China launches new fund to deepen integration of sci-tech, industrial innovation

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) on Monday launched the Private Enterprise Innovation and Development Joint Fund, which aims to empower private companies to formally participate in national basic research.

Under the fund's framework, private enterprises will identify critical research challenges based on their specific innovation needs, and the joint fund will sponsor top researchers nationwide to address these defined problems.

NSFC Director Dou Xiankang said the fund aims to leverage the foundation's guiding role by encouraging innovation-driven private enterprises to increase their investment in foundational research.

The initiative seeks to concentrate China's leading scientific resources on core issues in key technological fields. It will focus on basic and applied basic research that aligns closely with urgent national economic and social development needs. This approach is designed to promote deep integration between technological and industrial innovation, stimulate private-sector research and inject new momentum into China's innovation-driven development strategy.

The fund's inaugural partners are four major pharmaceutical firms: Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mindray Bio-Medical, Singclean Medical and Qilu Pharmaceutical.

The NSFC said it aims to maximize the fund's steering function by broadly attracting high-caliber scientific talent across society to advance basic research in the medical field and collectively push the boundaries of independent innovation.