City to step up efforts in sci-tech innovation

Shanghai will step up its efforts in scientific and technological innovation to support the country's hi-tech self-reliance, according to the Communist Party of China Shanghai Committee on Monday.

Following deliberations by delegates, a plenary session of the 12th CPC Shanghai Committee adopted a resolution on the city's vital role in becoming a global science and technology center, as well as work laid out for the city during the second half of the year.

The resolution is intended to put into practice instructions given by President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, during his inspection of the city in April.

Delegates were told to develop a higher sense of the mission and responsibility concerning the city's positioning in the national context, given Shanghai's pivotal role in science and technology.

This would entail serious efforts from a number of perspectives.

There is the urgency of overcoming systemic barriers that lie in the way of spontaneous, independent innovation, so that scientific and technological innovation can be facilitated in light of the grand national strategy, national interests, and state security.

There would be a commitment in giving fuller play to the systemic advantages inherent in China, the decisive market role in deployment of innovative resources, and the role of private business in innovation.

By keeping tabs on innovative trends, technological pathways, and paradigm shifts in innovation, the city would be advantageously situated with plenty of room for maneuver in facilitating breakthroughs in key technology in integrated circuit, bio-pharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence.

The city would take full advantages of its innovative resources and, through system invention, give full play to the potential of those who might go in for innovation, from the perspective of institutions, talent, equipment, funding, and projects, with particular attention to innovation as a systematic, holistic and cooperative endeavor.

The city would also commit significantly to high-stakes, high-value basic research, particularly with a view to fostering the development of frontier and disruptive technologies, with redoubled efforts in research in integrated circuits, bio-pharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence.

To achieve breakthroughs in key sectors, state-own enterprises would be encouraged to engage in original research, private enterprises would be incentivized to be more open in their vision in innovation, and support would go to foreign-invested R&D centers to help them achieve leapfrog development.

Synergy would be also be forged for innovation and industrial upgrading in the Yangtze River Delta region, so as to make supply chains more resilient.

Deepening reforms in education and research mechanism would accelerate, in the recognition that the development of the talent pool would be crucial to success.