Official urges stronger role for enterprise in tech, industrial innovation

China should give full play to the role of enterprises as the main drivers of innovation during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) to promote technological and industrial innovation, an expert said on Wednesday.

Liu Dongmei, Party chief of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, made the remarks during the latest episode of China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk show hosted by Xinhua News Agency.

She suggested strengthening the leading role of enterprises, especially tech-leading firms, and enhancing their capacity to coordinate with upstream and downstream companies, universities and research institutes to jointly advance the integration of technological and industrial innovation.

Resources allocated to key stages of technology transfer within enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are sometimes insufficient, leaving many research outcomes confined to papers and laboratories. Liu called for greater efforts to help such enterprises build stronger technology transfer capabilities.

She also proposed establishing an evaluation system centered on market demand and industrial value, aiming to remove bottlenecks that hinder the integration of technological and industrial innovation.