As the last blog for year 2019 from the
Science and Innovation Office of Beijing, let us start with warm greetings and
sincere thanks to our colleagues and our partners – for your support, your
collaboration and your encouragement!
2019...
As the last blog for year 2019 from the
Science and Innovation Office of Beijing, let us start with warm greetings and
sincere thanks to our colleagues and our partners – for your support, your
collaboration and your encouragement!
2019 has been a heavy and fruitful year. As
we outlined in the beginning of this year, 7 key policy
trends will be the focus of our monitoring, analyses and
promotion activities in 2019. Here are some highlights of our work and
reflections over these key trends:
China’s mass
entrepreneurship and innovation 2.0
On the international women’s day, together
with our colleagues in other 5 Science and Innovation Offices, we presented and
discussed women in
tech-entrepreneurship and tech-business. China has a
strong “SHE-economy”. China has a strong “SHE-business power”. On Jack Ma’s
“farewell day” from Alibaba, we tried to shed some new lights
on China’s entrepreneurship and innovation in a new digital era.
In 2019, we have had the great pleasure to
welcome our colleagues from the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation, Ministry
of Education and Research, Vinnova and Swedish Incubator and Science Park (SiSP)
to China. Together, we have carried out an extensive China Start-up and
Scale-up Eco-system Scoping Mission and a China Innovation
Entrepreneurship Study Tour, for deeper understanding of
China’s policy development and more concrete ideas on how to collaborate with
China in the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation.
China Start-up and Scale-up Eco-system Scoping MissionChina Innovation Entrepreneurship Study Tour
Structural
and institutional reforms for national science and innovation management and
funding management
Stronger
focus on higher education, basic research and their links to innovation
development
One of the new Chinese phrases, “ka bo zi
technology”, has also, under 2019, become a key
expression in the policy debate when it comes to research and innovation
policy. We have made an attempt to
illustrate what exactly “ka bo zi technologies” are and how China’s research
and innovation policy measures will be developed to tackle it, i.e. to ensure
China’s long-term and strategic resilience and competitiveness.
Agenda
of Tech for Social Good
China’s All-in-AI strategy as well as
China’s rapid progress in AI-development has attracted a great deal of
attention worldwide. But a much less understood development is how China
applies AI-technology to improve its education system as well as to handle the
risks and uncertainties associated with the AI development. To provide some
updated information and insights in these fields, we have focused on
AI-monitoring from two specific perspectives:
The policy
development of AI, including preventive and governing
measures to secure reliable and controllable uses of AI.
The role of AI in
the education sector, as a tool for ensuring inclusive and
equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for
all, i.e. to achieve the sustainable development goal (SDG) 4.
Sustainability,
research and innovation
CCICED is a high-level
international advisory body to the Government of China. Sweden has been
supporting CCICED since 1998. In 2019, the key focus of Sweden and our support for
Sweden’s activities has been the special policy
study on sustainable consumption. Having the
common vision of an innovation-driven
green transformation, the
future bilateral cooperation between Sweden and China can make consumption not
only healthy, green and inclusive, but also innovative
and smart.
In the field of climate, in addition to China’s key role in international climate negotiations and global climate efforts, China has also become an important dialogue and cooperation partner when it comes to arctic affairs and artic research. Our office has started to follow this new development and facilitated the dialogue and communication on Sweden’s strengths in research capacity and international cooperation in the field of polar research. Another climate-related field that we have looked closely into is the impact of fashion on both climate and sustainable resource utilisation. China is a large producer and consumer of fashion – and is on the way to become a creator and innovator of sustainable fashion. With common interests and strong complementarity of strengths in design, production, innovation and not least in consumer engagement, Sweden and China could turn sustainable fashion into a true co-creation exercise – for making life better and the planet great, again.
The
second National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology
Development (MLP, 2021 – 2035)
2020 and 2021 will be “super years”
for China’s research and innovation policy when both China’s 14th Five-Year-Plan (2021- 2025) and the 2nd Medium-
and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2021- 2035) will be
prepared and launched. Having this in mind, the policy dialogue with China as
well as a deeper understanding of China’s role from a global perspective are of
great importance, which have also been the highest priority of our work in
2019:
China is catching up, keeping up and taking the lead – at the same time
and “coopetition” could be the “new normal”
when it comes to the strategic relationship between China and the other key
global players in the fields of science and innovation.
An open and constructive policy dialogue and experience exchange between
Sweden and China are more important than ever in a complex and challenging time
for us all. The 5th China-Sweden Joint
Committee Meeting (JCM) on S&T Cooperation, co-chaired by Li Meng, Vice Minister of
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) and the State Secretary of
the Ministry of Education and Research, Malin Cederfeldt Östberg, tuned to be a
great learning opportunity and a valuable occasion to deepen our understanding
of each other.
Finally, 2019 has been a busy year. A rather large number of activities, in form of strategic and operational promotion work has been carried out, through which we met new actors, new partners and deepened our exchanges and mutual learning.
With the knowledge, insights and
networks achieved as well as the lessons learned from 2019, we are looking
forward to a new year with more inspiration, new ideas and more collaboration
opportunities.
Merry Christmas and see you in 2020
in Beijing!
Nannan Lundin, Linnea Yang, Jessica Zhang
and Matilde Eng
