By Lv Wei, Research Department of Innovation Development, DRC

Research Report, No.190, 2017 (Total 5265) 2017-12-21

Abstract: The Outline of National Innovation-driven Development Strategy puts forward the goal of building China into a world-class science and technology power. The report of the 19th CPC National Congress sets out the task that China will make effort to align with the world leading technologies and enforce basic research focused on the country’s major strategic demand. The imminent issues in front of us to be addressed are how to strengthen basic research, transform research findings into original innovation capacity, and support the innovation-driven development. This paper analyzes the supporting role of basic research on major innovations and the main channels for transformation and application. It narrows down to the experience of some countries on the transformation of research results made by universities and government research institutions into practical application through various means, and puts forward relevant policy options in light of China’s research environment. It maintains that in order to improve the original innovation capacity, China needs not only to increase basic research investment, but also establish a complementary legal and policy system, and strive to create a legal, political and cultural environment conducive to basic research work. In addition, China needs to optimize the structure of the basic research expenditure, improve the mechanism for subject selection, flesh out the evaluation mechanism and scientific research result management system, give full play to the role of enterprises, and take multiple measures to transform basic research findings into practical application.

Key words: basic research, original innovation, international experience