SYUCT’s Experience in Sci-Tech Achievements Empowerment Pilot Program Gets Widespread Promotion

Recently, the Science and Technology Department of Liaoning Province issued the Notice on the Comprehensive Implementation of the Empowerment Reform of Service-related Scientific and Technological Achievements, promoting SYUCT’s empowerment pilot experience province-wide. Meanwhile, SYUCT’s “Agreement-based Ownership Confirmation” mechanism proposed in the empowerment pilot was selected as a case study in China’s Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements 2024. This marks another promoted case of the university’s scientific and technological system reform, following the national promotion of the “Three Orientations” mechanism for scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation.

About China’s Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievement: In accordance with the requirements of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements and the Several Provisions for Implementing the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements, research and development institutions and institutions of higher learning established by the state shall report on the annual transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Since 2017, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) have actively established and improved the annual reporting system for scientific and technological achievement transformation, advancing it as a regular task each year. Under the guidance of MOST and MOF, the China Association for Science and Technology Evaluation and Achievement Management, the Science and Technology Evaluation Center of MOST, and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China have continuously released China’s Annual Report on the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements (Colleges, Universities and Research Institutes) since 2018. The report analyzes the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in universities and research institutes nationwide, aiming to help relevant government departments and the public understand the overall progress of China’s achievement transformation and better foster a scientific and technological innovation ecosystem.

About SYUCT’s Empowerment Pilot Program: In October 2020, the university was selected as one of the first 40 national pilot units for “granting researchers ownership or long-term use rights of service-related scientific and technological achievements,” with the pilot period lasting three years (2021-2023). The university attached great importance to the empowerment pilot, establishing an empowerment work leading group chaired by the Secretary of the CPC Committee at SYUCT and the President, and formulating institutional documents such as the empowerment pilot work plan and implementation rules, management measures for the empowerment expert database, and the empowerment negative list, to comprehensively carry out the pilot.

In terms of empowerment mechanism design, the university proposed “ownership confirmation through agreement and transformation-based change,” namely an empowerment mechanism of “agreeing on ownership ratios through agreements and setting a transition period for ownership changes.” This mechanism reduces the number of ownership changes from empowerment to transformation and helps select whether empowered achievements can be transformed, avoiding the idle status of empowered achievements that fail to be transformed.

In terms of the transformation income distribution mechanism, the proportion of transformation income awarded to researchers (teams) was increased from 80% to 90% in the form of ownership, which not only enhances the income distribution ratio but also significantly simplifies the process for researchers (teams) to obtain transformation income.

Since the launch of the empowerment pilot, the university has empowered 108 service-related scientific and technological achievements in two batches, with 51 achievements transformed, successfully completing the pilot tasks. In July 2023, Director Cai Rui of the Science and Technology Department of Liaoning Province published the article Leveraging Scientific and Educational Advantages to Empower Liaoning’s Revitalization in Guangming Daily, introducing SYUCT’s progress in the empowerment work.