In 2021, the total contract amount of scientific and technological achievements transformed by colleges and universities through six ways of transfer, licensing, investment and technology development, consulting and service was 108.61 billion yuan, an increase of 31.6% year-on-year.
According to the "Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in China 2022 (Colleges and Universities)", by the end of 2021, more and more universities have established technology transfer institutions suitable for their own characteristics and set up full-time technology transfer talent teams, and the transfer and transformation services of scientific and technological achievements have continued to become professional. On May 28, at the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum World-renowned University Technology Transfer and Development Conference, the relevant leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology and a number of well-known universities such as Peking University and Beijing Institute of Technology shared the practice and experience of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
While sharing experience, it was also mentioned that the current trading efficiency of China's scientific and technological achievements is still low, there are insufficient professionals for the transformation of achievements, the weight of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the assessment and evaluation system of some colleges and universities is low, the orientation of achievement transformation is not prominent, and the investment in intermediate links such as pilot tests is insufficient, which limits the comprehensive spread of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
In 2021, the total contract amount of universities transforming scientific and technological achievements increased by 30% year-on-year
According to the "Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in China 2022 (Colleges and Universities)" released by Yang Yun, deputy chief appraiser of the Science and Technology Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the total contract amount of scientific and technological achievements transformed by colleges and universities in six ways of transfer, licensing, investment and technology development, consulting and services was 108.61 billion yuan, an increase of 31.6% year-on-year. Among them, the total amount of transfer, license and consideration investment contracts was 12.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%; The amount of technology development, consulting and service contracts was 95.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.5%. Nearly 40% of scientific and technological achievements have been transformed into the manufacturing industry.
In 2021, nearly 60% of scientific and technological achievements were transformed locally through transfer, licensing and investment to promote local economic development, and the top three in terms of total contract value for local transformation were Shanghai (1.96 billion yuan), Beijing (890 million yuan), and Jiangsu (880 million yuan). In terms of off-site transformation, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Shandong teams have strong ability to attract scientific and technological achievements and undertake the highest amount. Shanghai and Beijing have many colleges and universities, strong scientific research capabilities, many achievements exported to other places, and strong radiation capabilities.
"All universities are actively exploring unique transformation models in promoting the pilot of giving scientific and technological achievements ownership and long-term use rights to scientific and technological achievements and improving the evaluation system for the transformation of achievements." Yang Yun introduced that taking Zhejiang University as an example, Zhejiang University has strengthened the construction of scientific research integrity mechanisms, and formulated 7 negative lists that give scientific researchers the ownership or long-term use right of scientific and technological achievements; Determine whether the school and inventor hold shares through expert argumentation, and define the patent crossover before and after employment through a combination of investigation and evidence collection and expert evaluation; At the same time, the approval process of transfer and licensing achievement transformation projects is optimized, and the optimization process is expected to shorten the approval time by about 50%.
Yao Weihao, Director of the Science and Technology Development Department of Peking University, introduced the practice of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of Peking University. As a commercial technology transfer department, the Science and Technology Development Department of Peking University deploys and integrates the whole chain business of scientific and technological achievements transformation, and sets up a leading group for the transformation of achievements. As professional technology transfer institutions, the Ministry of Science and Technology Development and Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. formulate relevant policies around the creation, protection, management and application of intellectual property rights according to the specific conditions of the school. The school has also specially developed a set of intellectual property management information system to ensure that scientists can disclose results, evaluate patents, obtain authorization, and achieve complete informatization in the first time, so that scientists can run less and let information run more.
Yao Weihao said that the intellectual property generated by Peking University has three flows: first, cooperation with industry leaders; The second is to form technology incubation and transformation in remote scientific research institutions along the path of proof-of-concept, small-scale test, pilot test, engineering and productization; The third is the Yuanpei Fund established with Peking University and external investment institutions with cooperative relations. In the newly established derivative company, the technology development company holds the equity of the school, withdraws at the right time, and obtains the return of equity income.
The first mile of transformation lacks money, personnel, and professional services
According to the "Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in China 2022 (Colleges and Universities)", by the end of 2021, more and more universities have established technology transfer institutions suitable for their own characteristics and set up full-time technology transfer talent teams, and the transfer and transformation services of scientific and technological achievements have continued to become professional. 592 institutions of higher learning have established their own technology transfer institutions, accounting for 40.1% of the total number of institutions of higher learning. 560 institutions of higher learning cooperated with market-oriented transfer institutions to carry out the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, accounting for 37.9% of the total number of colleges and universities. 864 institutions of higher learning have full-time staff engaged in science and technology transformation, accounting for 58.5% of the total number of institutions of higher learning.
Chen Baiqiang, director of the Technology Transfer Center of Beijing Institute of Technology, said that each school should take into account its own actual situation when building its own professional technology transfer institution, "China has China's national conditions, each school also has the actual situation of each school, there is no fixed answer, suitable for their own may be the best." ”
In order to promote the integrated development of science and technology finance, Peking University Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Fund was established, with a fund size of about 1 billion yuan, focusing on solving the current situation of lack of money, personnel and professional services in the first mile of achievement transformation. "Peking University has invested and established some enterprises in the investment conference in recent years, including the projects of Peking University teachers and the projects of individual alumni, and more than 6 billion have been invested in 1 billion yuan." Yao Weihao said that the experience of Peking University is that we must pay attention to the transformation of original innovation and early achievements, and adhere to the functional positioning of investing early, small, long-term, and original innovation.
The transformation of achievements involves a number of laws and regulations, and universities should establish relevant systems to ensure compliance and zero risk in the transformation process.
At the same time, the transformation of achievements involves a number of laws and regulations, and universities should establish relevant systems to ensure that the transformation process is compliant and risk-free. "We've seen this problem, dealing with a lot of historical legacies, and that's a big challenge for our department. The evaluation and assessment mechanism of colleges and universities should also be further optimized, many documents have been written, and the system has also been established, but how to really land, each university must also have a corresponding mechanism to guarantee. Yao Weihao said. In addition, it is necessary to gradually form an innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, talent chain and other collaborative development achievement transformation ecology that conforms to the school's own characteristics.
At present, the transaction efficiency of China's scientific and technological achievements is low, there are not enough professionals for the transformation of achievements, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements has a low weight in the assessment and evaluation system of some colleges and universities, and the orientation of achievement transformation is not prominent.
"At present, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in China is facing the problems of low overall efficiency of scientific and technological achievements transactions, insufficient orientation of achievement transformation in the assessment system of universities, insufficient and uneven distribution of pilot test resources, insufficient motivation for enterprise participation, and insufficient professionals for achievement transformation." Yang Yun said that the "Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in China 2022 (Colleges and Universities)" proposes to accelerate the reform pilot, form an effective achievement evaluation method system, promote the establishment of a performance appraisal system that meets the characteristics of the transformation of achievements, promote the establishment of a demonstration area for the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, build a public R&D support system covering the whole chain of innovation, explore a technical manager team cultivation system combining higher education and vocational training, and create a system with intellectual property operations, law, finance, enterprise management, Composite achievement transformation talent team of business negotiation ability.
Strengthen the core resources of specialized talents and establish a talent incentive mechanism.
Chen Baiqiang said that professional technology transfer talents are very important, which is not to rely on listening to two lectures and doing several trainings to cultivate high-level technology transfer talents. "Colleges and universities must build training grounds so that everyone can grow in practice. To get the best people to be willing to do this, there must be some incentive innovation. ”