Song Xianping: Cultivating Innovation Origination Capabilities Geared Toward New Quality Productive Forces
The Central Economic Work Conference [1] held from December 11 to 12, 2024, made comprehensive arrangements and further planning for economic work in 2025. The conference pointed out that we must coordinate the relationship between nurturing new drivers of growth and updating old ones, and develop new quality productive forces according to local conditions. To this end, one of the key tasks to be grasped in 2025 is to "lead the development of new quality productive forces through technological innovation and build a modernized industrial system." The history since the Industrial Revolution shows that qualitative changes in productive forces bring about the evolution of the division of labor, create new industrial sectors, and reshape the global economic landscape. As the Fourth Industrial Revolution deepens, technological innovation centered on artificial intelligence is expected to trigger a new wave of scientific and technological revolution, bringing disruptive changes to all areas of economy and society and providing new impetus for global economic growth. The dimensions of competition between major powers are shifting: the measures of national strength are undergoing major changes, with control over the generation and transfer of key technologies, dominance over supply and industrial chains, and mastery of technological space and standards becoming increasingly important indicators. Countries around the world are formulating and deploying development plans, racing to seize the commanding heights of technology in an effort to secure leadership in the new round of international scientific and technological regional competition. Therefore, in the competition between major powers, accelerating the cultivation of innovation-sourcing capacity [2] oriented toward new quality productive forces is a vital opportunity to recreate technological miracles, drive the takeoff of the global economy, and promote economic circulation.
Innovation-Souring Capacity Oriented Toward New Quality Productive Forces
Developing new quality productive forces is of great value for achieving high-quality development and advancing Chinese-path modernization. Generally speaking, qualitative changes in productive forces represent a process of metabolism. The leap in the quantitative value, the optimization of the qualitative state, and the process of alternating succession of productive forces are manifested in new key technologies, leading industries, infrastructure, corresponding new modes of production organization, and new relations of production. These emerge from embryonic stages, diffuse, and eventually achieve dominance. Consequently, the wave of technological revolution presents a lifecycle of a "cluster" of technological changes, passing through the stages of introduction, expansion, synergy, and maturity. The formation and development of new quality productive forces not only create new sectors to replace traditional industrial departments but also involve creative transformation, refreshing the social combination of production processes and promoting the upgrading and transformation of more complex and diverse traditional sectors.
New quality productive forces are an advanced state of productive forces characterized primarily by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. They integrate new industries, new models, and new growth drivers, transcending existing factor-driven development models. Rooted in breakthroughs in key core technologies and disruptive technological innovation, they shift economic growth from being driven by traditional factors such as labor and capital to being driven by innovation. They promote the innovative and optimized combination of laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor, emphasizing the high level of unity between technological breakthroughs, industrial upgrading, and economic development. New quality productive forces, marked by breakthroughs in original technologies, ensure that a nation's technological and industrial competition is reflected not only in the choice of competitive paths but, more importantly, in the fact that whoever takes the first step will be the first to form new technical standards and market ecosystems. The scientific attributes of new quality productive forces indicate that innovation-sourcing capacity is the core kinetic energy of their development, the foundational capacity determining national survival and development, and the strategic support for national advancement. To march into the frontiers of science and technology and solve "stranglehold" problems [3], there is an even more urgent need for original achievements, foundational breakthroughs, and autonomous innovation. Therefore, autonomous innovation-sourcing capacity, characterized by the energy level of "from 0 to 1" self-reliance and self-strengthening, has become an important driving force for the germination of the new qualitative state of productive forces. Innovation-sourcing capacity is the core of the capacity for autonomous technological innovation, the concentrated expression of the capacity for original innovation, and a key link in the innovation process. As General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, we must strengthen the function of sourcing technological innovation and strive to achieve leaps "from nothing to something" in new scientific discoveries, new technical inventions, new industrial directions, and new development concepts. We must strive to become the first discoverers of scientific laws, the first creators of technical inventions, the first pioneers of innovative industries, and the first practitioners of innovative concepts.
Specifically, innovation-sourcing capacity refers to the capability for systemic structural changes in society oriented toward the leading-edge trends of scientific and technological innovation. It takes the local context as the main battlefield for original innovation. Through forward-looking and breakthrough scientific and technological achievements, it forms an empowering and leading force for technological change. It relies on the complementary and dialectical constitution of "innovation mobilization" (策, ce) and the "source of innovation" (源, yuan). "Mobilization" specifically refers to the implementation of innovation plans and the carrying out of innovation activities, emphasizing proactive action, leadership, and pioneering; solving the "from 0 to 1" problem requires a strategy of "doing some things while refraining from others" [4]. The "Source" emphasizes the primarity, indigeneity, and breakthrough nature of technological innovation—the innovation advantage gained from the process of leading the R&D of a new product, which precludes the possibility of imitative innovation. "Mobilization" and "Source" are dialectically unified: "Mobilization" emphasizes action to release the energy stored in the "Source," while "Source" emphasizes endogeneity, aiming to cultivate original innovation. Together, the "Mobilization" and "Source" of innovation constitute two sides of the same coin in the construction of innovation-sourcing capacity. From this, it is evident that innovation-sourcing capacity differs from imitative or incremental innovation; it places greater emphasis on being pioneering, breakthrough-oriented, driving, and transformative. The purpose of cultivating innovation-sourcing capacity is to improve the overall innovation efficiency of the country, thereby achieving technological self-reliance and self-strengthening.
The mechanism of innovation-sourcing capacity is realized through an innovation closed-loop where "innovation mobilization" creates the "source of innovation." On one hand, by formulating goals that meet national strategic needs, refining key scientific problems, and establishing a scientifically sound project initiation mechanism, we can strengthen interactions between innovation subjects and promote the continuous reinforcement of innovation momentum. We must adhere to the principle of "dissipating innovation advantages from equilibrium to re-equilibrium" [5], achieving a technological dissipative structure [6] of innovation advantages through the optimized combination of various innovation factors and the efficient aggregation of diverse innovation resources. On the other hand, on the basis of sound interaction between innovation momentum and innovation advantages, an innovation closed-loop of "innovation momentum—innovation conditions—innovation input—innovation capacity—innovation results" is formed. This continuously yields new academic ideas, new scientific discoveries, new technical inventions, and new industrial directions, realizing the development and enhancement of innovation-sourcing capacity. The process of generating innovation-sourcing capacity is the result of the collaborative drive of "innovation mobilization" and the "source of innovation." "Innovation mobilization" stimulates innovation vitality, continuously enriching and upgrading the "policy package" and "tool kit." Proceeding from the entire chain of innovation activities, it plans the entire process of innovation, thereby realizing an increase in innovation value, the transformation and reconstruction of knowledge, and the building of a bridge between basic and applied research.
The Direction of Cultivating Innovation-Sourcing Capacity
Innovation-sourcing capacity built upon frontier core technologies, as an innovation paradigm, helps nations and regions build technological heights while determining the direction of their future development. Therefore, the strategic significance of innovation-sourcing capacity for enhancing the international influence of China’s scientific and technological achievements, its contribution to global knowledge creation, the attractiveness of its innovation and entrepreneurship environment, and the radiative driving force of its technological innovation is self-evident. Currently, China is in a critical period where new quality productive forces are undergoing an overall leap and the reform of the science and technology system is deepening; it is urgent to find the direction for cultivating innovation-sourcing capacity.
The Central Economic Work Conference clearly pointed out: "Strengthen basic research and breakthroughs in key core technologies, deploy major scientific and technological projects ahead of schedule, and carry out large-scale application demonstration actions for new technologies, new products, and new scenarios. Launch 'AI+' actions and cultivate future industries. Strengthen the construction of national strategic scientific and technological forces." This reflects the country's need to continuously open up new fields and tracks for development and shape new drivers and advantages for growth. According to the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference, the direction of cultivating innovation-sourcing capacity must possess several characteristics. First, it must represent the most advanced technological level or major original breakthroughs in one or more areas of engineering science and technology, capable of leading the direction of future technological progress. Second, it must achieve overall goals through technological integration and the optimized allocation of resources, showing significant characteristics of systemic integration and innovation. Third, it must give rise to new industries and new drivers, possessing important value for industrial promotion and economic drive, representing the development direction of new quality productive forces. As foreseeable disruptive technologies leading a brand-new revolution in technological innovation, they can generate enormous economic and social benefits and profoundly change human lifestyles.
The specific manifestations of innovation-sourcing capacity oriented toward new quality productive forces are "new academic ideas, new scientific discoveries, new technical inventions, and new industrial directions." New academic ideas are forward-looking scientific thoughts and represent the germinal stage of innovation. New scientific discoveries and new technical inventions have a relationship of mutual causality and promotion: scientific discoveries provide scientific theoretical support for technical inventions, while technical inventions provide experimental equipment and conditions for scientific discoveries. New industrial directions are the back end of the innovation chain and represent the key stage where technological innovation manifests practical results; moreover, new academic ideas can be generated during industrial application. Therefore, the cultivation of innovation-sourcing capacity is based on the entire chain. It respects the objective laws of innovation activities, conducts all-round and holistic considerations, optimizes factor allocation and organizational mechanisms, coordinates innovation activities at various stages and their external environmental factors, promotes the connection and integration of the entire chain, and improves the flow and transformation efficiency of knowledge and achievements at different stages, accelerating the conversion of science into innovation-sourcing capacity.
While respecting the objective laws of innovation activities, the cultivation of innovation-sourcing capacity also requires focused breakthroughs. Since innovation-sourcing capacity possesses the characteristics of source innovation and the power to drive innovation development, its value creation depends on successful application in specific fields as technological innovation and industrial development deeply integrate. The industrial chain is the key link for completing the innovation chain and testing the effectiveness of innovation. Innovation-sourcing capacity will continuously expand, integrate, and deepen toward the industrial end along the innovation chain. The precise docking of the innovation chain and the industrial chain marks the beginning of cultivating new innovation-sourcing capacity. Practical problems and data feedback generated during the application process of the industrial chain will also provide feedback for the continuous R&D breakthroughs and iterative applications of innovation-sourcing capacity, promoting its continuous improvement, enrichment, and maturity.
Currently, the cultivation directions for key industrial chains of China’s innovation-sourcing capacity mainly include two types: strategic emerging industries and future industries. Generally speaking, strategic emerging industries are based on major technological breakthroughs and major development needs. They play a significant leading and driving role in the overall and long-term economic and social development. They are knowledge- and technology-intensive industries with low material resource consumption, great growth potential, and good comprehensive benefits, including new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, and green environmental protection. Future industries are based on the breakthrough innovation results of major frontier sciences and technologies. They cross original technological tracks, build new R&D paradigms, and play a forward-looking leading role in future economic and social development. They are the "arenas" where major powers will deploy deeply and giants will compete fiercely in the future, including frontier technology and industrial transformation fields such as brain-like intelligence, quantum information, genetic technology, future networks, deep-sea and aerospace development, and hydrogen energy and energy storage. Generally speaking, strategic emerging industries have initially completed major technical trial-and-error processes and moved from technological innovation to the industrial innovation stage. Future industries, however, are still in the trial-and-error stage of scientific and technological innovation; their industrial application scenarios and business models are not yet clear, and they possess high uncertainty. Both strategic emerging industries and future industries are focus points for solving "stranglehold" technical problems. Especially for future industries—while traditional industrial development space is limited and competition is increasingly fierce, future industries, though in the early stages of the industrial lifecycle, represent the commanding heights and new directions of future technology and development. They are the inevitable path for cultivating innovation-sourcing capacity and driving the shift from incremental catching-up to breakthrough leadership, and they are the strategic choice for nurturing new quality productive forces.
The Cultivation Path of Innovation-Sourcing Capacity
Innovation-sourcing capacity, as a powerful engine for the development of new quality productive forces, not only integrates innovation resources and leads frontier technological breakthroughs but also provides solid support for economic transformation, upgrading, and high-quality development. Therefore, to achieve the qualitative transition of new quality productive forces, we must continuously carry out systemic reforms of the cultivation path, establish modes of social production organization that meet the requirements of the times, and complete paradigm shifts in a timely manner. We must strive to turn the "key variable" of innovation-sourcing capacity into an "intrinsic increment" for national self-reliance, self-strengthening, comprehensive revitalization, and all-round development. This includes the following cultivation paths.
Gather strategic scientific and technological resources. Innovation research is gradually transitioning from interest-oriented, purely academic, and free-exploratory research toward application-directed, interdisciplinary, and resource-dependent "organized scientific research" activities. The systemic integration of high-tech products and the complexity of innovative technologies dictate a mode of innovation organization that crosses departments, industries, organizations, and geographical regions. Relevant departments must take the cultivation of innovation sourcing capacity as the core, accelerating the strategic layout of basic research and applied basic research. They must strengthen strategic guidance, forward-looking planning, organizational coordination, and resource guarantees to construct a national strategic scientific and technological power system. This involves mobilizing the resources of large-scale teams, facilities, and platforms to promote open aggregation and deep integration through multi-party synergy. In particular, it is necessary to leverage the role of the national innovation system as a bridgehead [7], strengthening the exemplary role of the "problem-poser" [8]. This requires the concrete implementation and refinement of task lists, roadmaps, and timetables for the "battle to break through key core technologies," pooling efforts to overcome technical bottlenecks, conducting forward-looking and leading research, and seizing the commanding heights of science and technology. Simultaneously, we must strengthen the construction of major scientific and technological infrastructure to enhance the supply capacity for source innovation. We should improve the new-type whole-nation system [9] for tackling key core technologies, enhance systematized capabilities, strengthen institutionalized scientific research, and implement organized, highly interdisciplinary, and collaborative research breakthroughs to promote the concentrated emergence of new knowledge, creations, and inventions.
Consolidate the innovation ecosystem for scientific research breakthroughs. In an era of increasingly white-hot technological competition, the innovation gambit is no longer a single-dimensional technical competition, but rather a competition between innovation ecosystems characterized by closely linked multiple subjects and multi-stage interactive evolution. We must apply the theoretical logic of innovation based on systems theory and holism to systematically arrange and optimize the technological innovation system, strengthening the independence and autonomy of the national innovation system while comprehensively promoting the optimization of technological innovation institutions and policy systems. An innovation ecosystem possesses not only "vitality" but also "evolvability." Through self-organization and self-adaptation, it achieves the co-evolution of different innovation subjects, prompting them to move from generalized interaction to precision connection, from focusing on breakthroughs in single technological points to enhancing systemic capabilities and network effectiveness, and from an over-reliance on "market-for-technology" [10] exogenous technology toward endogenous technology driven by a mindset of self-reliance and self-strengthening [11]. We must highlight systematized and institutionalized advantages to "seize the initiative" in enhancing the core competitiveness of collaborative networks among industry, academia, research, and end-users. By aligning national strategic needs with common technical problems, we should promote the construction of efficient, convenient, and innovative collaborative networks for research breakthroughs. We must refine the new-type whole-nation system and promote the formation of long-term linkage mechanisms among diverse subjects. Focusing on key fields such as generative artificial intelligence, quantum computing, extended reality, digital immune systems, edge computing, and genomics, we must accelerate research breakthroughs and iterative applications of general-purpose technologies to provide underlying technical support for emerging industries. This will promote the source supply of original theories and inclusive technologies, ensuring the dynamic adaptation and efficient connection of various innovation resources. To stimulate innovation potential, we must acknowledge the uncertainty and forward-looking nature of original innovation research, as well as the lag in its evaluation; we should construct error-tolerance mechanisms [12] that support original innovation based on its actual conditions and objective laws.
Fortify the human resource foundation for high-level self-reliance and self-strengthening in science and technology. On the path of seizing the opportunity to cultivate innovation sourcing capacity, the higher the degree of coupling between innovation capacity and talent development, the more likely the cultivation of that capacity will be realized. Therefore, prioritizing the cultivation of outstanding scientific and technological talent, enhancing talent quality, promoting the multi-party linkage of knowledge integration, technological invention, and industrial upgrading, and driving the transformation, promotion, and demonstration of scientific research achievements constitute the fundamental approach to cultivating innovation sourcing capacity. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the National Education Conference, we must "coordinate the implementation of the strategy for invigorating China through science and education, the strategy on developing a quality workforce, and the innovation-driven development strategy." As the primary field for talent cultivation, higher education is transforming from "adapting to society" to "leading society." Higher education is inherently consistent with the goals of building a leading nation in education, science and technology, and talent. Higher education can achieve the effective connection from original innovation, integrated innovation, and open innovation to application transformation, providing systemic support for the high-quality development of innovation sourcing capacity and the realization of its multiplier effect. Universities especially should focus on the cultivation of three types of personnel: those in short supply in frontier and key technological fields, top-tier interdisciplinary talent, and innovative, application-oriented, and skilled talent. By stimulating their innovative qualities, thinking, and capabilities, universities can continuously promote the integrated development of higher education and national innovation sourcing capacity, enhance original innovation capabilities, and strive for new breakthroughs in major scientific discoveries.
According to global innovation research websites, twenty-one of China's science and technology innovation centers have entered the global top one hundred, with six entering the top thirty. We must increase research and development efforts, accelerate the cultivation of global talent for key core technologies, create a group of world-class scientific and technological leaders and high-level innovation teams, and build a global talent reservoir to maintain global leadership across three dimensions: global aggregation of innovation elements, global sourcing for technological innovation, and the global driving force for industrial transformation. We should continually establish experimental zones for talent management reform, construct evaluation systems that conform to the laws of basic research and talent growth, and create income distribution mechanisms that fully reflect the value of innovation elements such as knowledge and technology. We must accelerate the market-based evaluation of talent, the integration of talent services, and collaborative talent innovation, while strengthening honorary incentives for talent to stimulate their innovative vitality.