Let enterprises take the lead in the wave of technological innovation

Securities Times reporter Han Zhongnan

The “Fifteenth Five-Year” period is a key stage for laying a solid foundation for achieving socialist modernization in an all-round way and for gearing up with full force. As the core factor for developing new quality productive forces, technological innovation has been placed in a more prominent position at the core. The outline of the “Fifteenth Five-Year” plan clearly calls for accelerating high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, guiding the development of new quality productive forces, and it also includes arrangements for strengthening original innovation and tackling key core technologies. Among them, many new proposals such as “strengthening the dominant position of enterprises as main bodies of technological innovation” and “establishing an enterprise R&D reserve fund system” have attracted particular market attention.

The outline of the “Fifteenth Five-Year” plan proposes that we should strengthen enterprise-led integration and cooperation among industry, academia, research, and funding. The focus of this wording lies in the two characters “lead” and “dominant.” In the past, cooperation among industry, academia, and research often took place through a model where universities or research institutes set the questions and enterprises answered them, or where enterprises provided funding and institutes conducted R&D. Although there has already been a trend toward integration, in practice efficiency is still not high due to misaligned goals.

Today, emphasizing the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation means encouraging enterprises to “set the questions” based on real industrial needs. It means that leading technology enterprises should form innovation consortia, and organically connect universities’ advantages in basic research, institutes’ capabilities in original innovation, and enterprises’ market sensitivity. Enterprises not only need to “carry the main burden” in technological innovation, but also must precisely target market needs, achieving a precise match between the innovation chain and the industrial chain.

Using a policy system as institutional safeguards is the “keystone” for solidly increasing enterprises’ spending on technological innovation. The outline of the “Fifteenth Five-Year” plan proposes strengthening the supply of inclusive policies and creating a favorable environment for enterprise innovation. Specific measures include: increasing the additional deduction ratio for enterprise R&D expenses, establishing an enterprise R&D reserve fund system, and building high-quality bond markets’ “Science and Technology Board,” etc.

Many enterprises have responded enthusiastically to the institutional arrangements for establishing an R&D reserve fund system. For a long time, some enterprises’ R&D investment has been constrained by fluctuations in operations: when there is money, they invest more; when there is no money, they invest less. The core of the R&D reserve fund system is to guide enterprises to transform R&D investment into “strategic reserves.”

Through institutionalized arrangements, enterprises are encouraged to make advance accruals according to their development plans and use funds for designated purposes, ensuring that major technology challenges have continuous and stable “supplies of provisions.” This is both an affirmation of enterprises’ long-term commitment to investment and an important measure to enhance the stability of the national innovation system. When every innovation-minded enterprise can be fully stocked with “ammunition,” the micro-foundation for achieving technological self-reliance and self-strengthening will be even more solid.

From the laboratory to the production line, technology achievements often need to go through a “risky leap.” The outline of the “Fifteenth Five-Year” plan has profoundly recognized the important bridging role of enterprises.

Whether it is encouraging leading technology enterprises to open up scientific research conditions and application scenarios to small and micro enterprises, or guiding universities and research institutes to license technology innovation achievements for use by small and micro enterprises in a “use first, pay later” manner, the underlying logic is the same: to leverage enterprises’ most sensitive perception of the market, test technology supply at the frontline of industry, iterate and upgrade innovation products in real scenarios, and make enterprises a smooth channel from “bookshelf” to “store shelf.”

When enterprises thrive, the economy thrives. When enterprises truly “carry the main burden” amid the wave of technological innovation; when innovation resources accelerate into enterprises; and when institutional safeguards provide protection for enterprise innovation, the “multi-point blooming” of technological breakthroughs will create a “springtime full of bloom” for developing new quality productive forces.

(Editor-in-charge: Wang Zhiqiang HF013)

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