June 5 — The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) held a
workshop at Northwestern Polytechnical University on basic research for the
industrial and information technology sectors. MIIT said basic research is the
source of the scientific system and instructed that industrial strategy,
planning, policy and standards should explicitly factor basic-research needs and
align resources with major national strategies. It called for a problem-oriented
approach to identify “real problems” — including industry development
shortfalls, international-competition gaps and areas that could spawn disruptive
technologies — and to pre-emptively allocate resources to technologies that
could materially affect industry. The ministry urged stronger innovation
platforms to channel industry demand into research and accelerate industry
uptake of platform outcomes, and said enterprises should have greater voice and
leadership roles in national major science projects and in key tasks under the
National Key R&D Program.
