The Ministry of Science and Technology ("MOST") has recently issued the Guidelines for the Construction of National Technological Innovation Centers (the "Guidelines").
The Guidelines set forth objectives of establishing a number of national technological innovation centers in several key fields, forming the network of national technological innovation, making breakthroughs in and transforming a batch of cutting-edge, common and key technologies for relevant industries, creating leading enterprises in the industry with global influences, driving the growth of a number of small and medium-sized tech firms, creating a batch of innovation-oriented industry clusters with huge development potentials and powerful driving effects, and helping a couple of core industries get integrated into middle and higher end of global value chains. During the 13th Five-Year period, efforts will be made to make overall arrangements for and build around 20 national technological innovation centers. According to the Guidelines, fields to be developed under major efforts shall center on the cutting-edge technologies in the globe, eye main battlefields of the economy, and suit for major demands of the State; and national technological innovation centers will be established by relying on enterprises, colleges, universities, and scientific research institutes, and governments at all levels are encouraged to get engaged into and present their support to such establishment. Furthermore, the Guidelines expressly state that major construction tasks go to five aspects, including "serving national strategies and carry out technical research and development and industrialization" and "gathering innovation resources together and making them available to the public to shape innovation-oriented industry clusters".