Recently, the State Council issued the Opinions on Upgrading the Nationwide Program of Entrepreneurship and Innovation for High-quality Development (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), which proposed eight measures, including deepening reform of government functions and increasing the support of fiscal and tax policies, for the purpose of creating a better environment and reducing the cost of innovation and entrepreneurship, enhancing the ability to drive employment through entrepreneurship, and upgrading the mass entrepreneurship and innovation program.

Chen Rui, Vice President of the National Academy of Innovation Strategy under the China Association for Science and Technology, observed that the Opinions, which are consistent the requirement of high-quality development and the changing dynamics of innovation and entrepreneurship, pave the way for expanding and deepening the “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” program and enhancing the effectiveness of development and optimizing the business environment, and provide a powerful instrument for further implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy and stimulation of market vitality and social creativity.

 “Mass entrepreneurship and innovation” is hitting new grounds

The initiative of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” was first put forward by Premier Li Keqiang at the Summer Davos Forum held in Tianjin in September 2014. In order to better promote high-quality “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”, the State Council issued multiple policy documents in 2017 alone, including the Opinions on Enhancing the Implementation of Innovation-Driven Development Strategy to Further Promote Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Notice on Promoting the Relevant Reform Measures in Support of Innovation, and the Opinions on the Construction of the Second Group of Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation Demonstration Bases.

Leading officials of the National Development and Reform Commission pointed out that after several years of efforts, the “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” program has achieved a leap from “individual regions” to the “whole country” and from “individual cases” to “systemic implementation”, and become an important driver of economic growth, an important catalyst for promoting transformation and upgrading, and an important underpinning for stabilizing and expanding employment.

The latest data show that in the first half of this year, the average number of newly-registered Chinese enterprises reached 18,100 per day, and the total number of market players exceeded 100 million for the first time. In August this year, the added value of high-tech manufacturing industries and strategic emerging industries in the industrial sector increased by 13.8% and 10.1% respectively over the previous year, which was 7.7 and 4 percentage points higher than that of all industries above the designated scale. As of now, there are 120 “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” demonstration bases, more than 5,500 maker spaces and over 4,000 incubators for science and technology enterprises in China.

China is entering a critical period for transforming the development model, optimizing economic structure and shifting growth drivers. Chen Rui believes that in the next five years, the most important thing for China is to overcome the bottlenecks in its efforts to advance supply-side structural reform, foster new economic drivers and develop the real economy.

 “Given the major needs of high-quality development, it is both relevant and necessary for the Chinese government to issue these Opinions at this point in time.” In Chen Rui’s view, an upgraded version of the “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” program will help further optimize the environment and substantially reduce the costs of innovation and entrepreneurship, create more jobs through business start-ups, and foster a cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship featuring combination of online and offline businesses, collaboration among industries, universities, research institutes and producers, and integrated development of enterprises of all sizes. As such, it will provide a solid foundation for accelerated cultivation of new growth drivers, fuller employment and high-quality economic development.

 “Upgrade” means wider scope, higher level and deeper implementation

According to some experts, the “upgrade” proposed in the Opinions mainly refers to the efforts of the relevant departments to take the “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” program into wider scope, higher level and greater depth through all-round promotion, whole-process integration and all-factor agglomeration.

“Talents are one of the key factors that determine the quality of entrepreneurship and innovation, and the pivotal point for upgrading the program.” Chen Rui suggested that one of the highlights of the upgrade in the program is that many players can find policy “upgrades” that are relevant to their own conditions in the Opinions.

Taking scientific researchers as an example, according to Chen Rui’s analysis, the “rules on the incentives for scientific researchers to start new businesses after leaving their jobs” proposed in the Opinions will notably relieve the concerns of researchers or business employees with meaningful work experience, reduce the opportunity cost of this specific community, and thus raise the overall qualifications of business entrepreneurs in China.

The Opinions also put forward targeted measures for other key players in the “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” program, including college students, migrant workers, veterans, returnees and foreigners.

At the same time, the relevant measures proposed in the Opinions for improving the system and mechanism on the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, such as “conducting pilot programs to give scientific researchers the right of ownership or long-term use of scientific and technological achievements, strengthening the construction of the national technology transfer system, and encouraging universities and scientific research institutes to build specialized technology transfer agencies”, have also attracted the attention of the public and experts and scholars.

 “High-quality entrepreneurship and innovation often rely on the transformation of high-quality scientific research results. Chen Rui pointed out that after several years of development, Chinese universities and research institutes have made significant progress in the number of academic papers, patents and so on. In the next step, efforts should be made to improve the quality of R&D and come up with more influential and market-adaptive results.

 “From this point of view, the relevant policies proposed in the Opinions have created a more relaxed, free and motivated research environment for scientific researchers, improved the quality of scientific research and innovation results in China, and provided a better research basis for industrial upgrading and mass entrepreneurship and innovation,” stressed Chen Rui.

Policy implementation requires coordination of all departments

The contents of the Opinions have received positive comment from all parties, but some experts said that further discussions are required to ensure the smooth implementation of the 10,000-word policy document.

Wu Shouren, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research, believed that the implementation of the policy requires the joint efforts of all departments and from all quarters. Local governments should truly take their responsibility. There needs to be a department that coordinates the implementation, and policy training should be fully in place.

 “To ensure that all these 32 policy measures are implemented on the ground and produce the desired results, emphasis should be placed on making good plans, resolving key issues, gaining experience and strengthening publicity.” The leading official of the National Development and Reform Commission pointed out that, in the implementation of the Opinions, it is imperative to promote the overall planning of supporting policies such as science and technology, finance, taxation and talent. The relevant policies should not be contradictory and conflict with each other, and the initiative of various departments and local governments should be fully mobilized.

The above-mentioned official said that an important measure to implement the policy is the annual “mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation” Week event.

According to reports, this year’s event will be held from October 9 to 15, under the theme of “high-level entrepreneurship and innovation for high-quality development” and with the focus on upgrading the mass  entrepreneurship and innovation program. In addition to the main venue in Chengdu and the Beijing venue, there will also be sub-venues in various provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

During the week, the Policy Measures for the Implementation of the Innovation-driven Development Strategy and the Upgrade of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program in Chengdu City was promulgated, making Chengdu the first city in western China to introduce concrete policies and measures since the launch of the nationwide plan to upgrade the mass entrepreneurship and innovation program for high-quality development in September this year.

 “Raising the overall performance of entrepreneurship and innovation is only the content of edition 1.0 of the mass entrepreneurship and innovation program, and, on that basis, the upgraded version will focus more on region-based development.” Chen Rui told your correspondent that under the new trend of development, “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” has become an important leverage and point of breakthrough for adjusting the regional economic structure, cultivating new growth drivers and lending new impetus for development.

In June this year, the National Academy of Innovation Strategy under the China Association for Science and Technology undertook a special research project commissioned by the party committee and government of Sichuan province on the topic of “science, technology and innovation supporting high-quality development in Sichuan”. Based on field surveys conducted in Chengdu, Mianyang, Deyang, Jianyang and Tianfu New Area, the project team produced the Research Report on Science, Technology and Innovation Supporting High-quality Development in Sichuan Province, which established a system of indicators for the assessment of high-quality development, including 5 first-tier indicators, 15 second-tier indicators and 26 third-tier indicators, from the five aspects of high-quality supply, demand, efficiency, operation and opening-up. Based on the indicators, the research team conducted a comprehensive evaluation on the level of high-quality development in Sichuan province, and put forward the overall objectives, basic principles and pathway of high-quality development in the province in the next stage.

 “The exploration made by Sichuan province has produced many bright spots of innovation with tremendous values. Yet at the same time, these bright spots are still scattered and unsystematic.” Chen Rui stressed that in order to realize a shift from “good quality” to “excellent quality” in the province’s mass entrepreneurship and innovation program, these bright spots need to be further transformed into a systematic “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” model covering the whole province, leading to higher innovation efficiency in the region.