In recent years, with the acceleration of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, leading science and technology enterprises have played an increasingly important role in key industrial fields and future frontier fields, and have become a key variable to promote the changes in the international political and economic landscape. Therefore, countries have stepped up the construction and cultivation of leading enterprises in science and technology. South Korea proposed to invest 240 billion won in 2021 to cultivate world-class chip design companies, and France proposed to build 10 100 billion euro-level technology giants that benchmark Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon by 2030, and so on. The study of the main practices and practices of major developed countries to support the scientific and technological innovation of leading scientific and technological enterprises has certain reference significance for China to build and cultivate leading scientific and technological enterprises, accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and promote high-quality economic development.
1 Important practices of major developed countries to support leading science and technology enterprises.
Judging from the history of previous scientific and technological revolutions and industrial transformations and the rise of the world's scientific and technological powers, science and technology leading enterprises have always been an important carrier and main support for the country's core competitiveness. Considering the particularity and sensitivity of science and technology leaders in international competition, the world's major developed countries do not have a policy system specifically for science and technology leaders. At the same time, due to the different international environment and national conditions in different periods, the policy support focus of countries for leading science and technology enterprises is also different. After a long period of practice and exploration, countries have formed some relatively mature practices and institutional arrangements in guiding, promoting and helping the innovation and development of leading science and technology enterprises.
1.1. Establish key industries and key technology fields supported by the state, and strengthen the strategic guidance of leading science and technology enterprises.
Countries generally attach importance to leading and supporting leading science and technology enterprises to make strategic choices and technological innovations by organizing research and compiling technology foresight and special technology development guidelines in key areas. According to incomplete statistics, as of 2016, 79 countries and regions have carried out a total of 2,270 technical selections and technologies**. The United States was the first country to conduct technology** and technology selection. During World War II, the United States used technology to formulate science and technology plans, and later solidified the mechanism of technology through legislation and other forms. For example, the United States established the "National Key Technology Commission" in 1990 in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act, which submits a biennial report on national technology to the National Congress every two years, clearly proposing key technology areas related to the long-term development of the United States and economic development; The following year, reports such as "Winning New Advantages - Priority Areas for Future Technology Development" were released, which included 23 key technologies in five categories. After Clinton was elected as the first in the United States, he began to implement specific actions to support the development of industrial technology around these key technology areas, and successively promoted the development of relevant key technologies with several major technology development plans, such as the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), the Information Highway Program (NII), the military-to-civilian program, the biotechnology program (Human Genome Project), and the Environmental Protection Technology Program (clean energy and clean vehicle program). Under the guidance of these plans, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and other technology leaders have received strong support and achieved rapid development.
1.2. Strengthen the management of demand-side innovation policies such as procurement, and create target customers for the rise of leading science and technology enterprises.
The common practice of countries around the world shows that it is an effective way to encourage scientific and technological innovation for leading enterprises to provide markets for new products and technologies of leading science and technology enterprises through demand-side innovation policies such as military procurement, ** procurement, and consumer subsidies. The United States' procurement legislation began in 1809 and is one of the most successful countries in the world in supporting and promoting corporate innovation through procurement. During World War II, in order to support and protect U.S. industry, Americans and U.S. investment capital, the United States promulgated the "Purchase of American Products Act", which stipulates that except for special circumstances such as overseas use and excessive use, federal agencies must purchase American products and services. Under the guidance of the law, the United States and the military continue to purchase a large number of dual-use products, which has promoted the rise and growth of many technology leaders such as IBM. In order to enhance the international leadership of the United States in the field of artificial intelligence, in the 21st century, the United States has provided a large number of purchase orders to technology leaders in the field of artificial intelligence. Since 2004, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter have secured nearly $45 billion worth of contract orders from the United States**. From 2016 to 2020, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook received 6,860, 477, 384 and 172 non-civil** procurement contracts, respectively. In 2020, the U.S. Intelligence Agency awarded billions of dollars worth of orders to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM. In 2021, the U.S. Bureau awarded Amazon a $10 billion purchase order for cloud services.
1.3. Improve prudent and loose regulatory policies to provide early scenarios for leading technology companies to open up new tracks and new fields.
In response to the subversion of disruptive technologies and products to the market structure of traditional fields, countries have always adhered to a relatively open and relaxed attitude. For example, in order to encourage companies to break through restrictions and develop new industries, Japan has proposed in the Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act to implement a regulatory liberalization policy focusing on the gray zone removal system and the enterprise empirical case system. In response to the restructuring of the global ** chain and the increasingly fierce struggle for the dominance of cutting-edge industries such as semiconductors, South Korea passed the "Act on Special Measures to Enhance the Competitiveness of National Advanced Strategic Industries and Strengthen Industrial Protection" in January 2022, which stipulates that if an enterprise applies for relaxation of control measures related to R&D and production, the person in charge of the competent authority must reply to the comments within 15 days. The United States adheres to an inclusive and prudent regulatory attitude in areas such as the digital economy, and conducts sandbox regulatory trials for emerging technologies such as autonomous driving, providing space for technology companies to make mistakes and correct errors. In addition, in order to promote technical cooperation between enterprises and expand the large-scale effect of industrialization of new technologies, countries have relaxed the supervision of monopoly and enterprise mergers and acquisitions, and promoted enterprises to integrate resources with high quality and efficiency, and become bigger, stronger and better.
1.4. Strengthen the supply of key innovation elements and provide basic resource support for scientific and technological innovation of leading science and technology enterprises.
In order to ensure the smooth development of R&D activities of leading science and technology enterprises, countries have strengthened the supply of various innovation resources and supplementary resources around the innovation needs of leading science and technology enterprises. Taking SpaceX as an example, from the beginning of its establishment, it has received multi-faceted policy support: First, open technology. In order to support the research and development of SpaceX's "manned spaceflight" technology, NASA has opened a large number of technical reports on the "Apollo" moon landing and space shuttle research and development to it, and SpaceX has transformed a large number of mature technologies for its own use, involving launch vehicle development, engine modeling, additive manufacturing technology, crew compartment display and control technology, satellite re-entry analysis, surface chemistry and material analysis of spacecraft structures, and other technical fields. The second is to open up test devices and facilities. In order to alleviate the financial burden of self-built launch platforms, the United States** leases launch bases such as Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida and Kennedy Space Center in Florida to enterprises for use, and provides a full set of support services and process support for launch organization, operation, and safety. SpaceX receives support from NASA's multiple research centers, labs, and related facilities for a fee. The third is talent support. In order to support SpaceX, NASA has sent its core technical backbones to SpaceX to help it develop and verify key technologies, including a group of top experts in the aerospace industry. At the same time, in the management of SpaceX, many executives have worked in large aerospace companies or ** institutions, and have rich professional technology and management experience.
2 Successful experience of major developed countries in supporting leading technology companies.
2.1. In terms of the target of support, we will mainly cooperate with companies founded by bold and innovative entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are the key to promoting enterprise innovation activities, and the core quality of excellent entrepreneurs is to be able to capture the unmet market demand in the process of the evolution of the times, and at the same time be willing to embrace change, promote change, and become an explorer, organizer and leader of innovation. Judging from the existing cases, there are one or several outstanding entrepreneurs behind the technology leaders supported by various countries, such as Elon Musk of SpaceX, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Laurenna Powell Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, etc., whose innovative spirit of courage to break through, unwilling to fail and important strategic decisions made at key stages have played an important role in the development and growth of enterprises.
2.2. From the perspective of support areas, more focus will be placed on the urgent needs of national strategies and basic frontier areas.
In order to win the opportunity of global industrial development in the future and seize the commanding heights of the world's scientific and technological competition, major developed countries have focused on the future and supported enterprises to carry out forward-looking layout in major basic frontiers and strategic fields. In the 80s of the 20th century, in order to cope with the challenge of semiconductor competition from Japan, the United States** established partnerships with 14 large American semiconductor manufacturers, and provided a total of 500 million US dollars in public subsidies over 5 years through the Sematech program for joint research in semiconductor large-scale manufacturing industrial technology. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, NASA and other departments have focused on information technology (especially quantum, artificial intelligence and other information fields), aerospace technology, energy and environment and other fields to support leading enterprises such as Boeing and General Dynamics, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Meta and other emerging technology giants and many start-ups.
At the same time, in order to circumvent the relevant restrictions of the WTO "Subsidies and Countervailing Agreements", the United States** generally only provides R&D funding for key common technologies, and will not provide financial funds for R&D projects of specific product lines. Taking the United States ** to support the research and development of GE implementation projects as an example, the ** funded R&D projects are generally given to the R&D team of GE ** Research Institute, and the specific product division team rarely directly participates in the research and development of ** support projects.
2.3. In terms of specific operation, we generally attach importance to the main role of science and technology leaders.
Enterprises are at the forefront of the market, and they are the first to capture and the final application of new technology needs. Leading enterprises in science and technology have the innate advantages of R&D investment, technological innovation and talent reserve, and play an irreplaceable role in breakthroughs in key core technologies and basic cutting-edge technologies. In the whole process of the implementation of major scientific plans and major projects, countries pay attention to absorbing the opinions of leading scientific and technological enterprises, and closely integrate the development of enterprises with national needs. For example, the United States pays special attention to attracting leading science and technology enterprises to participate in various national science and technology projects and projects, and absorbs experts from leading science and technology enterprises to participate in the management and consulting activities of these projects. Another example is that the annual priority areas of the EU Innovative Medicines Programme are jointly proposed by the European Pharmaceutical Industry Association, pharmaceutical research organizations and large pharmaceutical companies, and enterprises occupy an absolute dominant position in the process of research organization and technical roadmapping.
3 A few revelations.
As an important part of the national strategic scientific and technological forces, leading enterprises in science and technology are important forces for China to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance. However, at present, the development of China's science and technology leading enterprises is still facing problems such as lack of top-level design, insufficient layout of key areas, weak driving ability of industrial chain innovation chain, weak innovation ability, and insufficient number of high-level science and technology leading enterprises. Based on the actual development of China's science and technology leading enterprises, combined with the practical experience of major developed countries in supporting the development of science and technology leading enterprises, this paper believes that in the new era, it is necessary to accelerate the construction and cultivation of science and technology leading enterprises to adhere to strategic guidance, field focus, resource co-ordination, and policy coordination, and cultivate and build a group of science and technology leading enterprises that serve the national needs, represent the national level, and can be relied on and used in emergency research.
The first is to strengthen the mission guidance and deepen the close integration of the development destiny of science and technology leading enterprises with national goals. Strengthen ideological and political guidance, hold a series of high-level scientific and technological innovation seminars for leading science and technology enterprises, and cultivate strategic science and technology entrepreneurs with a global vision. Improve the enterprise-led national innovation system, and highlight the role of science and technology leading enterprises as "question makers" and "markers". Establish a system of scientific and technological innovation consultation and conference for entrepreneurs, focus on major issues, and regularly carry out consultation with leading scientific and technological enterprises. Promote the active participation of leading science and technology enterprises in the formulation of major national science and technology innovation strategies, national science and technology innovation plans and special plans for key areas, as well as major science and technology reform measures, and support science and technology leading enterprises in key industries to lead or participate in the preparation of science and technology innovation plans.
The second is to strengthen the system layout, focus on strategic competition and lead the future field to strengthen cultivation. Starting from solving the urgent and long-term needs of the country, we will accurately plan the layout of leading science and technology enterprises in various key areas. Focusing on the main battlefield of the current international science and technology game, we will focus on the new generation of information technology, life and health and other strategic areas, and promote science and technology leaders to become a force for rapid breakthroughs in key core technologies. Focusing on the new direction of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, we will focus on new fields and new tracks that will lead the future, such as brain-like intelligence, quantum information, gene technology, future networks, deep-sea aerospace and hydrogen energy storage, and support leading science and technology enterprises to strengthen their forward-looking layout.
The third is to strengthen the precise allocation of elements to provide basic material support for the scientific and technological innovation of leading science and technology enterprises. Break down the institutional barriers and institutional barriers in the flow of talents, and smooth the flow mechanism of technological innovation talents from universities, research institutes to enterprises. Strengthen the scientific research evaluation system oriented to solving major national problems and substantive contributions. Support enterprises to participate in the construction of national laboratories, take the lead in establishing a number of national technology innovation centers, national engineering research centers and other bases, strengthen the research and development of common basic technologies in the industry, and provide early application scenarios for the first integrated application demonstration of new technologies of leading science and technology enterprises.
Fourth, strengthen policy coordination and linkage to form a good ecology conducive to the rapid growth of science and technology leading enterprises. Through military procurement, first-class orders, etc., we actively purchase independent innovation technologies and products of leading science and technology enterprises, and provide first-class application scenarios for their technology iteration. Improve the regulatory access mechanism for leading science and technology enterprises, and clarify the negative list principle of "entry without prohibition". Explore the phased classification management mode of new technologies and new products, and establish a "pilot fault tolerance" support mechanism for new technologies and new products in the embryonic stage; Establish a green channel for the industrialization of achievements, and explore the establishment of legal, scientific, technological, and ethical evaluation committees in frontier fields such as life and health, artificial intelligence, and unmanned driving, to evaluate corresponding scientific research projects. Establish a science and technology liaison system specifically for science and technology leading enterprises to coordinate multi-dimensional needs such as scientific research funding, talent introduction and education, and industry-university-research cooperation, so as to provide precise support for enterprise innovation.
Authors: Zhu Huanhuan and Chen Zhi, Chinese Academy of Science and Technology Development Strategy.
Project**: National High-end Think Tank Key Project "Optimizing the Positioning and Layout of Science and Technology Leading Enterprises" (ZX2K202312).
This article is originally published in the 5th issue of "China Science and Technology Talents" in 2023.
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