By Wang Minghui, Research Team on “A Comparative Study on Basic Research Ability among Different Countries”, Research Department of Innovation Development, DRC

Research Report, No.90, 2018 (Total 5365) 2018-5-24

Abstract: Basic research is an important pillar for enhancing China’s innovation ability across the board. Currently, a number of leading enterprises are improving their original innovation ability through basic research. Research findings show that some enterprises mainly focused on demand-oriented and applied basic research, and the proportion of their investment in basic research is higher than the average level. However, enterprises are facing various problems in carrying out basic research. For instance, the heavy workload imposed on enterprises has made it difficult for them to put in more investment for basic research. Besides, the enterprises lack of funds to support project research, and it is difficult for them to apply for competitive basic research projects and also hard for them to bring in talented personnel. Relevant policy options are made as follows. We need to continue to increase central government’s support for basic research and provide enterprises with stable operating funds for key national laboratories; the number of projects suitable for enterprises’ applied basic research needs to be increased and the government needs to guide competent enterprises to carry out basic research; we need to strengthen the construction of talent teams for enterprises to conduct basic research; and we need to explore ways for the establishment of classification and assessment system and incentive mechanism for national key laboratories in line with the characteristics of enterprises engaged in basic research.

Key words: basic research, applied basic research, enterprises, key national laboratories