The General Office of the Ministry of Science and Technology ("MOST") has recently issued the Development Plan for Building of National Field Stations for Scientific Observation and Research (2019-2025) (the "Plan").
The Plan states that it is expected to raise the number of national field stations to a certain level and essentially create the situation where national field stations are set up at major representative regions in China for main research areas, by 2025. The Plan also anticipates that conditions for observation and experimental studies will be improved at national field stations, the level of scientific observation and experimental studies at national field stations will be enhanced, and output of original significant scientific and technological achievements will be facilitated to support science and technology innovation and sustainable social and economic development. To this end, the Plan outlines several tasks, among which are "optimizing the systematic layout of national field stations", "ramping up the field scientific observation, research and demonstration" and "promoting opening-up, sharing, cooperation and exchange". The Plan calls for formulating and improving a series of norms and standards for scientific observation and establishing a data aggregation system that will function stably. In addition, actions will be taken, pursuant to the Administrative Measures for Science Data, to facilitate the long-term accumulation of observation data collected by national field stations and the efficient aggregation and management of such data, and pay attention to quality control of historical observation data of long series.