2011 has started with the whole nation immersed in the celebration of the progress we have made in the past year and with full anticipation of another fruitful and productive new year.
In 2011, CAS has concentrated on formulating scientific development plans for the next 10 years based on previous accomplishments, and on analyzing the needs and the future needs of the country with the hope to contribute more to accelerating the transformation of the country’s economic development mode with science and technology. This plan is called Innovation 2020, the aim of which is to bring CAS into a new phase of development.
Focused on the formulation of longterm development plans and strategic deployments, CAS has concentrated its efforts on the following areas:
Further improve CAS’s development strategy and strategic mission based on the analysis of new challenges and opportunities. We have emphasized our strategy as running CAS with democracy, flourishing it with openness and boasting it with talent.
Request CAS institutes to further define their strategic positioning on the basis of their current research competencies, of the global trends in science and technology, and of an overall analysis of both the domestic and international situations they face. The idea is to make CAS institutes position themselves in the right niche in the scientific community compared with their counterpart institutes both at home and abroad.
Urgently commit efforts to take care of the common concerns and needs of our scientists, so that they can devote more time and efforts to research work.
In the past year, CAS has continuously made a series of scientific accomplishments such as the following:
Provided strong assistance to the successful docking between Tiangong-1(space lab) and Shenzhou-8 (manned spacecraft) with the completion of a series of on-orbit payload experiments, including experiments in materials science, space environment, physical measurement, and Sino-German life sciences cooperative research.
Contributed to the control and communication systems in Jiaolong submersible, including the realization of automatic near-seabed cruise and of hovering positioning and the high-speed digital acoustic communication reaching the advanced international standard.
Developed and pilot-tested the world’s first high-Tc superconducting power station.
CAS has also been credited with 36 national science and technology awards out of the national total in 2011. Of which, CAS Member Professor Xie Jialin, the Institute of High Energy Physics, took away the top award. As principal implementing units, CAS won 13 Second Prizes for Natural Sciences, 6 Second Prizes for Technological Inventions and 12 Second Prizes for S&T Progress.
The past year has also seen strong efforts from CAS in further upgrading and improving its innovation capacity, innovation eco-system and culture, talent-recruitment & training and partnership & collaboration. We have recruited 63 top-level scientists through the National Thousandtalent Program and 203 researchers through the CAS Hundred-talent Program. A total of 63 CAS young scientists were awarded with the National Outstanding Youth Funds. We have also created a Youth Society for the Promotion of Innovation with the initial selection of 690 members. Among the 50,000 enrollments in CAS higher education, 11,000 of them have graduated with Masters or PhDs. 51 new Members and 9 new Foreign Members have been elected into the CAS Membership system. The strategic studies and proposals we finished have played a significant role on the decision-makings. Efforts have also been made by CAS in further strengthening the integration of S&T with economy, education and culture, international partnerships and collaboration and internal management.
2012 will be a year of critical importance to the country and the people including CAS. It will be a year that we start our implementation of the 12th Fiveyear Plan and a year that CAS’s Innovation 2020 enters into full implementation.
In the new year, through our efforts on the three major issues abovementioned, we will work hard to generate and produce quality science and technology, high caliber talent and trusted idea and advices to the society. We will also try our best to create good and sound environment for the implementation of Innovation 2020 and to facilitate the further construction of our national innovation system. We will give attention to the priorities of our research in the hope of making more contributions to the progress of science and technology and to the needs of the nation.
Efforts will be particularly made by us in promoting coordinated innovation, the combination of completing national key research projects with the needs of the emerging industries, the integration of scientific innovation and talenttraining, and the close linkages between research and economy and higher education. We also give high attention to the establishment and improvement of our evaluation mechanism and system.
We are committed to the creation of such an environment that is conducive to good scientific outcomes, high caliber talent, trusted ideas and advice and the optimization of resources.
I want to take this opportunity to express my most sincere thanks to all those who have rendered help and assistance to CAS in its continuous development.
Prof. Chunli Bai, Ph. D.
President
Chinese Academy of Sciences
