Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued the Guiding Opinions on Improving the Innovation System and Promoting the Development of Innovation Centers for the Manufacturing Industry (the "Opinions").
The Opinions propose to develop about 15 national manufacturing innovation centers by 2020 as well as to increase such number to 40 by 2025. The Opinions specify that provincial manufacturing innovation centers shall be generally developed under the leadership of enterprises that have influences in the industry and utilize capital to create links to and ally with colleges that have a considerable research & development capability, industry-leading scientific research institutes, or industrial parks and platforms with the ability to integrate regional services for joint development. Also, the Opinions specify eight major tasks, including carrying out the research and development of industrial cutting-edge and common core technologies, strengthening the protection and application of intellectual properties, and encouraging and conducting international cooperation. The Opinions also require the exploration of multiple ways including stock ownership incentives, stock option incentives and rewards to encourage scientific and technological personnel to actively commercialize research findings.