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China The Program
In March 1985, after extensive discussion, consultation, and
experimentation, the party Central Committee called for sweeping
reforms of science management. The reforms proposed in the
"Decision on the Reform of the Science and Technology Management
System" represented a major break with past practices, and they
assumed corresponding reforms in the nation's industrial and
economic systems. By changing the method of funding research
institutes, encouraging the commercialization of technology and the
development of a technology arket, and rewarding individual
scientists, the reforms of the mid-1980s were meant to encourage
the application of science to the needs of industry. It was
envisaged that most research institutes would support themselves
through consulting and contract work and would cooperate with
factories through partnerships, mergers, joint ventures, or other
appropriate and mutually agreeable means. The ultimate goal was to
encourage exchange and cooperation and to break down the
compartmentalization characterizing China's research and
development structure.
The principal means for accomplishing the reforms was changing
the funding system to force research institutes to establish
contact with productive enterprises and to do work directly
supporting those enterprises. Direct allocation of funds to
research institutes was to be phased out and replaced by a system
under which institutes sold their services in the marketplace. The
distinctions among institutes subordinate to the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, the industrial ministries, provincial-level governments,
colleges and universities, and even the NDSTIC were to be
minimized, and all were to compete and collaborate in a single
market-oriented system. Institutes doing basic research were to
compete for grants from a National Natural Science Foundation
(which was subsequently established). The reforms were not intended
as a budget-cutting measure, and total state funding for science
and technology was to be increased.
A technology market and the commercialization of technology in
the late 1980s were to be developed to encourage the transfer of
technology and the transformation of research results into products
and services. Direct centralized administration and supervision of
research were to decline, and institutes were to be headed by
younger, technically qualified directors, who were to be given
broad powers to select their own research topics and to seek out
partners for cooperation and consultation. Scientific personnel
were to receive better pay and benefits, recognition of their
achievements, and the right to do supplementary consulting work and
to transfer to units where their talents could be better utilized.
Data as of July 1987
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