By Staff Reporters

The Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, were made public on October 28.

According to the Recommendations, Chinese modernization must be underpinned by modernization in science and technology. They detail the goal of "Achieving Greater Self-Reliance and Strength in Science and Technology and Steering the Development of New Quality Productive Forces" in four specific aspects.

The four aspects of deployment, despite being in different areas, are interconnected, jointly forming the core support for the modernization of science and technology to empower Chinese modernization.

Original innovation and core technologies

The Recommendations stressed promoting advances in original innovation and breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.

The 15th Five-Year Plan's call to strengthen original innovation was also a priority of the 13th and 14th Five-Year Plans. Chen Jin, director of the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University, believes that China's sci-tech innovation strategy is transforming from "scale expansion" to "quality leap."

"Original innovation, as the fundamental driving force for innovation-driven development, will play a key leading role," Chen said. "In the future, the vast number of scientific and technological personnel should pay more attention to the groundbreaking innovations that go from zero to one," he added.

However, breakthroughs in original innovation are not where it ends. "We must solve problems in practice through innovation and serve the construction of a modern industrial system," Chen emphasized.

Integrating technological and industrial innovation

The Recommendations advocate promoting full integration between technological and industrial innovation, something that Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Academician Zhu Meifang, understands deeply.   

Zhu recalled that from the launch of the joint development project based on the cooperation of industry, universities and research institutes in 1992, to the reform of empowerment of job-related sci-tech achievements, and then to the emphasis on the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, the industry-university-research cooperation in China has become increasingly broad.

Robust data provides essential support for sound research. In 2024, the contract amount for technology transfer from 4,059 universities and research institutions reached 226.91 billion RMB, representing a year-on-year growth of 10 percent. There were 415 institutions with a contract amount of over 100 million RMB for technology transfer, an increase of 4.1 percent year-on-year. By the end of 2024, universities and research institutions had a total of 18,248 full-time personnel engaged in technology transfer.

Meanwhile, Zhu cautioned that as the transfer of new technologies takes time, the government, universities, enterprises and the capital market should remain patient and avoid being overly eager for quick success and instant benefits.

Coordinate education, science and technology, and human resources

Integrated development of education, science and technology, and human resources is another proposal set out in the Recommendations.

It reflects the systematicness and synergy of strategic deployment, said Dong Yu, executive vice president of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University.

Dong believes that this strategic deployment conforms to the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, as well as the more intense competition among major countries in science and technology.

Li Jinghong, CAS academician and professor at Tsinghua University, said that education requires more attention to be paid to strengthening the combination of theoretical and practical abilities, so that graduates can better adapt to the future society.

Advancing the Digital China Initiative

When a group of human resources with both interdisciplinary knowledge and practical experience thrives, the building of a digital China will also be accelerated.

The specific deployments on advancing the Digital China Initiative in the Recommendation have greatly inspired Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 Group.

In Zhou's view, the technological revolution represented by AI is at a critical juncture of transitioning from technological breakthroughs to practical application. In this process, the intelligent agent serves as a bridge connecting technological and industrial innovation, profoundly reshaping production methods, organizational forms and security patterns, and is an important breakthrough for developing new-quality productive forces.

"Therefore, we must adhere to the principle of tech for good and prioritize security, and promote the technological breakthroughs, scenario implementation and security governance of intelligent entities in a coordinated manner, so as to build an intelligent, efficient and trustworthy digital future," Zhou said.