The following scheme outlines the organization and implementation of the general requirements of the Collaborative Innovation Promotion Program of Universities and Colleges (hereinafter referred to as the 2011-Program).
- Basic Requirement
- Main Goal
The main goal of the innovation program is to combine the development plans of national medium and long-term education, science and technology, and local development, with the related elements of the 12th Five-year Plan. Thus, it is helpful to take advantage of the multi-disciplines and multi-functions available and possible at universities, to actively join the strength of innovation from home and abroad, to effectively aggregate the resources and elements of innovation, and to construct and form a new pattern of cooperation and innovation systems and mechanisms.
In addition, batches of 2011 Collaborative Innovation Centers (2011-CICs) should be set up in order to accelerate the systems and mechanisms of reform and change the innovational method at universities, to gather and cultivate a group of top-notch innovative personnel, and to enable universities to play its unique role in integrating scientific talents with the productivity of science and technology, thus making greater contributions to the national effort in innovative development.
- Main Tasks
To transform innovation at universities and to promote innovational capability with the appropriate combination of personnel, disciplines, and scientific research, this should be accomplished with a focus on the needs of national importance, system reform, construction of the 2011-CICs, and integration of innovational resources and elements.
In order to achieve breakthroughs in universities and other innovative groups, enabling significant development of personnel, capital, information and technology, and other innovative elements, this will be accomplished by in-depth collaborations among universities, scientific research institutions, industrial enterprises, local governments, and international scientific research organizations. Various forms of collaborative innovation need to be explored to meet different requirements while a favorable atmosphere for collaborative innovation need to be created.
- Types of Collaborative Innovation Centers
The 2011-CICs are divided into four types according to the requirement of the 2011-Program: frontiers of science, cultural inheritance and innovation, industrial enterprises, and regional development.
The 2011-CICs oriented to frontiers of science are based on the natural sciences and are aimed to be at a world-class level. These 2011-CICs will become and institute at the highest academic level with scientific research, and personnel training at the foremost level through powerful alliances among universities, research institutions and internationally renowned academic institutions.
The 2011-CICs oriented to cultural inheritance and innovation are based on philosophical and social science. These 2011-CICs will become the main forces of promoting the soft power of national culture and enhancing the influence of Chinese culture world-wide by the powerful alliances of universities, scientific research institutions, industrial enterprises, local governments, and international scientific research organizations.
The 2011-CICs oriented to the industrial enterprises are based on technical and engineering subjects and are focused on the cultivation of strategic new industries as well as reconstruction of traditional industrial enterprises. These 2011-CICs will become the major bases of support for the development and transformation of our core generic technology in industries.
The 2011-CICs oriented to regional development are led by the local government and centered on the service of regional economy and social development. These 2011-CICs will become the leading institutes for promotion of regional innovative development by putting forward the deep integration of universities inside-and-outside province and key enterprises in local pillar industries or industrialization bases.
- Range of Implementation
The 2011-Program will be opened to universities of various kinds, take universities as the major players in its implementation, actively attract participations from scientific research institutes, industrial enterprises, local governments and international innovation forces.
- Implementation Cycle
The cycle of the 2011-Program is (every) four years starting from the beginning of 2012. The Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) carry out an examination every year and select best candidates of various kinds to be a 2011-CIC. In order to approve a 2011-CIC, the MOE and MOF entrust a third party for evaluation of each innovation center after every four years of operation.
Implementation Principles
- Overall Arrangement and Individual Implementation.
Each university is required to carry out collaborative innovation activities positively, to accelerate the reform of systems and mechanisms, and to improve the ability to service for significant local and national demand. Established universities are encouraged to make school-level collaborative innovation plans and actively take the lead to cultivate these abilities. Various local universities are also encouraged to adopt the 2011-Program and create the corresponding atmosphere and environment to enable and develop collaborative innovation internally and with universities from inside-and-outside province, scientific research institutions and industrial enterprises. Industrial enterprises are encouraged to play a leading role in their fields, to take advantage of industrial resources, and to lead and support the universities, industrial institutes, and the backbone enterprises in order to overcome the problems related to the significant demand of industries. Thus breakthroughs in key areas may be made. On this basis, a working mechanism for individual and national implementation of the 2011-CICs can be formed on an annual basis.
- Classification and Selection for Development and Support of 2011-CICs
The construction of 2011-CICs must be based upon categorized development in response to different types of tasks and demands. We must insist upon “high starting point, high standard and distinctive characteristics”, with a clearly stated set of goals for construction, access conditions, evaluation criterion, management procedure, and performance appraisal systems. Based upon pre-selection conditions for universities, local governments, and industrial enterprises, the potential 2011-CICs should be selected annually and should be capable of solving critical problems and creating good mechanisms for structural reform of the collaborative innovation.
- Extensive Aggregation and Multiple Input
Extensive aggregation of all the elements mentioned above is required to promote the organic integration of various innovative factors and make full use of the resources available, as well as to use support and input from many aspects of society. The 2011-CICs oriented to the frontier of science, and cultural inheritance and innovation, should take full advantage of national-owned resources and inputs in the field of science and technology, education, and culture to form an agglomerative effect. The 2011-CICs oriented to the industrial enterprises development should play a leading role and gather the input and support from industries and enterprises. Those who are oriented to local development should play a leading role in local government, integrate high quality resources, use social support, and set up a long-term mechanism of local input and support. On this basis, the indentified and accredited 2011-CICs can be rewarded by financial support through national guided policy.
Program Management
- Governing Body
The 2011-Program leading group, which is established by the MOE and MOF, is responsible for the decision of top layer design, macro layout, overall coordination, funding input and other important matters of decision making. The office located in the MOE shall be established and governed by the leading group, which takes charge of planning and designing, organization and implementation, as well as supervision and management.
- The Advisory Committee of Experts
The advisory committee of experts of the 2011-Program is composed of professionals and specialists from relevant departments, universities, scientific research institutions, industrial enterprises, social organizations and international groups, who provide advices on major policy, overall planning, evaluation and accreditation, and supervision and assessment for the 2011-Program.
- Review and Supervision Mechanism of the Third Party
In order to embody the requirements of being transparency, equality and fairness, an independent third party of review and supervision will be used to carry out argumentation, assessment, regular inspection, and stage evaluation of the program.
The basic principles for selection of the third party members are based on individuals that have the following attributes: those who have great influence in the world or high prestige in the country; those who have long been engaged in education, science and technology, economy, cultural and other social administrative management; those who have international vision and significant academic achievements; those who are familiar with the domestic development; those who are energetic and fair; and those who possess a deep knowledge and understanding of the process of the collaborative innovation.
To implement the 2011-Program, three steps need to be considered: cultivation and formation, evaluation and accreditation, and performance appraisal.
Cultivation and Formation
Previous cultivation was organized by local governments, supervising departments, industrial enterprises and universities according to the implementation principles. A new platform and new mechanism can be formed gradually through the development of the innovative direction determination, collaborative innovation organization and aggregation of the innovational resources and environment construction.
1) Determination of the Direction of Collaborative Innovation
The selection of research direction should be determined on the basis of the combination of the self-advantage and characteristic of universities, and also based on the significant demands of nation, industrial enterprises, regions, and the international development of frontiers of science and technology. It should be pertinent, strategic and forward-looking, and should be comprehensive and profound. The orientations should fully enable scientific research relevant to national demand and promote the interdisciplinary collaboration, thus avoid being a single research project.
2) Formation of the Collaborative Innovation Groups
The universities will take the lead to set up “megamerger groups” with far-reaching abilities and results all over the world. A new platform can be formed through the establishment of substantive administration institutions, selection of the practical mode and type based on the characteristics and abilities of the groups, definition of the overall implementation route, and clarification of the duties.
3) Aggregation of the Innovational Elements and Resources
In order to enable the accumulative effect of collaborative innovation and to take full advantage of the existing national resources and industries, it is important to actively absorb the input from the regions, enterprises and the international societies. New advantages of the collaborative innovation can be established to adopt talents as key components and to speed up the integration of base, platform, capital, information, achievement, equipment and other innovational elements.
4) Construction of Innovational Environment and Atmosphere
Combined with the requirements of the goals and the tasks for innovation, the reform of mechanism and the methods of appointment and evaluation are designed systematically. To improve the cultivation mechanism of students in the universities and establish the institutional system of organized innovation, collaborative management, resource integration and sharing of achievement, a long-term system, which beneficial for the collaborative innovation and fulfilling major national needs, needs to be formed.
Evaluation and Accreditation
On the basis of significant results from collaborative innovation groups, the MOE and MOF will accredit a set of 2011-CICs every year on the basis of the procedure for application of organizations, with review and comprehensive consultation by experts and professionals.
1) Application Requirements
a) The overall direction of the 2011-CICs should meet the requirements of major frontiers of science, development of the key national projects, industrial enterprises, and local regions. The selected mode of innovation should be reasonable.
b) The practical innovation groups will be established, with the responsibilities and duties of each side clearly divided. The collaborative mechanism and formation will be established on the basis of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and a favorable atmosphere should be formed.
c) Effective mechanism reform should have been carried out in organization management, personnel recruitment and training, scientific research evaluation and resource allocation. The innovation scheme should be specific, proper and progress smoothly, further enabling remarkable success.
d) Based on the new talent selection mechanism, a batch of excellent staff, scientists or research teams home or abroad will join the 2011-CICs; however, they are not allowed to join any other 2011-CICs. It is important for the 2011-CICs to integrate various innovative elements, aggregate possible resources, and implement research projects with all kinds of support elements.
e) The leading universities and major involving participants will ensure their subject for collaborative innovation rely on in the direction of the main national discipline, have well-run national key research bases, and have capability and strength for organizing the collaborative innovation. A platform needs to be established for sharing equipment, information, and research resources of the involved universities or institutions of the 2011-CICs.
2) Evaluation Procedure
a) Application Organizing
Based on recommendations with limited number of universities by leading university authorities upon evaluation and approval, applications will be submitted to National Organizing Office of 2011-CICs (NOO-CICs) for initial type evaluation. For those applications oriented to regional development, they shall be recommended by Provincial Administrative Departments of Education; for those colleges and universities directly directed by the MOE, their applications can be directly submitted to the NOO-CICs.
b) Professional Review
The NOO-CICs will commission a third party to evaluate and identify 2011-CICs based on their application type. The experts of the third party will audit presentations by the 2011-CICs, vote for qualified 2011-CICs at certain percentage, and comment on each application. Assessment for those 2011-CICs oriented to frontiers of science and cultural inheritance and innovation will be addressed by academic peers, management experts, scientific research institutes and international experts; assessment for 2011-CICs oriented to the industrial enterprises will emphasize on giving full play to the role of industry sector, enterprise management and researchers for research and development; assessment for 2011-CICs oriented to regional development will highlight the integration of local governments, leading enterprises and their peer experts.
c) Comprehensive Consultants
The Expert Advisory Committee of 2011-Program is responsible to provide suggestions and advices in the form of conference discussion on the basis of application material review and report auditing. Based on the results of professional review and comprehensive consultant, The NOO-CICs will present a final list of identified 2011-CICs to the Leading Group for consideration, approval and identification of the final 2011-CICs.
3) Evaluation Requirements
In addition to the common requirements set forth above, individualized and characteristic evaluation criteria should be set for different types of 2011-CICs as the follows:
a) For those 2011-CICs Oriented to Frontiers of Science
- Comply with the development trend of cutting-edge science and technology, the 2011-CICs should have good research direction, and reasonable collaborative innovation body, which must represent the China’s highest research level in that direction with the potential and ability to become world-class.
- The 2011-CICs should have launched a well-established mechanism reform, explored and established knowledge innovation mode and operation management mechanism in line with international practice.
- The 2011-CICs should have attracted and gathered a group of talents and teams home or abroad with a reasonable team structure and a moderate scale. The directors and chief scientists should have high prestige and influences in the international academic community.
- The main subject of the leading universities and major involving participants relied on should be ranked top 1% in ESI disciplines in principle. The 2011-CICs should have national key laboratories, national centers for scientific research or excellent key laboratories of MOE.
b) For those 2011-CICs Oriented to Cultural Inheritance and Innovation
- Comply with the requirements of cultural restructuring in China and major planning of the development of cultural undertakings, the 2011-CICs should fully embody the construction of socialist core value system, enhance the soft power of national culture and the international influences of Chinese culture and promote the basic needs of human civilizations and progress. The construction of the collaborative innovation system, which should represent the highest level of academies and talents training in this direction in China, proves to be reasonable.
- Combine with research characteristics of philosophical and social sciences, the 2011-CICs should perform fruitful mechanism and system reform in staff recruitment and examination, talents training, management and operation and other aspects, and establish collaborative mechanisms across disciplines, universities and even departments and regions.
- The 2011-CICs should have attracted and gathered a number of talents and teams home and abroad with a reasonable structure, a moderate scale, clear tasks and concrete work-division, whose main leading members are credited with high academic prestige and strong innovative consciousness and ability in organization and coordination.
- The leading universities and major involving participants should have strong academic accumulations and rather obvious discipline superiorities in this direction and the main subject relied on should be the most advanced in China. The 2011-CICs should have built corresponding key research bases of MOE.
c) For those 2011-CICs Oriented to the Industrial Enterprises
- Comply with the major national development planning of industrial enterprises, the 2011-CICs should be formed reasonably with good long-term cooperation bases, which has been fully recognized and greatly supported by industrial enterprises.
- The 2011-CICs should have initiated fruitful reforms of mechanism and initially formed a personnel recruitment mechanism led by tasks. An organized innovative mode should be formed by close integration and development of government, industrial enterprises, universities, researches and users. Teams of talents should have a reasonable structure, a concrete work-division and clear responsibilities, whose main leading members should have high reputation and influences in the industrial enterprises.
- The leading universities and major involving participants should have distinct characteristics and industrial influences and power in the industry and the main subject relied on should be the most advanced in China. The 2011-CICs should have built corresponding national or MOE key laboratories, engineering (technological) research centers, engineering laboratories and other research and development bases.
- The involving enterprises or research institutes should be the most advanced and influential ones in the industry, who have good research and development foundations and great demands and acceptability for major technological innovations. The 2011-CICs should have gathered various resources effectively and obtained substantive investment from the involving enterprises.
d) For those 2011-CICs Oriented to Regional Development
- Comply with the major planning of local industries and social development. The collaborative innovation system is constructed reasonably with long-term good cooperation bases. The leading universities should have strong influences in this field locally and the leading strength of collaborative innovation. The involving enterprises should have relative strong industrial influences at a certain scale in their field.
- The 2011-CICs have launched relevant reforms of mechanism and system, initially established a social employment and flow mode and formed a new mode of continuous technological innovation and transfer. Good results have been attained in the reform.
- The main discipline, which is relied on the leading universities, should be complied with the great demands of regional development and be built with corresponding national or MOE key scientific research bases.
- The 2011-CICs have been supported by provincial collaborative innovation, played an exemplary and leading role in supporting regional innovative development and achieved remarkable economic and social benefits.
Performance Appraisal
2011-CICs adhere to the dynamic, pluralistic, blending and continuous operating mechanism, and build the Center Council or the Management Committee composed of collaborative innovation body and delegates of other aspects that are responsible for decision-making of major events in the center. It adopts a management system that a director will take full responsibilities for the operations and the developments of the center, and establishes corresponding organization and management departments to be in charge of the operations and management of the center. The center also sets up an Academic Committee that is responsible for determining scientific research directions, guiding talent training, participating in staff selection, promoting cooperation both at home and abroad. The leading departments should integrate all resources effectively and provide necessary supports and conditions for the center in manpower, finance, and substances as well as necessary supports in policy, allocation of resources and so on in order to ensure smooth operation of the center and realize its short term and long term goals and targets.
The target management and stage evaluation for the 2011-CICs should be strengthened through establishment of an evaluation method combining the annual reports with the periodic evaluations. The annual inspection is based solely on the self-examination of the 2011-CICs. The leading universities should submit the progress report of the previous year to the leading group office at the beginning of each year. The MOE and MOF entrust a third party for evaluation of each innovation center after every four years of operation. It is important to establish performance appraisal mechanism to supervise and evaluate the center. The 2011-CICs with remarkable performance and outstanding evaluation can progress to the next cycle; instead, the 2011-CICs with unqualified evaluation will be rectified or dissolved on the basis of national requirements.
Support Measurement
1) Policy Support
The universities should provide sufficient policy supports and guarantees for approved and recognized 2011-CICs within their existing conditions and abilities. On this basis, the nation and local governments will provide the 2011-CICs with updated and more effective policies and supports based on their actual situation and needs. The 2011-CICs will become a policy convergence zone conducive to collaborative innovation and a laboratory area of reform and advantageous development of universities.
a) Provide the relative autonomy of reform for the 2011-CICs in staff employment and evaluation system, talent training system, enrollment procedure, international cooperation and exchanges and other aspects.
b) Provide great supports for the 2011-CICs in the postgraduate enrollment, excellent talents program, government-sponsored visiting scholar abroad for study and exchange and other aspects relating to resource allocation.
c) Provide priority to support the 2011-CICs in the organization and application of major national tasks in science and technology, culture, talent and industrial enterprises.
2) Funding Support
The Central Financial Department has established special funds provided for the recognized 2011-CICs to use as supports of guidance or incentive. The special funds should be mainly used to meet the expenditures on carrying out collaborative innovation activities and establishing new collaborative innovation mechanisms and shall not be used for activities that are not relevant to the 2011-CICs. Specific scopes of expenditure and funds determining system shall be formulated separately by the MOF and MOE.
The leading and major involving departments should strictly adhere to the relevant provisions of the national finance, strengthen the supervision and management of the special funds and ensure that they are used for specified purposes only. All departments shall not misappropriate, intercept or diverse the special funds and shall accept supervision and inspection from related departments of MOF and Ministry of Audit. The management of special funds will become an important basis for the annual inspection and stage evaluation of the center. In cases of violation of regulations and disciplines, the relevant departments shall be punished severely and even dissolved the title of 2011-CICs directly in serious cases.
Others
Measurement of operation and management, funds management, evaluation, performance appraisal, and more of 2011-CICs shall be published separately.
