What Drives China’s Innovation?

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in 2020, despite massive losses of life and the global economic slowdown due to COVID-19, patent applications worldwide continued to grow and hit a new all-time high. While the global GDP dropped by 3.5%, the total number of patent applications filed by PCT countries increased by 4%. This indicates that the pandemic hasn’t stopped the pace of innovation worldwide. China filed 68,720 PCT applications last year, up 16.1% year-on-year, continuing to lead the world in this field.

In 2020, Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies was the top corporate filer of PCT patents for the fourth consecutive year, with 5,464 applications filed. Five of the 10 academic institutions around the world with the most applications last year were from China.

As the first nation to come out of the shadow of COVID-19, China saw a rapid recovery, with its economy vibrant with life. Where does its vitality come from?

Innovation-driven development is essentially talent-driven development. China has made the principle of “respecting work, knowledge, talent and creation” an important policy for national governance, which manifests the spirit of the times. According to the proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), in the next five years, China will strive to deepen the reform of institutional mechanisms for talent development, cultivate more world-class scientists, technologists and innovation teams, and form a backup force comprised of young scientists and technologists with international competitiveness. It will also improve the scientific personnel evaluation system that emphasizes innovation capacity, quality, effectiveness and contributions; advance academic atmosphere construction and uphold academic integrity; improve and innovate incentive and support mechanisms and enhance mechanisms for service invention rights sharing between research personnel; strengthen the cultivation of creative, application-oriented and highly-skilled professionals and carry out knowledge upgrading programs and skill improvement campaigns. The country will also adopt a more open personnel policy to build world-leading innovation hubs that gather high-caliber professionals from both home and abroad.

Talent is the foundation for sustainable development. Stimulating the innovation potential of talent will provide endless impetus and resources for China’s innovation capacity.