, feeding the population, the environment (including pollution abatement technologies), and public health (such as pharmaceuticals development).
The 'Decision' called for a reform of the Chinese science and technology structure to meet the needs of the socialist market economy. Science should move out of the institutes into private enterprises. Government research institutes should enter into cooperative ventures with Chinese and foreign companies, decide by themselves what direction their research should take, and be so mean and not become responsible for whatever profits or losses they incur. The flow of personnel, information, and capital must become faster and smoother so that companies (as well as government research institutes and universities which have created their own high tech companies) can orient their research programs according to market needs (and consequently to what the market is willing to fund).
Shielded from government-wide funding costs, the NNSFC’s budget is becoming an increasingly large part of China’s basic research spending. Grants include neither overhead nor salary but are dedicated to direct research costs. Three types of programs: young scientist, building science in the developing regions of China and new high tech concepts account for 80% of the NNSFC budget. The young scientist program also provides for short-term (up to six months) training overseas and for the support of visiting foreign scientists.
Chinese scientists serve for two to four years on a review panel for their field. The process from application to decision on the three year grants takes about six months. The NNSFC funds 60 major projects at 5 million RMB per year and 500 – 600 other projects at 1 million RMB per year as well as a large number of smaller grants at 150,000 RMB per year. The grants are low compared with the average U.S. grant size but are larger than they appear since the grants are for direct research costs and exclude salaries which typically account for 60% of U.S. research grants. One scientist said that the invention of the Chinese word processor made peer review possible, since “I know the calligraphy of everyone in my field!”.
Concerned about corruption in Chinese science Some Chinese scientists, including Professor Liu Ming 刘明 of Zhejiang University in his 2005 book "Critique of the Academic Evaluation System" 学术评价制度批判, argue that interference from government officials and university bureaucrats makes peer review far less effective in China than it could be. The time scientists spend cultivating politically influential people is lost to scientific research. Liu argues that the command economy mentality of measuring everything by the numbers combined with pervasive political interference results in a great waste of money, human talent as well as considerable corruption in Chinese science.
Many fields discussed in the 150 page “Guide to Programs” break down into the areas of mathematical and physical sciences; chemistry and chemical engineering, life sciences, earth sciences, engineering and material sciences, information science, management science, and special interdisciplinary fields such as environmental science, global change, polar region research, natural disaster reduction and fundamental research on scientific instruments.
, space
, high-energy physics, biology
, computer and information technology, have reached or are close to the world advanced level. On October 15, 2003, the successful launch of the "Shenzhou V" manned spacecraft made China the third country to master manned spaceflight technology. According to the Moon Probe Project
started in February 2004, China will launch unmanned probe
s to the Moon before 2010, and gather moon soil samples before 2020.
China's development of science and technology and its system of granting science and technology awards are underpinned by the basic Law on Progress of Science and Technology promulgated in July 1993. This stipulates the objectives, functions and sources of funds, and the system of rewards for science and technology development. The Law on Popularization of Science and Technology promulgated in June 2002 makes a societal goal to popularize science and technology knowledge among all citizens. Local regulations have been issued for attracting talented people, ensuring investment in science and technology, and developing high technology.
Since the 1990s, state budgets for science and technology have greatly increased. In 2004, the appropriation for science and technology reached 97.55 billion yuan
, 19.5 percent more than in 2003; the government spent 184.3 billion yuan on scientific research and development, 19.7 percent more than in 2003, accounting for 1.35 percent of GDP, the highest in China's history.
In 1999, the Chinese government participated in a year-long attempted venture by Microsoft into their computing market in a project known as Microsoft Venus
; however, the resulting product was a failure and never made it out of the prototype stage.
In 2004 there were 55.75 million scientific and technological personnel in state-owned enterprises and institutions, and the number of scientific and technological personnel out of every ten thousand employees had increased from 870 in 1985 to 3,900. Over half the academician
s of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
are scholars who have returned during the past two decades after finishing their studies abroad.
From 2002, the national strategy for developing science and technology shifted from following on the heels of others to making independent innovation
s and technological strides, aiming at the international sci-tech heights. According to a national plan, by 2005 China should be in the world's advanced ranks in certain fields, attaining or approaching the front rank in some important scientific and strategic hi-tech fields; expenditure for developing experimental and research science will increase to over 1.5 percent of GDP; by 2010 a preliminary national innovation system will be established, the building of basic science and technology conditions will be obvious, national key bases for scientific research will reach the world advanced level, China's innovation ability in key fields will increase, and expenditure for developing experimental and research science will reach 2% of GDP; by 2020, a relatively complete national innovation system will be in place, expenditure for developing experimental and research science will account for 3% of GDP, and China's competitiveness in science and technology will increase.
In 2004, there were 93,352 theses from China embodied in the three world-renowned search systems, viz. Science Citation Index
, Engineering Information and Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings, accounting for 5.1 percent of all the world's theses.
Reflecting growth in innovation, patent applications are increasing; 2 million applications were filed in 2004, covering invention, utility model and external design. The State Intellectual Property Office
received over 350,000 patent applications, and granted over 190,000 in the year, 4.4 percent above 2003 level.
Nanotechnology
-related patent applications have grown particularly fast, reflecting that China was one of the few countries to start focusing on nanomaterials
in the 1990s. Today there are 2,400 such patents, 12 percent of the world total.
has become China's economic mainstay. In 2004, the added value of China's information industry, the world's third largest, stood at 950 billion yuan. Output value, sales and profits of electronic
and telecoms manufacturing all outstripped those of traditional industries, making the greatest contribution to national economic growth.
By the end of 2004, China had boasted 74,429 MB export broadband capacity, 670,000 websites, 430,000 China-coded domain name
s, 41.6 million computers with Internet access, and 94 million Internet users, ranking second in the world. By the June of 2010, China boasts 420 million Internet users, claiming the title of the nation with most Internet users in the world. A host of web-based services have thrived, among them network education, online banking
, E-commerce, Internet advertising, news, video, and charged Mailpostal services, Internet Protocol (IP) telephone, SMS text-messaging, online recruitment, information services and games.
Posts and telecommunications are important elements of the information industry. After decades of construction and development, a national postal network has taken shape, with Beijing and other major cities as the centers, linking all cities and rural areas. As for the construction of the telecommunications network, a basic transmission network featuring large capacity and high speed is now in place. It covers the whole country, with the optical cable as the mainstay, supplemented by satellite and digital microwave systems.
By 2000 China had completed its "8 Across, 8 Down" optical cable grid, linking the capitals of all provinces and autonomous regions and over 90 percent of counties and cities. Every provincial or autonomous regional capital is connected by at least two optical cables. By the end of 2004, the nation's optical cables extended 3.377 million km. In coastal and economically advanced inland areas, optical cable has reached villages, towns, urban residential communities, and high-rise buildings, thus becoming the main technology for transmitting information. China has participated in the construction of a number of international land and sea-bed optical cables, such as the China-Japan, China-ROK, and Asia-Europe sea cables, and Asia-Europe and China-Russia land optical cables. China initiated the construction of the 27,000-km Asia-Europe land optical cable, the world's longest, passing through 20 countries in its journey from Shanghai to Frankfurt
in Germany. So far, China has established telecommunication business relations with more than 200 countries and regions in the world.
At the end of 2004, China had 647.26 million telephone subscribers, 312.44 million fixed lines and 334.82 million mobile phone subscribers, constituting the world's second-largest telephone network. All cities above the county level had program-controlled switchboard
s, and program-controlled telephones made up 99.8 percent of the total. There were 8.7 million circuits, all of them automated, for long-distance business. China started mobile telecommunication business in 1987 and the mobile network now covers all large and medium-sized cities, and more than 2,800 small cities and county seats. International roaming service exists with over 150 countries and regions all over the world.
The public data telecommunications network has taken initial shape, with group data exchange network, digital data network, computer Internet, multimedia telecom network, and frame relay network as the mainstays, covering over 90 percent of counties and cities in China, making it one of the world's largest public data telecommunications networks. Radio and TV networks continue to develop rapidly, and the number of radio and TV users exceeded 200 million by 2005. Almost all villages in China have access to radio and TV broadcasting.
Work on medicine and drugs in China includes the development of hepatitis vaccines and studies on the activity of traditional Chinese materia medica. For the first few decades of the PRC, Chinese research focused on examining the traditional pharmacopoeia from the perspective of modern medicine to identify active ingredients in Chinese medicines. This approach was not very successful, said NNSFC officials recently, so now research examines the effect of traditional Chinese medicines on the whole body. These include efforts to understand the effectiveness of traditional pharmaceuticals in such areas as post-stroke rehabilitation.
Some Chinese traditional medicines are now used to reduce suffering and extend the lives of HIV victims in China. Chinese assistance workers in Africa also provide these remedies to their patients. Trachosantheum derived from a traditional Chinese pharmaceutical has been a valuable tool to combating multiple-drug resistant malarial strains in South Asia. Important work on this drug has been done at the Institute of Cell Biology in Shanghai.
China’s Genome project is headquartered in Shanghai. Since 1993, the Chinese Genome Project has carried out genome structural analyses, collected samples of Chinese minorities for a national depository and developed techniques for human genome research informatics. The project started with the rice genome and expanded to human genome research with a focus on disease-causing genes. A liver cancer gene project begun in 1993 is now focusing on chromosome 17. Other groups focus on genes associated with esophageal cancer and psychological disorders. A research group at the Institute of Medical Biology at West China University in Chengdu is looking for disease causing genes in several cell lines. Twelve institutes and nineteen research groups are involved in the human genome project. Shanghai has become a major Chinese center for biotechnology and human genome research.
Chinese science strategists see Mainland China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as biotechnology
and computers where there is still a chance for the PRC to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of transpacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The United States is often held up as the standard of modernity in the PRC. Indeed, photos of the Space Shuttle
often appear in Chinese advertisements as a symbol of advanced technology. The PRC's small but growing human spaceflight program, whose Shenzhou spacecraft
carried the first PRC citizen safely into space October 15, 2003, is a source of national pride.
The U.S.-PRC Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A five-year agreement to extend the S&T Agreement was signed in April 2001. The agreement was extended for five years April 18, 2006. There are currently over 30 active protocols under the Agreement, covering cooperation in areas such as marine conservation
, renewable energy
, and health. Japan and the European Union
also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with the People's Republic of China. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint S&T cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held each year to implement specific cooperation programs.
and China's chief scientist on moon probing. He also detailed the project as follows. Verifications have been conducted on China's moon probing program for years. There were additional verifications on the technical scheme in recent two years. Now everything is going on as scheduled.
The first stage of the program, Chang'e I as it is called, will mostly adopt existing mature technologies and there is nothing insurmountable or fundamental problems technically. However, it takes time to develop all equipment to be installed inside the satellite and to establish systems for orbiting, carrying, monitoring, and ground receiving, as the project aims at the lift-off of a moon probing satellite and making it orbit the moon. It is scheduled that three years is needed before the maiden visit to the moon can be made.
According to the short-term planning, there are three stages for China's moon probing, that is, orbiting, docking, and returning. In the first stage, orbiting, China's first moon exploration satellite will be developed and launched which will conduct a comprehensive, overall, and panoramic observation to capture three-dimensioned graphs of the moon. Researches for the second stage, docking, include the launch of a docking vehicle for lunar soft landing, soft landing test, inspection around the lunar surface by a lunar rover, on-spot explorations, and moon-based astronomical observations. For the third stage, returning, in addition to a docking vehicle, a small-sized sampling capsule will be launched which will collect key samples from the moon and return to the earth. "Orbiting" is presently central to China's moon probing program.
There are four scientific goals for this stage of "orbiting".
For the first goal, there will be three-dimensioned graphs of the lunar surface. Basic structures and physiognomy units of the lunar surface will be defined precisely. Researches on the shape, size, distribution, and density will be made on the crates on the moon. These researches on the crates will produce data for identifying the age of the surface and early history of terrestrial planets and provide information needed to select the sites selecting for soft landing on the moon surface and for the lunar base.
The second goal is concentrating on the distribution and types of elements. It will be focused on the content and distribution of 14 elements such as titanium and iron which can be exploited. A map of elements distribution around the moon will be sketched. Graphs for lunar rocks, mineral materials and geology will also be drawn respectively. The area rich in specific elements will be identified. And prospects of the development and exploitation of the mineral resources will be evaluated.
The third goal is to detect the depth of the lunar soil through microwave radiation. In this way we can calculate the age of the lunar surface and distribution of the lunar soil on the lunar surface. This lays a foundation for the further estimates of the content, distribution, and quantity of helium-3 which is power generating fuel caused by nuclear fusion.
The fourth goal is focused on the space environment between the earth and the moon. The average distance between the earth and the moon is approximately 384,000 km, which is in the Earth's far magnetotail. Here the satellite probes solar energetic particles, plasma in solar wind, and the interaction between the solar wind and the moon and between the tail of the magnetic field of the earth and the moon.
research, which involve about 100,000 researchers; they are: the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
, local academies of social sciences, schools of higher learning, research units affiliated to government agencies and army-affiliated research units.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, established in 1977, is responsible for creative theoretical exploration and policy research for the improvement of humanities and social sciences standards throughout China. The academy is the top academic organization in the field, by virtue of its comprehensive scope and concentration of human talent, data and research materials. The Academy has 31 research institutes and 45 research centers with over 3,200 researchers, some 1,700 of them senior experts.
in these zones, 20 of which had annual production values over 10 billion yuan, more than 200 over five billion yuan, and 3,000 over 100 million yuan. In these zones, the average growth in major economic indicator
s has been maintained at 60 percent per annum for 12 years running, and they have become important engines of national economic growth
.
Private science and technology enterprises have also made some headway, some becoming group corporations with annual output values of anything from several hundred million up to several billion yuan. Their high-tech products now account for over half of the domestic market
for such products.
Establishing export bases for new and high-tech products in selected high-tech industrial development zones is an important part of the government's plan for developing trade through science and technology. The first designated export bases, selected because of their rapid overall development, rich talent, excellent equipment, and rapidly growing exports of high-tech products, include the Beijing Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park and high-tech industrial development zones in Tianjin, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Dalian, Xiamen, Qingdao and Shenzhen. The Pearl River Delta
, Yangtze River Delta
and the Beijing-Tianjin
region have the greatest concentration of such export bases, consequently export volumes of new and high-tech products from these areas account for over 80 percent of the national total.
in science and technology in the 21st century. The Key Technologies Research and Development Program, the 863 Program and the 973 Program form the main body of state programs for science and technology. The Spark and the Torch programs have been important in raising China's strength in this area.
s, the Key Technologies Program has had the largest funds, employed the most people and had the greatest impact on national economy of any plan to date.
The "National Program for Key Science & Technology Projects" Plan is a critical component of the Five-Year Plan
s for the national economic and social development. It is updated every five years and submitted for approval by the National People's Congress
.
Its strategic objectives are: to find solutions to the scientific and technological bottlenecks in the medium and long-term national economic and social development; promote the modernization of traditional industries and the optimization of industrial structures; support development of high technology and its industrialization; improve the quality of national economic development and people's life; and enhance the nation's S&T capacity.
Its major contents are: in accordance with the international trend of development and taking the factors of scientific, economic and social development into account, to carry out study and research on key S&T issues based on the principle of S&T pioneering; to concentrate efforts and the nation's resources in personnel and materials on issues tackling major S&T snags encountered in the nation's economic construction and social development.
The Program is funded by the government and supplemented by financial inputs for different industrial sectors and institutions. The government investments are in three types: completely free support, partially free support, and loans.
on key scientific issues which are critical and of overall importance to the scientific and technological, economic and social development of the country, therefore to make significant contributions to the science and technology development of the world and the social program in our country; to train and bring up young talents in basic research and strive to build up bodies of excellence in scientific research.
The Program covers seven branches of basic research and eight branches of applied basic research fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, astronomy, geography, biology; energy, materials, information and computer, basic agronomy, basic medical sciences, resource and environment, space science and engineering science. Funding required for the Program is provided by the government.
) was launched, after exhaustive examination by scientists. The Program set 20 themes in biology, spaceflight, information, laser, automation, energy, new materials and oceanography. Government's role is one of macro-control and support. The general research is decided on by scientific discussion, and specific projects determined by a committee of experts responsible for keeping abreast of international research developments, and reporting annually on their own fields, so as to set new research directions. Another distinctive feature of the program is that its results can be quickly industrialized.
was launched in 1998. It mainly involves multi-disciplinary, comprehensive research on important scientific issues in such fields as agriculture, energy, information, resources, population, health, and materials, providing theoretical basis and scientific foundations for solving problems. The program encourages outstanding scientists to carry out key basic research in cutting-edge science and important sci-tech issues in fields with a great bearing on socio-economic development. Representing China's national goals, it aims to provide strong scientific and technological support for significant issues in China's 21st century socio-economic development.
s and operation mechanisms suitable for hi-tech industrial development. The Program mainly involves projects in new technological fields, such as new materials, biotechnology, electronic information, integrated mechanical-electrical technology, and advanced and energy-saving technology.
in rural areas so as to improve the lives of the rural population. Today, there are more than 140,000 sci-tech demonstration projects being carried out in 90 percent of rural areas throughout China.
Its financial resources come from loans, investments, and funds raised by enterprises and the public as well as start-up money provided by the government.
Its priorities include: to promote the implementation of China's Agenda 21
through scientific and technology progress; to provide guidance and coordinate the S&T activities in the main areas of social development; to facilitate the development of S&T industries in such fields as medicine, environmental protection, and housing construction; to support a number of S&T research projects of great significance to the nation's social development; to arrange for batch of key applied basic research and high and new technology development projects; to establish several emerging industrial development bases and industrial parks for social development; to establish a number of comprehensive experimental zones for social development and to promote the sustainable development in communities.
Its financial resources come from loans, financial inputs from various sectors, self-raised by enterprises and the public, government appropriations and international aid.
innovation
, implement the optimization
of industrial structure and adjustment of product structure, facilitate the development and industrialization of high and new technology products that have a high economic competitiveness
and large market share.
The priority fields supported by the Program include:
The "Certificate of National New Product" for the products included in the Program are to be issued. The government provides preferential policies of tax reduction or exemption in a certain period to the products of the Nation New Products Program. The state selects key ones from the products in the Program and provides a proper amount of subsidy
from financial appropriation
.
, applied research
and high technology through S&T capacity building
. It is to create a favorable environment for bringing up senior S&T personnel and stabilizing S&T research contingents. Under the Program, a number of laboratories have been built and equipped with facilities of world-class level in some higher institutes and research organizations by the state, in selected scientific disciplines and emerging cross-section fields and in a planned and stage-by-stage way. By 2003, the construction of 153 key laboratories has been completed and put into operation, with total investment of RMB
1.4 billion.
demand
, creating new jobs and promoting rapid development of the national economy.
As a special fund of the central government, The Innovation Fund for STF is managed and operated according to the rules of the market economy to support STF with various shareholder ownerships; encourage effective investment from local governments, enterprises, venture capital
firms and financial institutions; gradually promote the establishment of investment mechanism for high and new technology industrialization; further optimize technology investment resources and build up an environment conducive to innovation and development of STF.
and affiliated organizations have joined 244 international scientific and technological organizations; in international scientific and technological organizations, Chinese researchers hold 293 executive member-director or higher level posts, 281 leading posts on expert committees of international organizations; and 253 CAS scientists hold posts in international scientific organizations. The China Natural Science Foundation has concluded cooperative agreements and memoranda with counterpart organizations in 36 countries.
The International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China is a national science and technology award established by the State Council. It is granted to foreign scientists, science and technology engineers and managers, or organizations that have made important contributions to China's bilateral or multilateral scientific and technological cooperation. By the end of 2004, 35 foreign experts have won the award.
Economic globalization
Economic globalization refers to increasing economic interdependence of national economies across the world through a rapid increase in cross-border movement of goods, service, technology and capital...
, the government has placed a stronger emphasis on science and technology
Science and technology
Science and technology is a term of art used to encompass the relationship between science and technology. It frequently appears within titles of academic disciplines and government offices.-See also:...
as an integral part of the socio-economic development of the country. This has led to increases in investment, improved scientific structures, and more funding for research. These factors have led to many advancements, including in the fields of agriculture, medicine, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, global change
Global change
Global change refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. The system consists of the land, oceans, atmosphere, poles, life, the planet’s natural cycles and deep Earth processes. These constituent parts influence one another...
and space science
Space science
The term space science may mean:* The study of issues specifically related to space travel and space exploration, including space medicine.* Science performed in outer space ....
.
Structure
China's scientific research system is a cooperative one, comprising the Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
(CAS), schools of higher education, industrial departments, national defense departments and local scientific research institutes. The over 160 national scientific and academic organizations affiliated to the China Association for Science and Technology
China Association for Science and Technology
The China Association for Science and Technology is a non-profit, non-governmental organization of Chinese scientists and engineers, which is composed of 167 national professional societies and hundreds of local branches at various levels....
, as well as its branches in various large and medium-sized cities, are also important forces in scientific and technological research.
The Beijing-based CAS is China's highest academic institute and comprehensive research center in natural sciences. Its academic divisions include mathematics and physics, chemistry, geography, biology, technological sciences, and it has more than 100 research institutes throughout China. Before 2010, the CAS plans to found some 80 national research institutes specializing in scientific and technological innovation and continuous development.
There are approximately 700 CAS Academicians—the highest life-time academic title the government grants in science and technology. The average age of the 58 elected in 2003 was 58.86, the youngest group ever, the two youngest being only 37 years old. The Chinese Academy of Engineering
Chinese Academy of Engineering
The Chinese Academy of Engineering is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China...
(CAE) is the highest honorary, consultative institute in engineering science and technology, conducting strategic studies of the state's important engineering-related issues, providing consultation for decision-making, and promoting the development of engineering science and technology. There were 663 CAE academicians, including 62 elected in 2003.
The role of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
National Natural Science Foundation of China
The National Natural Science Foundation of China is an organization directly affiliated to the State Council for the management of the National Natural Science Fund.-History:NSFC was founded in February 1986 with the approval of the State Council...
(NSFC) is to support basic research
Basic Research
Basic Research is an herbal supplement and cosmetics manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah that distributes products through a large number of subsidiaries. In addition, their products are sold domestically and internationally through a number of high-end retailers. Dennis Gay is the...
and some applied research
Applied research
Applied research is a form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of science. It accesses and uses some part of the research communities' accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific, often state, business, or client driven purpose...
projects using government appropriations in line with the state's guiding principles and sci-tech development policies. Over the past dozen years, the NSFC has subsidized thousands of diverse research projects and about 60,000 scientists working in basic research.
History
Science and technology have long preoccupied the PRC's leaders. In 1976 Premier Zhou Enlai established "Science and Technology" (科技) as one of the Four ModernizationsFour Modernizations
The Four Modernizations were goals, set forth by Zhou Enlai in 1963, to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, national defense, science and technology...
. The third and fourth generations
Generations of Chinese leadership
Because both the Communist Party of China and the People's Liberation Army promote according to seniority, it is possible to discern distinct generations of Chinese leadership...
of leaders come almost exclusively from technical backgrounds. Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
and Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
were trained as electrical power engineers. Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao is the current Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang...
was trained as a hydraulic engineer.
According to some Chinese science policy experts, distortions in the economy and society created by Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
rule has hurt Chinese science. Before the 1990s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
(CAS), modeled on the Soviet system, placed much of the PRC's scientific talent in a large, under-funded apparatus that remains largely isolated from industry. However, as a result of Chinese economic reform
Chinese economic reform
The Chinese economic reform refers to the program of economic reforms called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" in the People's Republic of China that were started in December 1978 by reformists within the Communist Party of China led by Deng Xiaoping.China had one of the world's largest...
, most Chinese scientific institutions have been encouraged to commercialize their activities, and Chinese scientists have increasingly begun to "Xiahai" (enter the sea) or go into business.
Reforms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences continue even as many Chinese scientists debate what institutional arrangements will be best for Chinese science. The average age of Chinese researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has dropped by nearly ten years between 1991 and 2003, as the older generation retired and younger researchers, many educated in the United States and other foreign countries, took their place. CAS also cut the number of its institutes back from one hundred and twenty in 1998 to ninety-eight in 2005.
Chinese university undergraduate and graduate enrollments more than doubled from 1995 to 2005. The universities now have more cited PRC papers than CAS in the Science Citation Index. Some Chinese scientists say CAS is still ahead on overall quality of scientific work but that lead will only last five to ten years.
R&D investment by Chinese enterprises is increasing rapidly. Total investment for technological innovation by Chinese enterprises in 2003 totaled 96 billion RMB (about US$10 billion) 62% of the PRC total. That year state research institutes and universities contributed 26% and 10% of the total funds invested in technological innovation. In 2003, China’s 22,276 large and medium-sized enterprises spent 159 billion RMB on S&T expenses (keji jingfei) an increase of 5% over 2002 and 46% of the national total. In 2003, the enterprise R&D workforce totaled 656,100, about 60% of the national total. In 2003, the R&D workers at state research institutes and at institutions of higher education were 19% and 17% respectively of the total R&D workforce. Patent applications by Chinese enterprises rose 48% to 54,869 in 2003. Breaking down patent application categories, invention patents (faming zhuanli) rose 131%, design patents rose 30% and external appearance patents rose 57%.
Cooperation between enterprises and institutions of higher education has grown rapidly over the past several years. During 1999 – 2003, S&T work fees received by institutions of higher education from enterprises rose from 5.3 billion RMB to 11.2 billion RMB.
Nonetheless, there are serious shortcomings to China’s national innovation system. There are problems with services to help turn S&T work into results and the allocation of national funding to support S&T is far from optimal. Sometimes researchers become short-sighted if they get too close to the market. Another serious problem is that companies facing severe competition look first to purchase foreign technology rather than investing in developing technology and technology development capacity at home in China. Many of the patent applications come from medium sized enterprises (70%) since small enterprises invest little in research.
Government oversight
The Communist Party of ChinaCommunist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
Central Committee and the State Council, on May 6, 1995 issued the 'Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on the Acceleration of Progress in Science and Technology'. The 'Decision' set the goal of overall (both public and private) to attain Chinese R&D spending equivalent to 1.5% of GDP by the year 2000. It urged scientific academies and institutes of higher education to set up high tech companies. The 'Decision' noted that science and technology are the chief forces of social and economic development. The leadership directed Chinese science and technology problems such as population control, feeding the population, the environment (including pollution abatement technologies), and public health (such as pharmaceuticals development).
The 'Decision' called for a reform of the Chinese science and technology structure to meet the needs of the socialist market economy. Science should move out of the institutes into private enterprises. Government research institutes should enter into cooperative ventures with Chinese and foreign companies, decide by themselves what direction their research should take, and be so mean and not become responsible for whatever profits or losses they incur. The flow of personnel, information, and capital must become faster and smoother so that companies (as well as government research institutes and universities which have created their own high tech companies) can orient their research programs according to market needs (and consequently to what the market is willing to fund).
Peer review system
Peer review by funding organizations such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China over the past decade has improved the effectiveness of science funding and raised the quality of Chinese science. The NNSFC in 1999 funded 16% of the 20,000 grant applications it receives each year from its annual budget of RMB 800 million (USD 100 million) which has increased nearly 20% annually since the founding of the NNSFC ten years ago. NNSFC now awards more research grants on a competitive basic than does the Ministry of Science and Technology which awards RMB 500 million annually. NNSFC grants often serve as seed money attesting to the quality of a project. Local government money often follows thereafter. The Chinese leadership set the goal of total (central and local government) Chinese spending on basic and applied research to reach 1.5% of GDP by the year 2000. NNSFC spending is a small but growing fraction of that amount.Shielded from government-wide funding costs, the NNSFC’s budget is becoming an increasingly large part of China’s basic research spending. Grants include neither overhead nor salary but are dedicated to direct research costs. Three types of programs: young scientist, building science in the developing regions of China and new high tech concepts account for 80% of the NNSFC budget. The young scientist program also provides for short-term (up to six months) training overseas and for the support of visiting foreign scientists.
Chinese scientists serve for two to four years on a review panel for their field. The process from application to decision on the three year grants takes about six months. The NNSFC funds 60 major projects at 5 million RMB per year and 500 – 600 other projects at 1 million RMB per year as well as a large number of smaller grants at 150,000 RMB per year. The grants are low compared with the average U.S. grant size but are larger than they appear since the grants are for direct research costs and exclude salaries which typically account for 60% of U.S. research grants. One scientist said that the invention of the Chinese word processor made peer review possible, since “I know the calligraphy of everyone in my field!”.
Concerned about corruption in Chinese science Some Chinese scientists, including Professor Liu Ming 刘明 of Zhejiang University in his 2005 book "Critique of the Academic Evaluation System" 学术评价制度批判, argue that interference from government officials and university bureaucrats makes peer review far less effective in China than it could be. The time scientists spend cultivating politically influential people is lost to scientific research. Liu argues that the command economy mentality of measuring everything by the numbers combined with pervasive political interference results in a great waste of money, human talent as well as considerable corruption in Chinese science.
Research awards and grants
Grants awarded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China fall within areas which are designated as scientific priorities by the current Five Year Plan. Thus funding decisions are based on a judgment on how research opportunities and interests of researcher match national science goals enunciated in the Five year Plan. Within these designated areas, the peer review panels make awards. a wide range of basic science activities are funded as can be seen from the current “Guide to Programs of the National Natural Science Foundation of China" published annually by the Military Medical Science Press (Taiping Rd. No. 27, Beijing 100850 CHINA). The Guide can also be found on the National Natural Science Foundation of China website http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/e_nsfc/desktop/nsfc2004.aspx@tabindex=448&modelid=257.htm.Many fields discussed in the 150 page “Guide to Programs” break down into the areas of mathematical and physical sciences; chemistry and chemical engineering, life sciences, earth sciences, engineering and material sciences, information science, management science, and special interdisciplinary fields such as environmental science, global change, polar region research, natural disaster reduction and fundamental research on scientific instruments.
Development
In 1900, China had no modern science and technology at all. Now, in the early 21st century, the gap in high-technology research and development between China and the world's advanced countries has shrunk; 60 percent of technologies, including atomic energyNuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
, space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
, high-energy physics, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, computer and information technology, have reached or are close to the world advanced level. On October 15, 2003, the successful launch of the "Shenzhou V" manned spacecraft made China the third country to master manned spaceflight technology. According to the Moon Probe Project
Chinese Lunar Exploration Program
Chinese Lunar Exploration Program , also known as the Chang'e program, is a program of robotic and human missions to the Moon undertaken by the China National Space Administration , the space agency of the People's Republic of China...
started in February 2004, China will launch unmanned probe
Space probe
A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...
s to the Moon before 2010, and gather moon soil samples before 2020.
China's development of science and technology and its system of granting science and technology awards are underpinned by the basic Law on Progress of Science and Technology promulgated in July 1993. This stipulates the objectives, functions and sources of funds, and the system of rewards for science and technology development. The Law on Popularization of Science and Technology promulgated in June 2002 makes a societal goal to popularize science and technology knowledge among all citizens. Local regulations have been issued for attracting talented people, ensuring investment in science and technology, and developing high technology.
Since the 1990s, state budgets for science and technology have greatly increased. In 2004, the appropriation for science and technology reached 97.55 billion yuan
Renminbi
The Renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China . Renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of the PRC...
, 19.5 percent more than in 2003; the government spent 184.3 billion yuan on scientific research and development, 19.7 percent more than in 2003, accounting for 1.35 percent of GDP, the highest in China's history.
In 1999, the Chinese government participated in a year-long attempted venture by Microsoft into their computing market in a project known as Microsoft Venus
Microsoft Venus
Microsoft Venus was an aborted venture by Microsoft into the low-end personal computing market in the People's Republic of China. The product, a set-top operating system designed to work with low-end televisions , was announced by then-Microsoft chairman Bill Gates on March 10, 1999 in Shenzhen,...
; however, the resulting product was a failure and never made it out of the prototype stage.
In 2004 there were 55.75 million scientific and technological personnel in state-owned enterprises and institutions, and the number of scientific and technological personnel out of every ten thousand employees had increased from 870 in 1985 to 3,900. Over half the academician
Academician
The title Academician denotes a Full Member of an art, literary, or scientific academy.In many countries, it is an honorary title. There also exists a lower-rank title, variously translated Corresponding Member or Associate Member, .-Eastern Europe and China:"Academician" may also be a functional...
s of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Chinese Academy of Engineering
The Chinese Academy of Engineering is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China...
are scholars who have returned during the past two decades after finishing their studies abroad.
From 2002, the national strategy for developing science and technology shifted from following on the heels of others to making independent innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
s and technological strides, aiming at the international sci-tech heights. According to a national plan, by 2005 China should be in the world's advanced ranks in certain fields, attaining or approaching the front rank in some important scientific and strategic hi-tech fields; expenditure for developing experimental and research science will increase to over 1.5 percent of GDP; by 2010 a preliminary national innovation system will be established, the building of basic science and technology conditions will be obvious, national key bases for scientific research will reach the world advanced level, China's innovation ability in key fields will increase, and expenditure for developing experimental and research science will reach 2% of GDP; by 2020, a relatively complete national innovation system will be in place, expenditure for developing experimental and research science will account for 3% of GDP, and China's competitiveness in science and technology will increase.
Results
During the science and technology development that China has experienced since the 1980s, many key technical problems of socio-economic development have been solved through a combination of sci-tech research, the introduction of foreign technologies and technological upgrading. Since 1981, Chinese research has produced 583,000 important scientific and technological outcomes. In 2004, scientific and technological outcomes above provincial and ministerial level numbered 29,870, of which 2,029 related to basic theory, 26,425 to applied technology, and 1,416 to "soft" sciences.In 2004, there were 93,352 theses from China embodied in the three world-renowned search systems, viz. Science Citation Index
Science Citation Index
The Science Citation Index is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information and created by Eugene Garfield in 1960, which is now owned by Thomson Reuters. The larger version covers more than 6,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from ...
, Engineering Information and Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings, accounting for 5.1 percent of all the world's theses.
Reflecting growth in innovation, patent applications are increasing; 2 million applications were filed in 2004, covering invention, utility model and external design. The State Intellectual Property Office
State Intellectual Property Office
The State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China , also known as the Chinese Patent Office, is the patent office of the People's Republic of China . It was founded on 1980, as the Patent Office of the People's Republic of China, the predecessor of SIPO...
received over 350,000 patent applications, and granted over 190,000 in the year, 4.4 percent above 2003 level.
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
-related patent applications have grown particularly fast, reflecting that China was one of the few countries to start focusing on nanomaterials
Nanomaterials
Nanomaterials is a field that takes a materials science-based approach to nanotechnology. It studies materials with morphological features on the nanoscale, and especially those that have special properties stemming from their nanoscale dimensions...
in the 1990s. Today there are 2,400 such patents, 12 percent of the world total.
Information industry
The information industryInformation industry
The information industry or information industries are industries that are information intensive in one way or the other. It is considered one of the most important economic sectors for a variety of reasons....
has become China's economic mainstay. In 2004, the added value of China's information industry, the world's third largest, stood at 950 billion yuan. Output value, sales and profits of electronic
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
and telecoms manufacturing all outstripped those of traditional industries, making the greatest contribution to national economic growth.
By the end of 2004, China had boasted 74,429 MB export broadband capacity, 670,000 websites, 430,000 China-coded domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s, 41.6 million computers with Internet access, and 94 million Internet users, ranking second in the world. By the June of 2010, China boasts 420 million Internet users, claiming the title of the nation with most Internet users in the world. A host of web-based services have thrived, among them network education, online banking
Online banking
Online banking allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society.-Features:...
, E-commerce, Internet advertising, news, video, and charged Mailpostal services, Internet Protocol (IP) telephone, SMS text-messaging, online recruitment, information services and games.
Posts and telecommunications are important elements of the information industry. After decades of construction and development, a national postal network has taken shape, with Beijing and other major cities as the centers, linking all cities and rural areas. As for the construction of the telecommunications network, a basic transmission network featuring large capacity and high speed is now in place. It covers the whole country, with the optical cable as the mainstay, supplemented by satellite and digital microwave systems.
By 2000 China had completed its "8 Across, 8 Down" optical cable grid, linking the capitals of all provinces and autonomous regions and over 90 percent of counties and cities. Every provincial or autonomous regional capital is connected by at least two optical cables. By the end of 2004, the nation's optical cables extended 3.377 million km. In coastal and economically advanced inland areas, optical cable has reached villages, towns, urban residential communities, and high-rise buildings, thus becoming the main technology for transmitting information. China has participated in the construction of a number of international land and sea-bed optical cables, such as the China-Japan, China-ROK, and Asia-Europe sea cables, and Asia-Europe and China-Russia land optical cables. China initiated the construction of the 27,000-km Asia-Europe land optical cable, the world's longest, passing through 20 countries in its journey from Shanghai to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in Germany. So far, China has established telecommunication business relations with more than 200 countries and regions in the world.
At the end of 2004, China had 647.26 million telephone subscribers, 312.44 million fixed lines and 334.82 million mobile phone subscribers, constituting the world's second-largest telephone network. All cities above the county level had program-controlled switchboard
Telephone switchboard
A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges . The user was typically known as an operator...
s, and program-controlled telephones made up 99.8 percent of the total. There were 8.7 million circuits, all of them automated, for long-distance business. China started mobile telecommunication business in 1987 and the mobile network now covers all large and medium-sized cities, and more than 2,800 small cities and county seats. International roaming service exists with over 150 countries and regions all over the world.
The public data telecommunications network has taken initial shape, with group data exchange network, digital data network, computer Internet, multimedia telecom network, and frame relay network as the mainstays, covering over 90 percent of counties and cities in China, making it one of the world's largest public data telecommunications networks. Radio and TV networks continue to develop rapidly, and the number of radio and TV users exceeded 200 million by 2005. Almost all villages in China have access to radio and TV broadcasting.
Agriculture and medicine
Agricultural research: NNSFC funds applied research for agriculture. Important progress has been made on proteinase inhibitors which kill insects by halting their digestive processes.Work on medicine and drugs in China includes the development of hepatitis vaccines and studies on the activity of traditional Chinese materia medica. For the first few decades of the PRC, Chinese research focused on examining the traditional pharmacopoeia from the perspective of modern medicine to identify active ingredients in Chinese medicines. This approach was not very successful, said NNSFC officials recently, so now research examines the effect of traditional Chinese medicines on the whole body. These include efforts to understand the effectiveness of traditional pharmaceuticals in such areas as post-stroke rehabilitation.
Some Chinese traditional medicines are now used to reduce suffering and extend the lives of HIV victims in China. Chinese assistance workers in Africa also provide these remedies to their patients. Trachosantheum derived from a traditional Chinese pharmaceutical has been a valuable tool to combating multiple-drug resistant malarial strains in South Asia. Important work on this drug has been done at the Institute of Cell Biology in Shanghai.
Genetics and biodiversity
NNSFC began funding projects on biodiversity in 1993. There are six research groups working on biodiversity, one of which is in Beijing.China’s Genome project is headquartered in Shanghai. Since 1993, the Chinese Genome Project has carried out genome structural analyses, collected samples of Chinese minorities for a national depository and developed techniques for human genome research informatics. The project started with the rice genome and expanded to human genome research with a focus on disease-causing genes. A liver cancer gene project begun in 1993 is now focusing on chromosome 17. Other groups focus on genes associated with esophageal cancer and psychological disorders. A research group at the Institute of Medical Biology at West China University in Chengdu is looking for disease causing genes in several cell lines. Twelve institutes and nineteen research groups are involved in the human genome project. Shanghai has become a major Chinese center for biotechnology and human genome research.
Global change
Global change research projects include the carbon cycle in ice zones of Antarctica; the relationship between elevation of carbon dioxide concentrations in atmosphere and aquatic organisms, and the effect of sulphocompounds in China on global change. The global change program is linked to four international programs on global change: the International Geosphere and Biosphere Program (IGBP), the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), the Human Dimensions Program for Global Change (HDP/GC) and DIVERSITAS.Chinese science strategists see Mainland China's greatest opportunities in newly emerging fields such as biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
and computers where there is still a chance for the PRC to become a significant player. Most Chinese students who went abroad have not returned, but they have built a dense network of transpacific contacts that will greatly facilitate U.S.-China scientific cooperation in coming years. The United States is often held up as the standard of modernity in the PRC. Indeed, photos of the Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
often appear in Chinese advertisements as a symbol of advanced technology. The PRC's small but growing human spaceflight program, whose Shenzhou spacecraft
Shenzhou spacecraft
Shenzhou is a spacecraft developed and operated by the People's Republic of China to support its manned spaceflight program. The name is variously translated as "Divine Craft," "Divine Vessel of God," "Magic Boat" or similar and is also homophonous with an ancient name for China...
carried the first PRC citizen safely into space October 15, 2003, is a source of national pride.
The U.S.-PRC Science and Technology Agreement remains the framework for bilateral cooperation in this field. A five-year agreement to extend the S&T Agreement was signed in April 2001. The agreement was extended for five years April 18, 2006. There are currently over 30 active protocols under the Agreement, covering cooperation in areas such as marine conservation
Marine conservation
Marine conservation, also known as marine resources conservation, is the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas. Marine conservation focuses on limiting human-caused damage to marine ecosystems, and on restoring damaged marine ecosystems...
, renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
, and health. Japan and the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
also have high profile science and technology cooperative relationships with the People's Republic of China. Biennial Joint Commission Meetings on Science and Technology bring together policymakers from both sides to coordinate joint S&T cooperation. Executive Secretaries meetings are held each year to implement specific cooperation programs.
Space science
Chang'e I, China's moon probing project is proceeding in full swing in a well-organized way. China's first moon probing is planned to be launched in three years. Four scientific goals have been set for the first stage of the program, Chang'e I moon orbiting project. This was disclosed recently by Ou'yang Ziyuan, academician of Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
and China's chief scientist on moon probing. He also detailed the project as follows. Verifications have been conducted on China's moon probing program for years. There were additional verifications on the technical scheme in recent two years. Now everything is going on as scheduled.
The first stage of the program, Chang'e I as it is called, will mostly adopt existing mature technologies and there is nothing insurmountable or fundamental problems technically. However, it takes time to develop all equipment to be installed inside the satellite and to establish systems for orbiting, carrying, monitoring, and ground receiving, as the project aims at the lift-off of a moon probing satellite and making it orbit the moon. It is scheduled that three years is needed before the maiden visit to the moon can be made.
According to the short-term planning, there are three stages for China's moon probing, that is, orbiting, docking, and returning. In the first stage, orbiting, China's first moon exploration satellite will be developed and launched which will conduct a comprehensive, overall, and panoramic observation to capture three-dimensioned graphs of the moon. Researches for the second stage, docking, include the launch of a docking vehicle for lunar soft landing, soft landing test, inspection around the lunar surface by a lunar rover, on-spot explorations, and moon-based astronomical observations. For the third stage, returning, in addition to a docking vehicle, a small-sized sampling capsule will be launched which will collect key samples from the moon and return to the earth. "Orbiting" is presently central to China's moon probing program.
There are four scientific goals for this stage of "orbiting".
For the first goal, there will be three-dimensioned graphs of the lunar surface. Basic structures and physiognomy units of the lunar surface will be defined precisely. Researches on the shape, size, distribution, and density will be made on the crates on the moon. These researches on the crates will produce data for identifying the age of the surface and early history of terrestrial planets and provide information needed to select the sites selecting for soft landing on the moon surface and for the lunar base.
The second goal is concentrating on the distribution and types of elements. It will be focused on the content and distribution of 14 elements such as titanium and iron which can be exploited. A map of elements distribution around the moon will be sketched. Graphs for lunar rocks, mineral materials and geology will also be drawn respectively. The area rich in specific elements will be identified. And prospects of the development and exploitation of the mineral resources will be evaluated.
The third goal is to detect the depth of the lunar soil through microwave radiation. In this way we can calculate the age of the lunar surface and distribution of the lunar soil on the lunar surface. This lays a foundation for the further estimates of the content, distribution, and quantity of helium-3 which is power generating fuel caused by nuclear fusion.
The fourth goal is focused on the space environment between the earth and the moon. The average distance between the earth and the moon is approximately 384,000 km, which is in the Earth's far magnetotail. Here the satellite probes solar energetic particles, plasma in solar wind, and the interaction between the solar wind and the moon and between the tail of the magnetic field of the earth and the moon.
Astronautics
As the fifth country to develop and launch an independent man-made satellite, the third to master satellite recovery technology, China is in the world's front ranks in many important technological fields, including satellite recovery, the carrying of multiple satellites on one rocket, rocket technology, and the launch, test and control of static-orbit satellites. Achievements have been made in remote-sensing satellites, communications satellites, and in manned space experiments.- Manned spacecraft: October 15, 2003 saw the successful launch of the first manned spacecraft "Shenzhou V", developed independently by China, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch CenterJiuquan Satellite Launch CenterJiuquan Satellite Launch Center is a People's Republic of China space vehicle launch facility .The facility is part of Dongfeng Aerospace City , and is located in the Gobi desert, Ejin Banner , Alxa League , Inner Mongolia, situated about 1,600 km from Beijing.- History :It was founded in 1958,...
, and following four unmanned launches between November 1999 and December 2002. "Shenzhou V" sent China's first astronaut into space and returned successfully, making China the world's third country to independently develop and deploy manned space flight technology. " Shengzhou VI", carrying two astronauts, successfully accomplished its space flight on October 12–17, 2005.Shenzhou 7 (simplified Chinese: 神舟七号; traditional Chinese: 神舟七號; pinyin: shénzhōu qīhào) was the third human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program. The mission, which included the first Chinese extra-vehicular activity (EVA) carried out by crewmembers Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming.The EVA carried out during the flight makes China the third country to have conducted an EVA, after the Soviet Union and the United States. - Man-made earth satellites: From the launch of its first man-made earth satellite "Dongfanghong No. 1" in April 1970 to the end of 2000, China successfully launched 75 satellites, including 48 developed by China itself and 27 commercial satellites for foreign customers. Fifteen types of satellite were launched in the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001–2005), including communications, navigation, meteorological, resource remote-sensing, and space survey satellites, representing half of all satellites launched in the past 30 years.
- Carrier rockets: China has developed 12 models of the "Long March" carrier rocket series, and is able to launch low earth orbit, geostationary orbit, and sun-synchronous orbit satellites and spaceships. The successful launch rate is over 90 percent; between October 1996 and December 2004, "Long March" rockets made 83 launches. China's next step is to develop a new carrier rocket series. The Jiuquan, Xichang and Taiyuan satellite-launch centers are internationally recognized.
Social sciences
There are five major systems for social sciencesSocial sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
research, which involve about 100,000 researchers; they are: the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , established in 1977, is the premier and highest academic research organization in the fields of philosophy and social sciences as well as a national center for comprehensive studies in the People's Republic of China. It was described by Foreign Policy...
, local academies of social sciences, schools of higher learning, research units affiliated to government agencies and army-affiliated research units.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, established in 1977, is responsible for creative theoretical exploration and policy research for the improvement of humanities and social sciences standards throughout China. The academy is the top academic organization in the field, by virtue of its comprehensive scope and concentration of human talent, data and research materials. The Academy has 31 research institutes and 45 research centers with over 3,200 researchers, some 1,700 of them senior experts.
Development zones
China has built up thousands of new and high-tech development zones. In the 53 state-level new and high-tech development zones, a great many sci-tech research results have been put into use in production. By 2004, there had been over 30,000 high-tech enterprisesBusiness
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
in these zones, 20 of which had annual production values over 10 billion yuan, more than 200 over five billion yuan, and 3,000 over 100 million yuan. In these zones, the average growth in major economic indicator
Economic indicator
An economic indicator is a statistic about the economy. Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance. One application of economic indicators is the study of business cycles....
s has been maintained at 60 percent per annum for 12 years running, and they have become important engines of national economic growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
.
Private science and technology enterprises have also made some headway, some becoming group corporations with annual output values of anything from several hundred million up to several billion yuan. Their high-tech products now account for over half of the domestic market
Domestic market
A domestic market is a financial market. Its trades are aimed toward a single market. A domestic market is also referred to as domestic trading...
for such products.
Establishing export bases for new and high-tech products in selected high-tech industrial development zones is an important part of the government's plan for developing trade through science and technology. The first designated export bases, selected because of their rapid overall development, rich talent, excellent equipment, and rapidly growing exports of high-tech products, include the Beijing Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park and high-tech industrial development zones in Tianjin, Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Dalian, Xiamen, Qingdao and Shenzhen. The Pearl River Delta
Pearl River Delta
The Pearl River Delta , Zhujiang Delta or Zhusanjiao in Guangdong province, People's Republic of China is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea...
, Yangtze River Delta
Yangtze River Delta
The Yangtze River Delta, Yangtze Delta or YRD, also called Yangzi, or Chang Jiang Delta, Rive Chang Delta Tai Lake Region or the Golden Triangle of the Yangtze, generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of Wu-speaking Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province and northern Zhejiang province of...
and the Beijing-Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
region have the greatest concentration of such export bases, consequently export volumes of new and high-tech products from these areas account for over 80 percent of the national total.
National programs
Since the 1980s, China has formulated a series of national programs for science and technology research and development, with the strategic aim of improving China's competitivenessCompetitiveness
Competitiveness is a comparative concept of the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and/or services in a given market...
in science and technology in the 21st century. The Key Technologies Research and Development Program, the 863 Program and the 973 Program form the main body of state programs for science and technology. The Spark and the Torch programs have been important in raising China's strength in this area.
Key Technologies Research and Development Program
The "Key Technologies Research and Development Program", launched in 1982, was the biggest scientific and technological program in China during the 20th century. Oriented toward national economic construction, it aims to solve critical, direction-related and comprehensive problems in national economic and social development; it covers agriculture, electronic information, energy, transport, materials, resources exploration, environmental protection and medical care, and other fields. Engaging tens of thousands of researchers in over 1,000 research instituteResearch institute
A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...
s, the Key Technologies Program has had the largest funds, employed the most people and had the greatest impact on national economy of any plan to date.
The "National Program for Key Science & Technology Projects" Plan is a critical component of the Five-Year Plan
Five-Year Plans of China
The five-year plans of People's Republic of China are a series of economic development initiatives. The economy was shaped by the Communist Party of China through the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national congresses...
s for the national economic and social development. It is updated every five years and submitted for approval by the National People's Congress
National People's Congress
The National People's Congress , abbreviated NPC , is the highest state body and the only legislative house in the People's Republic of China. The National People's Congress is held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China; with 2,987 members, it is the...
.
Its strategic objectives are: to find solutions to the scientific and technological bottlenecks in the medium and long-term national economic and social development; promote the modernization of traditional industries and the optimization of industrial structures; support development of high technology and its industrialization; improve the quality of national economic development and people's life; and enhance the nation's S&T capacity.
Its major contents are: in accordance with the international trend of development and taking the factors of scientific, economic and social development into account, to carry out study and research on key S&T issues based on the principle of S&T pioneering; to concentrate efforts and the nation's resources in personnel and materials on issues tackling major S&T snags encountered in the nation's economic construction and social development.
The Program is funded by the government and supplemented by financial inputs for different industrial sectors and institutions. The government investments are in three types: completely free support, partially free support, and loans.
Climbing Program
The National Program for Key Basic Research Projects ("Climbing Program") was initiated in 1991. Its objectives are: to carry out high-level basic researchBasic Research
Basic Research is an herbal supplement and cosmetics manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah that distributes products through a large number of subsidiaries. In addition, their products are sold domestically and internationally through a number of high-end retailers. Dennis Gay is the...
on key scientific issues which are critical and of overall importance to the scientific and technological, economic and social development of the country, therefore to make significant contributions to the science and technology development of the world and the social program in our country; to train and bring up young talents in basic research and strive to build up bodies of excellence in scientific research.
The Program covers seven branches of basic research and eight branches of applied basic research fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, astronomy, geography, biology; energy, materials, information and computer, basic agronomy, basic medical sciences, resource and environment, space science and engineering science. Funding required for the Program is provided by the government.
863 Program
In March 1986, the "National Hi-tech Research and Development Program" (863 Program863 Program
The 863 program or State High-Tech Development Plan is a program funded and administered by the government of the People's Republic of China intended to stimulate the development of advanced technologies in a wide range of fields for the purpose of rendering China independent of financial...
) was launched, after exhaustive examination by scientists. The Program set 20 themes in biology, spaceflight, information, laser, automation, energy, new materials and oceanography. Government's role is one of macro-control and support. The general research is decided on by scientific discussion, and specific projects determined by a committee of experts responsible for keeping abreast of international research developments, and reporting annually on their own fields, so as to set new research directions. Another distinctive feature of the program is that its results can be quickly industrialized.
973 Program
A national key program for development of basic scientific research, the 973 ProgramProgram 973
973 Program or also known as National Basic Research Program is a basic research program initiated by the People's Republic of China to achieve technology and strategic edge in various scientific fields and especially the development of the rare earth minerals industry.- History :The program was...
was launched in 1998. It mainly involves multi-disciplinary, comprehensive research on important scientific issues in such fields as agriculture, energy, information, resources, population, health, and materials, providing theoretical basis and scientific foundations for solving problems. The program encourages outstanding scientists to carry out key basic research in cutting-edge science and important sci-tech issues in fields with a great bearing on socio-economic development. Representing China's national goals, it aims to provide strong scientific and technological support for significant issues in China's 21st century socio-economic development.
Torch Program
Launched in August 1988, the Torch Program is China's most important high-tech industry program and a national guideline program. As such, it includes: organizing and putting into action a series of development projects for high-tech products with advanced technology levels and good economic benefits in domestic and foreign markets; establishing nationwide a series of 56 high-tech development zones (HTDZs) which were paired with business incubators (named innovation centers under the program); and, exploring management systemManagement system
A management system is the framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives....
s and operation mechanisms suitable for hi-tech industrial development. The Program mainly involves projects in new technological fields, such as new materials, biotechnology, electronic information, integrated mechanical-electrical technology, and advanced and energy-saving technology.
Spark Program
Launched in 1986, the Spark Program aims to revitalize rural economy through development and popularization of science and technologyPopular science
Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...
in rural areas so as to improve the lives of the rural population. Today, there are more than 140,000 sci-tech demonstration projects being carried out in 90 percent of rural areas throughout China.
Dissemination Program
The National S&T Achievements Dissemination Program was initiated in 1990. Its objectives are: to inject advanced, appreciate, mature S&T achievements into the nation's economic and social development in a well organized and planned fashion while creating a favorable environment and conditions; to mobilize S&T personnel and forces from the whole society into the implementation of the Program so as to generate benefits in large scale and promote the sustained and coordinated economic and social development and a close link between S&T and economy.Its financial resources come from loans, investments, and funds raised by enterprises and the public as well as start-up money provided by the government.
S&T Program for Social Development
The term of the Program is from 1996–2010. Its objectives are: to improve the quality of people's life and enhance the quality of the general public; to improve the living environment of the people and coordinate the relationship between human and nature; to promote the scientific and technological progress in social undertakings and related industries; and to promote the implementation of sustainable development strategy.Its priorities include: to promote the implementation of China's Agenda 21
Agenda 21
Agenda 21 is an action plan of the United Nations related to sustainable development and was an outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992...
through scientific and technology progress; to provide guidance and coordinate the S&T activities in the main areas of social development; to facilitate the development of S&T industries in such fields as medicine, environmental protection, and housing construction; to support a number of S&T research projects of great significance to the nation's social development; to arrange for batch of key applied basic research and high and new technology development projects; to establish several emerging industrial development bases and industrial parks for social development; to establish a number of comprehensive experimental zones for social development and to promote the sustainable development in communities.
Its financial resources come from loans, financial inputs from various sectors, self-raised by enterprises and the public, government appropriations and international aid.
National New Products Program
The Program is a government policy-supported program put forward by the Ministry of Science and Technology with the purposes of guiding and encouraging enterprises and research institutes to accelerate technical progress and promote the capacity of technicalTechnology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
, implement the optimization
Operations research
Operations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...
of industrial structure and adjustment of product structure, facilitate the development and industrialization of high and new technology products that have a high economic competitiveness
Competitiveness
Competitiveness is a comparative concept of the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and/or services in a given market...
and large market share.
The priority fields supported by the Program include:
- High and new technology products, including micro-electronics and electronic information, space scienceSpace scienceThe term space science may mean:* The study of issues specifically related to space travel and space exploration, including space medicine.* Science performed in outer space ....
and aviationAviationAviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
and space flight technologies; photoelectric science and opto-mechano-electronics integration technologies; life science and bio-engineering technologies; material science and material technologies; energy science and new energy and high efficiency energy saving technologies; ecological science and environmental protection technologies; geosciences and ocean engineering technologies; elementary substance science and radiation technologies; medical science and bio-medical engineering; and other high and new technology products; - New products produced by use of the achievements of the state and provincial and ministry scientific and technological program, in particular those with a major promoting function for the basic and mainstay industries of the national economy;
- New products with self-owned intellectual property rights;
- New products that are aimed at export or can replace import products, or produced with imported technologies with over 80% of the parts domestically made;
- New products that adopt international standards.
The "Certificate of National New Product" for the products included in the Program are to be issued. The government provides preferential policies of tax reduction or exemption in a certain period to the products of the Nation New Products Program. The state selects key ones from the products in the Program and provides a proper amount of subsidy
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
from financial appropriation
Appropriation (law)
In law and government, appropriation is the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses....
.
National Key Laboratories
The Program on the Construction of National Key Laboratories was launched in 1984. Focusing on the S&T reserves for long-term development, it aims at supporting the study and exploration in basic researchBasic Research
Basic Research is an herbal supplement and cosmetics manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah that distributes products through a large number of subsidiaries. In addition, their products are sold domestically and internationally through a number of high-end retailers. Dennis Gay is the...
, applied research
Applied research
Applied research is a form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of science. It accesses and uses some part of the research communities' accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific, often state, business, or client driven purpose...
and high technology through S&T capacity building
Capacity building
Capacity building also referred to as capacity development is a conceptual approach to development that focuses on understanding the obstacles that inhibit people, governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations from realizing their developmental goals while enhancing...
. It is to create a favorable environment for bringing up senior S&T personnel and stabilizing S&T research contingents. Under the Program, a number of laboratories have been built and equipped with facilities of world-class level in some higher institutes and research organizations by the state, in selected scientific disciplines and emerging cross-section fields and in a planned and stage-by-stage way. By 2003, the construction of 153 key laboratories has been completed and put into operation, with total investment of RMB
Renminbi
The Renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China . Renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of the PRC...
1.4 billion.
Innovation Fund for Small Technology-based Firms
The Innovation Funds for Small and Medium S&T Enterprises/Firms (STF) is a special government fund that was set up upon the approval of the State Council to support technology innovation in businesses. By ways of appropriation, loan interest subsidy and equity investment, the fund is aimed at supporting and encouraging technology innovation activities of STF, facilitating transformation of scientific research achievement, incuating STF R&D commercialization programs and further the industrialization of high and new technology industry. The fund plays an active role in optimizing the industry and product mix, expanding the internal marketInternal market
An internal market operates inside an organization or set of organizations which have decoupled internal components. Each component trades its services and interfaces with the others. Often a set of government or government-funded set of organizations will operate an internal market...
demand
Demand
- Economics :*Demand , the desire to own something and the ability to pay for it*Demand curve, a graphic representation of a demand schedule*Demand deposit, the money in checking accounts...
, creating new jobs and promoting rapid development of the national economy.
As a special fund of the central government, The Innovation Fund for STF is managed and operated according to the rules of the market economy to support STF with various shareholder ownerships; encourage effective investment from local governments, enterprises, venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
firms and financial institutions; gradually promote the establishment of investment mechanism for high and new technology industrialization; further optimize technology investment resources and build up an environment conducive to innovation and development of STF.
City of cloud computing
February 2011: IT complex with 6200000 square feet (575,998.8 m²) is being built for cloud computing and office that will include a mega data center.International cooperation
China has cooperated through programs in science and technology with 152 countries and regions, signed inter-governmental sci-tech cooperation agreements with 96 countries and joined more than 1,000 international sci-tech cooperation organizations. Non-governmental international cooperation and exchanges have also been increasing. The China Association for Science and TechnologyChina Association for Science and Technology
The China Association for Science and Technology is a non-profit, non-governmental organization of Chinese scientists and engineers, which is composed of 167 national professional societies and hundreds of local branches at various levels....
and affiliated organizations have joined 244 international scientific and technological organizations; in international scientific and technological organizations, Chinese researchers hold 293 executive member-director or higher level posts, 281 leading posts on expert committees of international organizations; and 253 CAS scientists hold posts in international scientific organizations. The China Natural Science Foundation has concluded cooperative agreements and memoranda with counterpart organizations in 36 countries.
The International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China is a national science and technology award established by the State Council. It is granted to foreign scientists, science and technology engineers and managers, or organizations that have made important contributions to China's bilateral or multilateral scientific and technological cooperation. By the end of 2004, 35 foreign experts have won the award.
See also
- Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of SciencesThe Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
- Chinese Academy of EngineeringChinese Academy of EngineeringThe Chinese Academy of Engineering is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China...
- Chinese Academy of Social SciencesChinese Academy of Social SciencesThe Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , established in 1977, is the premier and highest academic research organization in the fields of philosophy and social sciences as well as a national center for comprehensive studies in the People's Republic of China. It was described by Foreign Policy...
- CSTNETCSTNETCSTNET or China Science and Technology Network offers Internet services to the Chinese education, research, scientific and technical communities, relevant government departments and hi-tech enterprises, providing services such as network access, host trusteeship, virtual host and domain name...
- CERNETCernetThe China Education and Research Network is the first nationwide education and research computer network in China. The CERNET project is funded by the Chinese government and directly managed by the Chinese Ministry of Education...
- History of science and technology in the People's Republic of ChinaHistory of science and technology in the People's Republic of ChinaFor more than a century China's leaders have called for rapid development of science and technology, and science policy has played a greater role in national politics in China than in many other countries. China's scientific and technical achievements have been impressive in many fields...
- History of science and technology in ChinaHistory of science and technology in ChinaThe history of science and technology in China is both long and rich with many contributions to science and technology. In antiquity, independently of other civilizations, ancient Chinese philosophers made significant advances in science, technology, mathematics, and astronomy...
- List of Chinese inventions
- Scientific publishing in ChinaScientific publishing in ChinaToday in the People's Republic of China, there are more than 8,000 academic journals, of which more than 4,600 can be considered scientific. About 1,400 cover health science . Scientific publications reflect the scientific output of China and scientific journals are one of the most effective and...
- Science in newly industrialized countriesScience in newly industrialized countriesScientific research is concentrated in the developed world, with only a marginal contribution from the rest of the world. Most Nobel Laureates are either from United States or Europe or Japan. Many newly industrialized countries have been trying to establish scientific institutions, but with...
- Loongson
Further reading
- (2004) "Organization, programme and structure: an analysis of the Chinese innovation policy framework". R&D Management. Volume 34 Issue 4, Pages 367 – 387
External links
- Ministry of Science and Technology
- China Science and Technology Information Center
- Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China
- China Association for Science and Technology (CAST)
- Science & Technology Links
- SciTech: Popular Science in China China Radio International
- History of Chinese Invention and Discovery in Timeline
- Chinese Science and the 'Nobel Prize Complex' by Cong Cao
- Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China --Or Didn't It? N. Sivin (Published in Sivin, Science in Ancient China, (Aldershot, Hants: Variorum, 1995), chapter VII)
- In Memoriam: Dr. Joseph Needham, 1900–1995 Erik Zürcher, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Newsletter
- May 1999 U.S. Embassy Beijing report Breaking The PRC Iron Test Tube: Peer Review And The National Natural Science Foundation Of China
- 1995 CCP Central Committee and State Council "Decision on Accelerating S&T Development"
- http://publishing.royalsociety.org/chinaDedicated issue of Philosophical Transactions B on Biological Science in China, co-sponsored by the *Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of SciencesThe Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
. Some articles are freely available.]