[Abstract] In recent years, China’s science and technology (S&T) innovation has provided insufficient support for economic growth, and the efficiency of S&T social organization and return on investment has not been high. Currently, China’s economy is in a critical stage of its transition from stable growth to restructuring. How can we construct a high-quality and high-performance national innovation ecosystem to provide continuous power to China’s economic development? This article draws on the successful experience of the United States in the development of cutting-edge scientific research organizational mechanisms and ecosystems to propose the following recommendations for the construction of a national innovation ecosystem in China: (1) build an innovative social value system by “breaking the ice with our thinking to lead to breakthroughs in reform” (思想破冰引领改革突围); (2) lay down a strong foundation of innovation education and S&T research by strengthening the reform of education, scientific research institutes, and human resource systems; and (3) improve the overall innovation performance by reforming the organizational mechanisms for key national S&T efforts.

Innovation is the essence of modern society and the modern market economy. It is the fundamental feature of modern economic development and the wellspring of social and economic growth. In the future, the Chinese economy must form sufficient internally generated growth momentum, smoothly realize the transformation of the development mode, smoothly realize the new pattern of dual-circulation development and the “second centennial objective,” and obtain new international competitive advantages and space for development. The key factor is innovation. We must substantially achieve a large number of critical, cutting-edge technological innovations and their wide-ranging applications; achieve simultaneous breakthroughs in the four dimensions of the total volume of innovation input resources, the quality of innovations, the quantity of innovations, and the social penetration of new technology applications; and significantly improve the overall innovation performance of the whole society.

So, how can we improve the overall innovation performance of the whole society? How can we achieve breakthroughs in an ample quantity of key technological innovations and their wide-ranging applications? How can we build a high-performance, innovation-oriented country? Building a high-quality, high-performance national innovation ecosystem is undoubtedly the top priority in a series of effective measures.

I. China’s innovation ecosystem construction is insufficient to support basic research by society

Since reform and opening up, China’s economy has achieved rapid growth that has drawn the world’s attention. However, China’s science and technology (S&T) innovation still provides insufficient support for economic growth, and the efficiency of S&T social organization and return on investment (ROI) is not high. As for the reason, the most fundamental factor is that China’s innovation ecosystem construction is insufficient to support basic research by society. This mainly presents in the following areas.

Independent innovation lags behind, and the rate of self-sufficiency in key technologies is low. China remains dependent on foreign countries for over 50 percent of key technologies, while developed countries have rates of less than 30 percent, and the United States and Japan are around 5 percent. At this stage, 49.9 percent of Chinese strategically relevant industrial enterprises use patented technologies from the United States. At the same time, China’s key high-tech equipment mainly relies on imports, and more than 60 percent of the trillions in equipment investment for the formation of fixed assets is spent on equipment that must be imported.

Our digestion and absorption of imported technology are seriously inadequate. Since reform and opening up, for every 1 yuan spent on technology imports in China, only 0.07 yuan is spent on digestion, absorption, and technological innovation. In comparison, during their periods of industrialization and growth, Japan and South Korea spent 5 to 8 yen or won on digestion, absorption, and technological innovation for every 1 yen or won spent on technology imports.

Spending on basic research has been low for a long time. China’s basic research spending has been low for a long time, ROI efficiency in basic research is not high, few key technology breakthroughs have been made, and the lack of support for high-quality patent technology applications and the formulation of leading international standards has affected the expansion of high-end Chinese equipment to foreign markets.

II. Insights from the breakthroughs of the United States in organization mechanisms for high-tech key technology research and development.

For many years, the United States has been able to maintain its leading position in global S&T innovation because of its excellent, professional, and coordinated cutting-edge scientific research organization mechanisms and scientific research ecosystem that comprehensively link all sectors of society. Such organizational mechanisms have achieved a coordinated layout at the three levels of basic research, applied research, and development research; along the two main lines of military use and civil use; between the two main sectors of the government and private business; and at the two ends of the line from innovation supply to social demand. They have achieved mutual connectivity, mutual support, integration of the resources of the whole society, and the concentration of superior forces to take on major undertakings. The characteristics of these cutting-edge research organization mechanisms are:

Emphasize systemic solutions for the improvement of the overall innovation performance of the whole society. In innovation, the United States emphasizes that systemic solutions should be used to organize and support innovation throughout society in order to achieve rapid breakthroughs in a number of strategically significant, cutting-edge, and disruptive key technologies and to enable innovation achievements to be diffused throughout society and applied in a wide range of scenarios at the greatest possible speed. By promoting the comprehensive upgrade of all sectors of society, they have made high-quality, high-efficiency innovation ubiquitous, significantly increasing the overall innovation performance of society as a whole. For example, compared with the former Soviet Union, the United States was able to better integrate and coordinate the allocation and utilization of military and civilian innovation resources to promote development, achieving open collaborative support and a snowballing amplification effect. On the contrary, the former Soviet Union completely disconnected the allocation and utilization of military and civilian innovation resources, which ultimately doomed them in the arms race.

Emphasize the interconnection and collaboration of education and scientific research systems with the underlying foundation of society-wide innovation. The United States has future-oriented and extremely creative education and scientific research systems with a flourishing, cutting-edge academic environment. This has provided strong support for the underlying foundation of innovation. For example, U.S. university professors can deeply consider issues and conduct elite research in an independent, free, open-minded, persistent, and undisturbed manner, creating an endless stream of master scientists. Based on an integrated and forward-looking education method and a comprehensive understanding of the world, students are influenced and guided by the cutting-edge thinking of these masters, which stimulates an intense curiosity and desire to explore. Standing on the shoulders of giants, these students constantly surpass their predecessors and achieve one breakthrough in scientific research after another.

Emphasize the role of the Department of Defense’s technology system as an innovation organization mechanism for the whole society. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has always emphasized that advanced technology is inseparable from national security. In order to ensure the global technological superiority and corresponding military superiority of the United States, the national defense system plays a core role in the organization mechanisms for innovation. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) focuses on providing high-tech reserves for solving mid- and long-term national security issues. It performs research and analysis on the possibility of military applications of new advanced technologies with potential military value and high risk. DARPA has not only accumulated a deep reserve of S&T resources for the U.S. military, but has also successfully developed many advanced weapons systems. It has given birth to many “disruptive” key S&T innovations that can be used by both the military and civilian seconds, including unmanned aerial vehicles, the internet, semiconductors, the UNIX operating system, lasers, and GPS.

Achieve the integration of innovation resources from the whole society by open gathering. DARPA’s project managers mainly come from industrial departments, institutions of higher learning, and government laboratories and research centers. They possess both theoretical and innovative experimental expertise in various disciplines. They hold their positions for three to five years and do not become civil servants. Therefore, DARPA does not have a hierarchical, bureaucratic, and conservative decisionmaking system, allowing it to focus its efforts on openly gathering and integrating relevant S&T resources from around the country for the exploration of the future. DARPA relies on independent assessments of the high sensitivity of cutting-edge technology through its scientific management mode, efficient executive institutions, and strict review mechanism. As a result, it locks in on many high-risk, high-value, high-performance, and high-yield projects, which has ensured the continuous emergence of major innovations. At the same time, DARPA releases a development strategy report every two years to organize the implementation and development of technology through the top-level design of a technology development plan. This has become a weather vane for the focus of future S&T innovation and the development of national defense technology in the United States, supporting the integration of social innovation resources and breakthroughs in cutting-edge key technologies.

III. Several Recommendations

(i) Build an innovative social value system by “breaking the ice with our thinking to lead to breakthroughs in reform”

We should promote changes in concepts and social culture and a new round of ideological emancipation; eliminate various concepts, rules, and practices that restrict and hinder innovation in different fields; construct an innovation-oriented social value system; make innovation a core logic of social culture, social life, social education, scientific research, and economic activity; truly form a kind of “innovation is life, it is a value of life” (创新就是生活，就是人生价值); make innovation an activity that all walks of life, organizations, and all levels of society enjoy and are extremely adept at; and create fertile social soil for supporting and nurturing innovation.

(ii) Lay down a strong foundation of innovation education and S&T research by strengthening the reform of education, scientific research institutes, and human resource systems

If China is to develop into a world-leading innovation-oriented country, we must carry out fundamental reforms in the fields of education, basic research, and applied research, as well as in the training and use of corresponding talents. First, we must fully learn from successful practices in China and abroad, reform the current exam-oriented and narrowly subject-based education model, and cultivate many leading first-class S&T talents and innovation talents. Second, we must reform the evaluation mechanisms of universities, including the de-administration (去行政化) of education and scientific research institutions and the construction of an academic atmosphere so as to obtain a sufficient number of first-class basic research results and attain a world-leading ROI efficiency for basic research. At the same time, we must accelerate the promotion and application of new-generation intelligentized technologies in the education system and scientific research system. Leveraging the high-performance empowerment of intelligentized technology, we must popularize high-quality and high-performance education and scientific research throughout the whole society in a breakthrough and efficient manner and change lanes to pass other countries in the construction of an education superpower and scientific research superpower.

(iii) Improve the overall innovation performance by reforming the organizational mechanisms for key national S&T efforts

The national innovation system is a comprehensive system of actors, relationship networks, and operating mechanisms that participate in and influence the allocation of innovation resources and their utilization efficiency. In order to improve the overall performance of innovation mechanisms, we must carry out targeted reforms for the basic factors and shortcomings that affect the comprehensive performance of the national innovation system, organically combine innovation entity incentive mechanisms with external environmental conditions, and achieve a synergistic effect between the relevant parts and the system as a whole. Through the arrangement of national institutions and their interactions, we must promote the innovation, introduction, diffusion, and application of knowledge; improve the performance of nationwide technological innovation; finally achieve seamless vertical, horizontal, and end-to-end connection and collaboration in the innovation chain; achieve the systematic, efficient, and in-depth integration and collective evolution of education, scientific research, the real economy, and financial systems together with innovation; achieve a qualitative leap in China’s overall innovation capabilities; and maximize the coefficient of S&T progress or the rate of technological progress.

Attachment: Highlights from the 2015 and 2019 DARPA Development Strategy Reports

The 2015 development strategy report, Breakthrough Technologies for National Security, pointed out that, with the rapid proliferation of more powerful and lower-cost technologies around the world, destructive nonstate actors and traditional competitors can use the most advanced technologies faster than the United States, posing a growing threat to the United States in the field of traditional security. In addition, the United States will struggle to deal with non-traditional security threats posed by factors such as terrorism, population migration, environmental pollution, extreme weather, and epidemic diseases. The report identified four main strategic investment areas and corresponding investment priorities: (1) the investment priorities identified in the “rethink complex military systems” field include assuring dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum; improving position, navigation, and timing (PNT without GPS; maintaining air superiority in contested environments; leading the world in advanced hypersonics; asserting a robust capability in space; enhancing maritime agility; exerting control on the ground; and augmenting defense against terrorism; (2) the investment priorities identified in the “master the information explosion” field include deriving meaning from big data and building trust into information systems; (3) the investment priorities identified in the “harness biology as technology” field include accelerating progress in synthetic biology, outpacing infectious diseases, and mastering new neuro-technologies; and (4) the investment priorities identified in the “expand the technological frontier” field include applying deep mathematics; inventing new chemistries, processes, and materials; and harnessing quantum physics.

The 2019 development strategy report, Breakthrough Technologies for National Security,  proposed four main strategic directions and ongoing investment priorities for each direction: (1) The investment priorities of the “defend the homeland” direction include autonomous cybersecurity, strategic cyber deterrence, weapons of mass destruction sensing and defense, active bio-surveillance and biothreat countermeasures, and the development of defense capabilities against hypersonic weapons; (2) the investment priorities of the “deter and prevail against high-end adversaries” direction include capabilities in the traditional land, sea, and air domains but states that space and the electromagnetic spectrum will be just as or more important in deterring conflict away from the shores of the United States. The United States must develop, field, and operate these new capabilities faster than its adversaries; (3) the investment priorities of the “prosecute stabilization efforts” direction include better and more rapidly adapt to different environments; focus on developing capabilities to adapt to informal, unconventional, gray-zone conflicts and capabilities to adapt to city-scale warfare; establish rigorous and reliable models to better understand and influence adversary behavior; and improve the combat capabilities of combat personnel; and (4) the investment goal of the “advance foundational research in science and technology” direction is to understand technological development and further develop and apply technology. In the near future, DARPA will target specific threats across multiple operational domains and explore S&T that may lead to “leap ahead” solutions, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, microsystems, new computing methods based on molecular informatics, and next-generation social sciences. DARPA invested $2 billion to launch the “AI Next Campaign.”