The "horse racing" system makes the "thousand mile horse" in the scientific research battlefield stand out
2022-03-11
The 2022 government work report mentioned "improving the initiation and management of major science and technology projects". In recent years, nothing has attracted much attention in the project initiation and management of major science and technology projects than the system of "taking the lead" and "horse racing". The system of "exposing and commanding" refers to issuing "hero posts" in tackling key core technologies. Whoever has the ability will expose, regardless of origin. But how to ensure that the presenter will succeed? Therefore, it is necessary to introduce competition. During the establishment of scientific research projects, multiple subjects are selected to tackle key problems in parallel, and phased assessment and competitive elimination mechanism are adopted in the process of project development, so as to make the subjects who really do well stand out and select the "Qianlima". This is the "horse racing" style. *** The outline of the national 14th five year plan also specifically refers to the system of "exposing the list and taking the lead" and "horse racing". What are the advantages of the "horse racing" system as a supporting measure of the "unveiling and commanding" system? How to play a better role? Stimulate the innovation vitality of the main body and increase the success rate of the project The core of the "horse racing" system is competition, which is conducive to stimulating creativity. Liang Zheng, Professor of the school of public administration of Tsinghua University and deputy director of the China Science and Technology Policy Research Center of Tsinghua University, said that the "horse racing" system gives full play to the competitive role and adopts different technical routes for the same goal, which may stimulate subversive and innovative solutions. Take the development of novel coronavirus pneumonia vaccine in China as an example. The departments concerned identified covid-19 vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, recombinant protein vaccines and other technical routes. Each technology line has several teams to tackle the problem, which has promoted the success rate of the new crown vaccine. Liang Zheng explained that the "horse racing" system provides small grants to multiple teams in the early stage through decentralized and phased funding, which is adjusted in time according to the research and development progress. According to the maturity and completion of the technical route, the "horse racing" system adopts ways such as increasing and reducing support, or terminating and merging projects, so as to gradually concentrate research forces and scientific research resources in the advantageous direction, Provide efficiency in the use of scientific research resources. The "horse racing system" of Zhejiang Province has also tasted the sweetness. During the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic situation, the relevant departments chose the dominant enterprises in the province, supported 10 balance checking product development in parallel, and carried out the phased assessment in 3 months, and stopped the project with poor progress in time. Finally, Dongfang gene company stood out. The COVID-19 antibody test paper jointly developed by the company and Hangzhou medical college was approved by the State Administration of food and Drug Administration and became the first COVID-19 antibody test product approved by Zhejiang province. The exploration of the "horse racing" system is more than that. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Yunnan, Shandong and other places are also actively exploring the use of the "horse racing" system to solve the "urgent and dangerous" scientific problems. This exploration has been recognized by people in the industry. Cui Xiangqun, member of the National Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "adopt more 'unveiling' and 'horse racing' systems, stimulate innovation passion and vitality through multi-party and orderly competition, truly let advantageous places and units undertake the construction, form a favorable situation of collaborative innovation and benign competition, and comprehensively support the development of major strategic common technologies and industries." The "horse racing" system has a specific field and scope of use But the "horse racing" system is not a panacea. Qin Fei, deputy to the National People's Congress and professor of materials and manufacturing department of Beijing University of technology, said in an interview with science and technology daily, "I think the 'horse racing' mechanism can be used in some difficult, uncertain and forward-looking projects. However, it should not be used too much, because it may cause a waste of human and material resources." Liang Zheng holds a similar view. He believes that the main difficulty in the implementation of the "horse racing" mechanism lies in determining its application field and scope. Taking DARPA as an example, it adopts the "horse racing" mechanism for project funding management, which is mainly applicable to projects with clear R & D objectives or assessment indicators but uncertain route and implementation mode, such as prototype technology development. Liang Zheng believes that for the basic research in the previous paragraph, due to the high uncertainty or even unknowness of the results, different routes can not even be simply compared, so the scientific community evaluation is adopted to a large extent, and even the "championship" mechanism of post evaluation such as Nobel Prize is adopted, "For application development and even industrialization projects with clearer requirements for technical and economic indicators and application prospects, it is more suitable for bidding procurement, and there is no need for parallel funding". On the basis of clarifying the applicable projects, how can the "horse racing" mechanism play a better role? Director of technological innovation research center of Tsinghua University Changjiang Scholar Professor Chen Jin suggested: "In the future, we should further strengthen the project evaluation criteria characterized by technical indicators, pay more attention to the exploration of the 'horse racing' mechanism characterized by existing achievements rather than the selection of project leaders, give full play to the scientific research achievements in various fields of society, actively encourage interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific research achievements, minimize the risk and cost of innovation and improve the quality of science and technology Investment efficiency. " "Taking the lead" is a good strategy to recruit talents since ancient times, and it also plays an important role in today's scientific and technological innovation. Entering a new era, we look forward to the "horse racing" mechanism to spur the horse and find more generals. (Xinhua News Agency)
Edit：Li Ling Responsible editor：Chen Jie
Source：Science and Technology Daily
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