Xi Yinglun: Focusing on the Cultivation of Innovative Talents and Strengthening the Synergy Between Science and Education in Education
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in his speech at the National Science and Technology Conference, the National Science and Technology Award Conference, and the General Assembly of the Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering: "Technological innovation depends on talent, and talent cultivation depends on education. Education, technology, and talent are internally consistent and mutually supportive. We must enhance our systemic perspective, deepen the integrated reform of the systems and mechanisms for education, technology, and talent, improve the mechanism for collaborative education between science and education, and accelerate the cultivation of a vast, rationally structured, and high-quality workforce of innovative talent." In the comprehensive building of a modern socialist country, education is the foundation, technology is the key, and talent is the root. On the new journey, we must persist in promoting a virtuous cycle between education, technology, and talent; coordinately implement the strategy for invigorating China through science and education, the strategy on developing a quality workforce, and the innovation-driven development strategy; and integrally advance educational development, technological innovation, and talent cultivation. We must focus on fostering high-quality talent who possess both the spirit of serving the country through innovation and the character to shoulder the great responsibilities of the era, providing powerful talent support for Chinese-path modernization.
I. Strengthening ideological leadership to consolidate the foundation of collaborative education between science and education
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Education is a matter of great significance to the state and the Party. Who to cultivate, how to cultivate them, and for whom to cultivate them are the fundamental questions of education." To fully implement the Party’s education policy and fulfill the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education [1], we must persist in serving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as the important mission of education. We must take the cultivation of socialist builders and successors with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetic grounding, and hard work [2] as the fundamental task of education, guiding young students to "set great aspirations to serve and strengthen the country, and be strivers who step forward to shoulder responsibilities."
Cultivating sentiment by orienting toward national strategic needs. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must look from a political perspective, start from the ideological level, and proceed from the characteristics of youth to help them establish ambitions early and set great goals, deeply rooting in their hearts trust in the Party, confidence in socialism with Chinese characteristics, and faith in Marxism." Universities should proceed from the strategic height of the development of the Party and state undertakings and the existence of successors for the socialist cause. They should always regard educating people for the Party and cultivating talent for the country as the core task of school operations, focusing on strengthening political leadership for young students. We must unswervingly use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to coagulate souls and build the spirit [3], educating and guiding young students to firm up their faith in Marxism, their belief in socialism with Chinese characteristics, and their confidence in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We must deeply instill feelings of home and country [4], taking national strategic needs as the focus, and precision-matching with "bottleneck" (stuck-neck) [5] technological breakthroughs, comprehensive rural revitalization, and the realization of the "dual carbon" goals. We should deeply integrate the concept of serving the country and nurturing the heart into the entire process of collaborative education between science and education, guiding young students to realize their life value in overcoming key core technologies and promoting social progress.
Identifying positioning by focusing on stimulating enthusiasm for practical work and responsibility. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Only when young people have ideals, dare to shoulder responsibilities, can endure hardship, and are willing to struggle will Chinese youth have strength, and the cause of the Party and the state be full of hope." Universities should integrate the successful cases of the great changes in the New Era and the vivid practices of high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening into school ideological and political education. They should tell the stories of innovation in the New Era well to stimulate the fighting enthusiasm and sense of responsibility of young students. Through multi-dimensional exchanges in fields such as "great pillars of the nation" [6], industry frontiers, and technological breakthroughs, young students should be guided to personally experience the national spirit and the spirit of the times, stimulating an enterprising awareness of serving the country through technological innovation. We must advance the integration of industry and education and the fusion of science and education, promoting the resonance of talent cultivation with technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and guiding young students to find their developmental positioning in serving the construction of a modern socialist country.
Implementing precise measures with the goal of cultivating excellent scientific literacy. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Cultivating talent is the fundamental function of education, and whether it can meet the needs of economic and social development is an important standard for measuring the effectiveness of talent cultivation." He further noted: "We must highlight the strengthening of the cultivation of young technological talent, fully trust them, give them a free hand in their work, provide meticulous guidance, and show them warm concern, so as to encourage more top-tier young talent to come to the fore." Universities should undertake the heavy responsibility of cultivating top-tier talent with a stronger sense of historical initiative, adhering to the core position of innovation in the overall situation of modernization. We must deepen teaching reform and educational evaluation reform, explore independent paths and models with the strategic thinking of cultivating "masters," and place greater emphasis on the nurturing and cultivation of scientific spirit, innovative ability, and critical thinking. We should encourage young students to actively participate in various technological innovation competitions and courses, learn to solve problems through teamwork, improve their skills and abilities in perceiving frontier technology, and love the Party, serve the country, be dedicated to work, and serve the people through pioneering and innovation.
II. Focusing on capacity building to improve the system of collaborative education between science and education
In his reply letter to student representatives participating in the China International College Students' Innovation Competition, General Secretary Xi Jinping stated: "Innovation is the source of human progress, and youth are an important new force in innovation." He expressed hope that young students would "carry forward the scientific spirit, actively devote themselves to technological innovation, and contribute youthful strength to promoting international technological exchanges and advancing technological progress." To advance collaborative education between science and education, we must adapt to the new trends of technological innovation and development, taking innovation as the driver and capacity building as the direction, and focus on exploring new ways and methods of work.
Deeply embedding technological innovation capability cultivation into the curriculum system. We must focus on optimizing cultivation paths and dynamically adjusting curriculum layouts to construct an incremental educational framework of "foundational mandatory courses—capacity-strengthening project practice—development-promoting achievement transformation," solving the problems of narrow coverage and weak sustainability in traditional educational methods. By setting credits for interdisciplinary innovation projects, stepped practice semesters, and joint university-enterprise training internships, we can systemically promote the deep integration of knowledge transmission, thinking training, and tempering in real-world scenarios. We should solicit frontier technical topics and engineering practice projects from enterprises to enhance the adaptability and pertinence of cultivating young students' innovation capabilities. We must guide technological innovation education to transition from "elite competitions" to "universal participation" and from "short-term sprints" to "lifelong empowerment." While ensuring educational equity, this will more effectively stimulate the endogenous driving force of young students for continuous innovation and promote the better transformation of innovation achievements into industrial applications.
Taking projects as the grasp [7] to construct a technological talent cultivation model adapted to industrial needs. Anchoring the needs of national strategic emerging industries, we should use projects of "real problems, real processes, and real results" as the link to construct a technological talent cultivation model of "demand-driven—curriculum reconstruction—capacity leap." Relying on a dynamically updated database of industry "pain points" and difficulties jointly built by universities and enterprises, we should decompose enterprise technical needs into graded teaching projects and import real technical platforms and project management standards, allowing young students to master frontier tools and methods while solving actual industrial problems. Simultaneously, we should establish a feedback mechanism for transforming project results into curriculum case studies and enterprise solutions, forming a dynamic closed loop where "classroom content iterates with projects and industrial resources settle into teaching," thereby fostering innovative talent with both disciplinary depth and industrial vision.
Forming multi-dimensional growth assessment standards for technological talent oriented toward the future. Improving the evaluation and incentive mechanisms for collaborative education between science and education is an important guarantee for continuously stimulating innovation vitality and cultivating high-素质 innovative talent. We should accelerate the improvement of classified evaluation systems and assessment mechanisms that conform to the laws of scientific research activities. Benching against the abilities and qualities that future technological talent must possess, we should explore new talent cultivation models of "practice orientation—independent exploration—ecological support" and form multi-dimensional growth assessment standards. We should pay attention to students' academic output and the development level of their innovative abilities, comprehensively assessing their comprehensive qualities such as teamwork and social responsibility in the innovation process to ensure the comprehensiveness and objectivity of evaluation results. Through the establishment of diversified incentives such as scholarships and innovation funds, we provide necessary financial support and sufficient resource guarantees for young students who perform outstandingly in technological innovation activities.
III. Strengthening practice orientation to expand the paths of collaborative education between science and education
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must persist in combining goal-orientation with problem-orientation. Aiming at problems such as the low degree of organized and collaborative technological innovation in our country and the scattered and repetitive nature of technological resources, we must deepen the reform of the technological management system, coordinate the construction of various innovation platforms, and strengthen the coordination of innovation resources and the organization of forces." Universities should adhere to the integrated development of education, technology, and talent. Taking the deepening of the technological management system reform as the key, the coordination of various innovation platform constructions as the focus, and the strengthening of innovation resource coordination and force organization as the guarantee, they should clear the "last mile" of innovative talent cultivation.
Nurturing the momentum of collaborative education between science and education through institutional innovation. We must emphasize the organic unity of top-level design and grassroots exploration, focusing on promoting the reform of the technological management system in universities. We must build long-term development mechanisms and grant scientific research teams autonomy in personnel recruitment, fund usage, and student admissions. By implementing the project leader system, we can form a personnel orientation where "the capable are promoted and the mediocre step aside," transforming the innovation vitality of scientific research teams into educational momentum. We should optimize the scientific research evaluation system, incorporating students' technological innovation achievements into the teacher performance appraisal system. We should focus on examining indicators such as the output rate and transformation rate of students' technological innovation achievements, and establish a "mentor-student" collaborative innovation credit system. This promotes teachers in transforming their scientific research advantages into talent cultivation advantages, forming a virtuous cycle of "scientific research feeding back into education." We should establish a flexible scientific research resource allocation mechanism, set up special incubation funds for interdisciplinary young technological talent innovation and entrepreneurship, improve the incentive mechanism for intellectual property transformation, simplify the transfer process of technological innovation achievements, and construct a full-chain technology transfer and transformation service platform to release the innovation potential of young technological talent through institutional innovation.
Enriching the scenarios of collaborative education between science and education through platform construction. We must emphasize structural optimization and functional enhancement, fully utilizing innovation and entrepreneurship resources from enterprises, schools, and all sectors of society. We should focus on building innovation practice platforms with deep university-enterprise collaboration to enrich the scenarios for cultivating students' innovation capabilities. We must emphasize the integration of disciplinary content, enterprise technical needs, and industrial technical routes, establish a rapid response mechanism, and use grade point averages to empower innovation courses to achieve the goal of "promoting innovation through learning." We should optimize educational organizational forms and knowledge supply methods, explore the construction of project-based bidding integrated into experiential platforms, and form an educational ecosystem driven by enterprise demand, engineering scenarios, and capacity integration. This helps young students reconstruct and improve complex multidisciplinary theoretical knowledge systems through practical operations. We should advance the construction of platforms for the transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements, guiding young students to enter enterprises for professional practice and technological breakthroughs, allowing professional knowledge to take root on the front lines of factories and enterprises, and "writing papers in the process of solving the actual problems of enterprise development."
Enhancing the effectiveness of collaborative education between science and education through resource integration. Centering on the efficient allocation and synergistic empowerment of innovation elements, we should explore using an "innovation resource list system" to include elements such as large-scale instruments and equipment, scientific research data, and technical experts into a unified shared resource management catalog. We should establish a dynamic update mechanism to ensure the real-time accuracy of resource information and supplement this with digital management tools to improve the transparency of resource allocation and usage efficiency. We should construct a flexible and efficient innovation team organization mechanism, promote a "project-based + team-based" research organization model, and establish a two-way matching mechanism between interdisciplinary mentor pools and project pools. We should refine the specific contents of student technological innovation team construction, clarifying forming standards, operating rules, and exit mechanisms, and encouraging teachers and students from different disciplinary backgrounds to jointly form "breakthrough groups" to solve technological difficulties. We should implement and advance the "ranking and leading" [8] pilot for science and technology planning projects in a standardized and orderly manner, introduce third-party evaluation mechanisms in assessments, and effectively improve the level and quality of independent talent cultivation.
(The author's affiliation: General Office of the Party and Government, Beijing Institute of Technology) Source: Hongqi Wengao (Red Flag Manuscript) Issue 13, 2025