2008 Forum on Innovative Cities Held in Beijing

Peking University, Beijing, Dec. 9th, 2008: The Forum on Innovative Cities of the year 2008 was held in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, releasing the Evaluation Report on the Innovative Ability of Chinese Cities.

Over a hundred of leaders from 43 cities and scientific and technological departments participated in the conference to express their opinions on city innovation. Professor LU Zhiyang from the University of Southern California (U.S.A.) made the keynote speech. Representatives from cities such as Shenyang, Chongqing, Changzhou, Yantai, and Dongguan following him each delivered their speeches in succession. The forum was chaired by ZHANG Jing an, member of the Party committee of the Ministry of Science and Technology and head of Science and Technology Press.

The forum was co-organized by the Science and Technology Daily Press, the InnovationResearchCenter, PKU and the NationalResearchCenter on Science & Technology-Driven Urban Economy. Besides the evaluation report, the forum also announced 4 lists: first, the Top 50 Cities with Overall Innovative Ability, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing and Shenzhen; second, Top Cities with the Best Innovative Environment, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Wuxi and Dongguan; third, Top Cities with the Best Innovative Dynamics, including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuxi, Suzhou and Zhongshan; and last but not least, Top Cities with the best Innovative Achievements, including Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Dongguan and Changzhou.

The speech given by professor LU dealt with the challenges and opportunities China faced in innovation. He argued that in order to realize independent innovation, we should make rules based on our advantages, to lead the innovation rather than innovate on our own. To achieve this goal, educating, attracting and attaining innovative talents was the most fundamental challenge facing us.

According to the evaluation report, which was produced by a dozen experts in over a year jointly, there are four distinct features shared by Chinese cities in innovation: firstly, cities with stronger innovative ability are concentrated around the Beijing-Tianjin region, Pearl River Delta Region and Yangtze River Delta Region, with obvious improvement of innovative ability of some cities in west and middle China; secondly, though the advantages in terms of resources and scale have great influence upon urban innovative ability, some county-level cities surpass prefecture-level cities in innovative ability; thirdly, each city has its own distinct innovative feature, with a comparatively large number of cities being much unbalanced in the innovative environment, innovative dynamics and innovative achievements; fourthly, there is still a huge gap between the urban innovative ability in China and that developed countries, especially in the aspect of innovative dynamics.

Edited By: Ding Zhilan

Translated By: Ling Jingxian

Source: PKU News (Chinese)