context: MoST announced restructuring of SKL in its 2017 'Plan for consolidating national sci-tech and innovation bases'. Proposed reforms seemed mild at the time but are now picking up speed after Xi Jinping called for institutional changes. They will seek to address spatial and sectoral overlap, inefficient incentive structures and poor links with commercial partners. Disciplinary SKLs will be consolidated, while the number of enterprise and central-provincial SKLs is set to increase.
Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) and Ministry of Finance aim for 700 state key labs (SKL) by 2020 in their 'Opinions on consolidating SKLs'. This indicates the state is aiming for quality rather than quantity, comments Science and Technology Daily, noting SKLs need to meet criteria in positioning, layout, incentive mechanisms and research capabilities. The policy sets goals for 2020, including
- 300 disciplinary SKLs
- 270 enterprise SKLs
- 70 central–provincial SKLs
- note: no mention of civil–military SKLs
- a number of national research centres on cross-disciplinary topics
There were 503 SKLs by end 2017, according to National Bureau of Statistics' '2017 report on national economic and social development'. MoST issued a review of SKLs on 21 May 2018 with a detailed breakdown. The data is from 2016, when there were 349 SKLs, including
- 261 disciplinary SKLs, plus seven in pilot phase
- C¥4.17 bn budget
- C¥2.13 bn research funding
- 42,747 research projects, of which 22,780 are national-level
- 51.6 percent supervised by Ministry of Education and 30.7 percent by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
- 177 enterprise SKLs
- C¥5.53 bn budget
- C¥2.21 bn research funding
- 3,741 research projects, of which 941 are national-level
- 69.5 percent supervised by provincial departments of sci-tech and 29.4 percent by State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission
- 21 central–provincial SKLs
- C¥540 million research funding
- 1,615 research projects
- 47.6 percent specialised in biology, and the remainder in material sciences, medical sciences, engineering, chemistry and geology
CAS-affiliated SKL directors argue implementation will
- give enterprise labs exclusive access to fiscal incentives (R&D expenditure deduction, income tax rebate, subsidies), as they are less developed, explains Mu Rongping 穆荣平 CAS Institute of Strategic Studies
- balance basic sciences and frontier technologies, including stem cells, deep space and deep sea, internet of things (IoT), nanotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, smart manufacturing and global climate change
- put state lab hosts rather than supervisors in charge of administration; lab directors will also have greater autonomy, explains Zhou Feng 周峰 CAS Lanzhou Institute
- reduce the weight of quantitative indicators like paper publications, citations and job titles in evaluations; assessment standards will align with global rules, explains Men Yongfeng 门永锋 CAS Changchun Institute
- encourage innovation, allow for flexibility, experimentation and failure
The ambition to lead global sci-tech research by 2025 is more evocative than determinant because catching up will take decades, admits Zhang Dexing 张德兴 CAS Institute of Zoology.