We've got excellence down to a science

Shanghai is becoming a magnet for scientists around the world who want to tap into a hub of rich resources, talented professionals and innovation prominence.

It’s the most attractive city in China for scientific research, according to the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Index report released yesterday at the Pujiang Innovation Forum.

“Platforms like the Pujiang Innovation Forum open up more windows for international exchange,” said Shi Qian, head of the Shanghai Institution for Science of Science.

In 2017, a fourth of all China’s scientific achievements occurred in Shanghai, and one in four people employed in Shanghai worked in industries that rely on advanced knowledge.

Since 2010, the annual index has been tracking Shanghai’s progress to the center of China’s scientific research and development.

The report focuses on five aspects tracking the progress, influence and status of Shanghai’s innovation in science. The influence of scientific achievements stood out.

In 2017, scientific papers published in Shanghai were cited by others almost 2 million times, almost double the figure from a year earlier. Shanghai scientists published 62 papers in top international journals like Nature, Science and Cell, accounting for a quarter of all papers published by Chinese scientists.

Among the papers was one related the first successful cloning of two monkeys, using the technique that produced Dolly the sheep — the world’s first cloned mammal.

Chief editor of Cell said the Chinese research “would bring not only revolutionary change to animal research, but more possibilities of developing new medicine for human beings.”

In July last year, the city government issued an updated plan for the Zhangjiang High Tech Park to transform it into an urban sub-center from simply an industrial park.

As 685 companies and some 400 research institutions have already found homes in Zhangjiang. The plan aims at further development to make it an incubator of start-ups and a hub for scientific entrepreneurship.

 “The business environment is a key factor influencing a city’s science innovation,” said Wang Xueying, chief commentator on the report. “Shanghai has created a good one for both scientists and entrepreneurs.”

The volume of intellectual property exported by Shanghai was valued at 100 million yuan, while almost 7 billion yuan was spent buying intellectual property from other countries.

“The output capacity of Shanghai’s science and technology still shows a considerable gap with advanced countries.” Wang said.

Shanghai allocated 32.4 billion yuan (US$4.7 billion) in tax preferences to more than 16,000 scientific enterprises last year and invested 9.2 billion yuan in fundamental research, according to the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Center Index.

Some 20 percent of top national science awards went to professionals and institutions in Shanghai. For one thing, the city has become a center of Chinese medical science, with about 30 percent of China’s new drug research and development institutions located in the city’s Zhangjiang.

Shanghai’s scientific advances contribute to the city’s economic growth.

Industries related to advanced knowledge contributed more than one third of the city’s gross domestic product in 2017, a 10 percent gain from seven years ago.

While working on the innovation center index, Springer Nature and the Shanghai Institution for Science of Science surveyed 654 scientists and found more than 60 percent of them regard Shanghai as an excellent place to do research.

Respondents cited the high level of research funding and the quality of top research institutes as key factors favoring the city.

“Scientists first consider the city’s environment of innovation when they are making choices where to work,” the survey said. “They also tend to look at the research capability of institutions instead of payrolls before they decide.”

One interesting result of the survey found that 40 percent of respondents aged under 35 and 14 percent who are associate professors said they would be willing to move to Shanghai if opportunities presented themselves.

“Scientists in such positions and at such an age are at their peak of productivity,” said survey said. “It shows the vitality of the city’s innovation.”

However, 40 percent of respondents said they consider Shanghai a dynamic city for communication of international scientific work.

“We seldom see Shanghai institutions coming to us to introduce and market themselves,” said a respondent who works in California’s Silicon Valley.

The Shanghai Institution for Science of Science’s Shi said city’s “practical” approach has “inevitably cost us many opportunities to let our voice to be heard by the world” but that is changing rapidly.

The city has implemented a new policy called juying, or “elite gathering,” which allows foreign professionals to come to the city as researchers and become involved in innovation and entrepreneurship projects. It also helps outstanding foreign graduates to seek either long-term or permanent residence in Shanghai.

By 2017, Shanghai had attracted more than 5,000 scientific professionals, including Nobel laureates.

At the same time, Shanghai ranked fifth in the Asia and Pacific Knowledge Competitiveness Index for the third consecutive years, demonstrating the depth of innovation in the city. Singapore topped the list, which covered 53 Asian regions.

“Shanghai has devoted greater effort to science innovation in recent years,” said Luo Shougui, a professor from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who led the work on the knowledge competitive index. “Some 40 percent of returned students from overseas choose to work in Shanghai. These are both reasons why Shanghai ranks so strongly in the survey.”

Luo added that the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui also moved up in rankings due to the industrial and economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta.

“Such regional collaboration will be a main trend of future science innovation,” Luo said.