President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Lu Yongxiang said Sunday that in the seven years since the academy deepened its restructuring, it "has achieved lots of scientific goals which have great bearing on the national security and sustained social development."

At a CAS work meeting, Lu said academy researchers completed scientific research for China's first-ever manned space mission, invented and launched a telecommunication satellite, invented a versatile central processing unit chip, made world-leading high-performance computer servers, invented new drugs and led most countries in genome sequencing and analyses of protein structures and functions.

From 1998 to 2004, CAS scientists conducted 122 key national projects on basic research, accounting for 36 percent of the country's total, 48 big projects funded by the national natural science foundation, accounting for 52 percent, 365 key projects funded by the foundation, accounting for 32 percent, he said.

In 2004, the statistics showed, CAS scientists published a great number of research papers quoted by the Scientific Citation Index, 115 percent more than in 1998 and twice the amount done by the prestigious Max-Planck Society in Germany.

In the past year, CAS scientists published 28 research papers in Nature and Science, both internationally prominent scientific journals, also 115 percent more than in 1998.

Lu said that in the past seven years, CAS "basically completed” restructuring of its research institutes.

CAS to build "innovation bases"

Lu Yongxiang said that the academy will build several "innovation bases" in the coming five years, which could combine research forces of different CAS institutes.

Lu said that the innovation bases would be aimed at the most advanced research projects in the world and would contribute to China's economic and social advancement.

"The innovation bases are new platforms for achieving more significant research breakthroughs," Lu said, adding that the CAS will allocate more funds into big research projects in those bases.

"A vital step is cultivating more outstanding scientists and capable science strategists," Lu said.

In addition to attracting talent from around the world, Lu said, CAS should be focusing on promoting gifted Chinese scientists and research teams "who are dedicated to work for the homeland."

Lu also said CAS will strengthen research cooperation with Chinese universities, organizing partner research teams with some prestigious schools and even building joint labs.

He said CAS will offer its science facilities to researchers from universities or other domestic research institutes.

The CAS will speed up strategic cooperation with big Chinese companies, featuring joint research and development centers and research training programs for company experts.

Lu said the academy needs to pay "much more attention" to potentially profit-gaining technologies, which are mostly welcomed by companies striving to sharpen their global competitiveness.

"CAS should always be an important base incubating high technologies," he said.

CAS has already set up a bureau for coordinating cooperation between it and companies as well as localities.

In addition to cooperation with companies, Lu said, CAS will better cooperate with local areas where scientific know-how and high technologies are urgently needed for economic and social advancement.

In 2004, CAS technology helped local areas earn 35.9 billion yuan (US$4.34 billion) in sales, with 6.8 billion yuan worth of revenues. Companies working with CAS and CAS institutes made 56.76 billion yuan in sales and created roughly 58,000 jobs.

(People's Daily March 21, 2005)