The proof-of-concept innovation competition has become an important platform for screening cutting-edge projects. Photo by Zheng Jinwu
On May 28th, 2021 "Zhihui Action" Concept Verification and Innovation Competition ushered in the roadshow of "Special Session of New Materials", and seven projects from the Institute of Process Engineering of China Academy of Sciences and the National Nanoscience Center participated in the competition.
The reporter was informed that the original intention of the "Wisdom Action" concept verification innovation competition is to encourage more original innovative projects that dare to think and do to go out of the laboratory and become a "booster" for scientific and technological achievements to go to the market. Since the start of the contest in May 2020, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop, together with the scientific research units of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, has held 8 roadshows and participated in more than 50 scientific and technological projects.
"Every project has left a deep impression on me, representing the advanced level in related fields, and has the opportunity to grow into an industry leader in the future." Looking back on the road show of the project in the past year, Liu Haiyong, chief engineer of Beijing National Technology Transfer Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences and general manager of Zhongke Zhihui Workshop, felt a lot.
Screening innovative projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhongke Zhihui Workshop is an achievement transformation base for Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is jointly built by the Science and Technology Innovation and Development Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Haidian District Government of Beijing. In 2019, Haidian District put forward the idea of building a "proof of concept center" and implementing a "proof of concept plan". Based on the "CAS proof of concept center" established by Zhongke Zhihui Workshop, it is one of the three "proof of concept centers" established in Haidian District.
Liu Haiyong told China Science News that since the establishment of CAS proof-of-concept center and the implementation of CAS proof-of-concept plan, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop has carried out various tasks around Beijing Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and established a proof-of-concept system from creative verification, feasibility verification to commercial verification, forming a four-in-one proof-of-concept implementation content of "proof-of-concept contest, proof-of-concept college, proof-of-concept service and proof-of-concept fund".
On May 28th, 2020, the first roadshow activity "Intelligent Manufacturing Special Session" of "Zhihui Action" concept verification innovation competition was launched. "At the beginning of the start, there were still quite a few difficulties." Liu Haiyong said that the competition needs to carry out all-round preparations by setting up the rules for the competition, giving lectures at various institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducting training for various researchers, and integrating resources from all sides to contribute to the industrialization of follow-up projects.
Due to the epidemic situation in COVID-19, offline activities are greatly restricted, so we can only adopt the combination of online and offline. "The first roadshow achieved very good results." To Liu Haiyong’s delight, after many efforts, the first event of the contest was successfully held, which laid a solid foundation for the follow-up work.
At present, the "Zhihui Action" concept verification innovation competition has become an important starting point for the implementation of the "CAS concept verification plan". Competition is also an important part of "creative verification" in the proof-of-concept system, and it has become a platform for screening forward-looking and innovative frontier projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Boost the "become a butterfly" transformation
According to Qian Wei, director of Institute of Microbiology of China Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as Institute of Microbiology), innovation is the first driving force for development, and promoting the integration of Industry-University-Research is an inevitable requirement for the country to implement the innovation-driven development strategy.
"This requires us to refine and sublimate basic scientific problems from the major applications and needs of the country, drive the development of key technologies through research breakthroughs, break down the barriers between basic research and industrialization, and create a new model for scientific and technological development."
On May 8th this year, Qian Wei took eight projects from the Institute of Microbiology to participate in the roadshow of "Biomedical Special Session" of the "Zhihui Action" concept verification innovation competition. He hopes that with the help of the technical manager of Zhongke Zhihui Workshop, he will accelerate the transformation of the prototype technology of the Institute of Microbiology into mature industrial technology.
As a project jointly built by the Science and Technology Innovation and Development Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Haidian District, CAS Proof of Concept Center bears the task of exploring how to transform scientific and technological achievements into the "first mile".
"In the process of frequent contact with these early projects, we found that these technologies are indeed representative and advanced, and even some technologies will have subversive innovations after entering the market." Liu Haiyong said, "But we also see that there is indeed a huge gap from the laboratory to the real market application."
"No one is born an entrepreneur. The transformation from a scientific and technological worker to an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur is a’ become a butterfly’ transformation. This process requires us technical managers to make up for the gap between basic research results and marketable results through our own professional ability, resource organization and integration ability. " Liu Haiyong said that to help early projects cross the "valley of death", researchers and teams should be especially helped to take the "first step".
Up to now, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop has carried out project collection in nearly 20 research institutes, including Institute of Biophysics, Institute of Physical and Chemical Technology and Institute of Electrician, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and participated in more than 50 projects in the roadshow of "Zhihui Action" concept verification innovation competition.
"A number of high-quality scientific and technological achievements and projects have been discovered, a number of outstanding young scientists have stood out, and a number of high-tech projects have received project support." Liu Haiyong said that the competition has proved the feasibility of the "CAS proof of concept" operation mode with staged results.
Next, Liu Haiyong hopes to continue to dig deep into the scientific research projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, further expand the influence of the CAS proof-of-concept center, encourage more original innovative projects that dare to think and do to go out of the laboratory, and build an efficient linkage platform among local, enterprises, investment institutions and scientific research institutions to create an ecosystem for the construction and development of the proof-of-concept center and promote the landing of scientific and technological achievements.
Popularize the new model of concept verification
Liu Haiyong introduced that at present, some projects participating in the roadshow of the competition have basically reached a project counseling intention with Zhongke Zhihui Workshop. "We are doing a good job in policy application, financial consulting business, industrial resource docking, financing planning scheme, equity design, company preparation and intellectual property services for these projects."
In fact, the "Zhihui Action" concept verification innovation competition is also a process of providing full chain services for roadshows. It can be said that all the projects involved in the roadshow, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop participated in its incubation and cultivation.
"The projects involved in roadshows are all the projects that our team solicited for contact for the first time. After the release of the CAS proof-of-concept plan, our team solicited early projects from various research institutes, trained and communicated with the project team in a face-to-face manner, and provided guidance to the project side in business plan writing and risk avoidance from the perspective of innovation and entrepreneurship." Liu Haiyong introduced.
After the roadshow, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop will form a Project Investigation Follow-up Report, and make a project operation tracking table, and set up a separate work form for each project, focusing on sorting out the project pain points obtained from the project investigation, the corresponding solutions, and the subsequent stages of implementation according to the solutions.
For example, for roadshows with mature technologies in the fields of new energy and advanced chemicals, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop has set up a professional team to connect large chemical plants and local listed enterprises in Shandong and Hebei. In order to build more perfect projects for products, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop will assign special personnel to provide services for company registration and equity construction.
"With the efforts of our team, 3 to 5 projects will be established this year." Liu Haiyong said, "In addition, we are also looking for application directions for a number of projects with unclear industrialization ideas, and have docked with well-known domestic appliance manufacturers and industrial funders. At present, related work is in progress."
"In this process, Zhongke Zhihui Workshop gradually explored and improved the new mode of transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, found new opportunities, exercised the team, and helped a number of high-tech projects to take a big step toward industrialization." Liu Haiyong said that all these have laid a solid foundation for the future development of Zhongke Zhihui Workshop.
Zhaonan, executive deputy director of Beijing National Technology Transfer Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, expects that with the support of Science and Technology Innovation and Development Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Haidian District, the "Zhihui Action" concept verification plan will invest no less than 15 million yuan in three years, establish a concept verification project library, tap major cutting-edge scientific and technological projects, with a total support of no less than 25 projects, which will drive researchers to actively innovate and develop and popularize new models of concept verification.
(Originally published in China Science Journal, 3rd edition, June 2, 2021)