Tian Pengying: "From Following to Leading" Demonstrates the Robust Strength of Scientific and Technological Innovation
Recently, the National Innovation Index Report 2024 released by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development shows that China's comprehensive ranking in the 2024 National Innovation Index has jumped to 10th in the world. In 2012, our national innovation index ranked 20th; in a short span of just over 10 years, this position has risen significantly, and China remains the only middle-income country to rank among the world's top ten.
The report indicates that China’s comprehensive ranking in the dimension of innovation resources has risen to fifth place, while the dimension of knowledge creation ranks seventh. The number of highly cited papers as a share of the global total has increased, ranking first in the world. Valid invention patents have reached 3.351 million, also ranking first globally. Furthermore, the rankings for innovation performance and the innovation environment have risen markedly. This fully demonstrates the continuous increase of our country's investment in innovation resources, the improvement of innovation output, and our robust strength in scientific and technological innovation, which provides powerful support for high-quality development.
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC [1], the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has accurately anchored the brand-new historical coordinates of the development of China and the world. It has placed scientific and technological innovation at the core of national strategy, unswervingly and deeply promoted the innovation-driven development strategy, and clearly established the grand goal of building an innovative country. Through continuous and drastic deepening of the reform of the science and technology system, and by vigorously promoting scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, our country’s scientific and technological undertakings have reached a new level. Under the guidance of the New Development Philosophy [2], the Party Central Committee has attached great importance to basic research, concentrating elite forces to tackle "bottleneck" key core technologies [3] and making every effort to clear the "last mile" [4] of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, thereby accelerating the conversion of these achievements into actual productive forces. This series of far-sighted measures has acted like a powerful engine, injecting majestic momentum into the high-quality development of China's economy and society, and laying a solid foundation for the improvement of the innovation index.
Under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee, the whole of society has worked together with extensive participation, and scientific and technical personnel have cultivated the field with hard work and selfless dedication, allowing China's innovation index to rise steadily. The steady improvement of educational levels has provided high-quality talent for innovative development, while the wide popularization of an "innovation culture" has allowed the seeds of innovation to take root and sprout throughout society; these two factors together serve as a source of vitality for innovation. Strong support from science and technology policies has greatly stimulated the enthusiasm for innovation among enterprises and scientific research institutions. Our country's large and high-quality workforce of scientific and technological talent is a precious asset for promoting innovation; rooted in the front line of scientific research, they study with total absorption and explore with courage, efficiently transforming research results into practical productive forces. China's discourse power [5] in international scientific and technological competition continues to grow. Breakthroughs have been achieved in numerous core technologies, shifting from "following" to "running alongside" and even "leading" (lingpao) [6] in certain fields, becoming an important force leading the world's innovation trends.
The key to Chinese-path modernization lies in the modernization of science and technology. Scientific and technological innovation drives the great ship of Chinese-path modernization through the waves, while Chinese-path modernization opens up development space for scientific and technological innovation. The two complement each other and are deeply integrated, pushing China to advance steadily on the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country. In the New Era, we must unwaveringly uphold the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee over scientific and technological work. We must unswervingly follow the path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics, give full play to the unique advantages of the new-type whole-of-nation system [7], and accelerate the pace of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening with all our might. We must push for the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation in a down-to-earth manner to provide solid support for the development of new quality productive forces. We must stimulate innovation vitality through deepening reform, resolutely breaking down ideological barriers and institutional obstacles that constrain innovation, and effectively transforming institutional advantages into advantages in scientific and technological competition. We must promote the coordinated development of education, science and technology, and talent as an integrated whole, striving to build new advantages in the competition for talent. We must consistently practice the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity, actively promote open cooperation in science and technology, deeply integrate into global innovation networks, and join hands with countries around the world to address global challenges such as climate change, food security, and energy security. By doing so, we will continue to enhance China’s influence in global science and technology governance and let scientific and technological achievements benefit all of humanity.
Currently, China is making steady progress toward the grand goal of becoming a leading power in science and technology by 2035. To smoothly achieve this goal, we should increase investment in innovation resources, continue to optimize the systematic layout of national strategic scientific and technological forces, focus on improving the level of basic research and original innovation capabilities, and promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation. We must comprehensively improve the overall efficiency of the national innovation system to provide stronger support and leadership for high-quality development. Looking to the future, China will certainly continue to uphold the concept that open cooperation in science and technology benefits humanity, contributing Chinese wisdom and strength to addressing global challenges and shining even more brilliantly on the world stage of science and technology.