New policy turning ideas into marketable products

The Chengdu government implemented a new policy this month, aimed at encouraging domestic and foreign institutes of higher learning and research to turn the fruits of their scientific research into marketable products in the city.

The policy is an upgraded version of a similar policy carried out nearly two years ago.

The policy supports institutes of higher learning and research in Chengdu conducting mixed ownership of their scientific research achievements.

"The policy takes the lead in the country by reforming the ownership of the scientific research achievements," said Kang Kaining, deputy general manager of the Science and Technology Industrial Park of Southwest Jiaotong University, who has participated in drawing up both the old and new policy.

The new policy has taken the old one a step further. Whereas, the old policy covered use rights, disposal and income distribution of scientific research achievements that were totally owned by the domestic and foreign institutions of higher learning and research in the past, the new policy considers scientific research achievements to be owned by both the inventors and the institutions.

The policy encourages institutes of higher learning and research to set up a company with the inventor, and divide the ownership of their scientific research achievements by applying for intellectual property protection together. The inventor has no less than 70 percent of the share.

Huang Nan, a professor at the School of Materials of the Southwest Jiaotong University, said many of scientific research achievements remained in the labs or on the paper in the past because the inventors had no right to profit from their achievements.

He gave as an example the cardiovascular stents invented by his research team. In 2007, they didn't benefit when the stents they invented were sold to a company in the eastern coastal city.

The new policy means that his research team will share the ownership of the new generation of the cardiovascular stents they have invented and will be able to get profit from the stents commercialization.

A company has been established in the city for the transformation of the technology. Huang said it is expected to introduce research achievements into the market in 2020.

The policy also encourages the domestic and overseas institutes of higher learning to set up institutes to research new industries and technology in Chengdu.

Chengdu will set up a special fund of 1 billion yuan ($152 million).

Each newly established research institute will be eligible to receive subsidies from the fund up to 50 million yuan, said Lu Tiecheng, chief of Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau.

The new policy will attract investors from across the society to join in the establishment of an investment fund of no less than 1 billion yuan to be used to stimulate the turning of the institutions' scientific researches into marketable products.

It will launch a fund no less than 10 billion yuan to support the early development of innovative enterprises.

The new policy will support the establishment of innovative research and development platforms.

It will support institutes of higher learning and research in Chengdu to cooperate in the construction of "2,011 innovative centers", giving each of them 2 million yuan in assistance.

It will give each newly approved national and provincial laboratory and technology research center assistance of 1 million yuan.

It will also give a maximum of 300,000 yuan in assistance to a laboratory jointly built by an institute of higher learning or research and an enterprise.

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/24/2016 page6)