After the third session of the 14th National People's Congress opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, Chinese ministers responded to people's concerns and the challenges to the development of sci-tech innovation in China, in the traditional Q&A sessions in the hallway, known as passage interviews.

Reforming higher education

Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng said DeepSeek and Chinese humanoid robots have drawn tremendous global attention, which illustrates the effect of sci-tech innovation and talent cultivation in China.

Huai said the Ministry of Education (MOE) will comprehensively reform higher education based on a three-year action plan to build China into a leading country in education. The reform will promote innovation in the institution and mechanism of sci-tech talent cultivation, launch strategic actions and propel pilot and demonstration mechanisms.

The MOE will work with other departments to build up an ecosystem and organizational mechanism to facilitate the integration of talent and innovation development. The planning and arrangements of disciplines for industrial changes in this area will be strengthened.

To advance the  integration of industry and education, 40 National Graduate Colleges for Elite Engineers have been established. More than 2,000 chief engineers and 10,000 engineers from enterprises have been partnering with universities to nurture young talents. Huai said talent cultivation within the framework of integration between industrial and sci-tech innovation is a crucial content of the mechanism.

Talent cultivation will be reinforced and accelerated to meet the need of national strategies and sci-tech development. Talent training in basic disciplines such as mathematics will be advanced, and the construction of core courses, teaching staff and textbooks for such disciplines will be promoted.

Emerging disciplines and interdisciplines will be nurtured, talent cultivation in accordance with the rules of sci-tech revolution and industrial changes will be strengthened, and planning for disciplines like AI, biotech, new energy and new materials accelerated.

Demonstration zones will be established for science-education integration and industry-education integration. Huai suggested knowledge innovation and technological capability accumulated in universities should be used to serve regional development and national strategies.

To quicken the integration of higher education and regional development, China is pushing forward building regional technology transfer and commercialization centers in universities, and advanced research institutions with the help of first-class disciplines in double first-class universities, Huai said.

New financing mechanisms for enterprises

Li Yunze, minister of the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), said China's financing landscape has traditionally relied on indirect financing. Bank and insurance funds need to be prudently guided to invest in small enterprises and hard tech, with an emphasis on early investment for longer periods.

Li said four kinds of pilot projects are the focus now.

The first is the equity investment pilot of financial assets investment firms. It was expanded to 18 cities last year with a contract value of over 350 billion RMB. This year it is planned to have a larger area and more financial institutions.

The pilot reform of insurance funds' long-term investment will be reinforced as well. The NFRA has approved 60 billion RMB more recently. With the previous investment exceeding 100 billion RMB, the pilot project has not only brought concrete mid- and long-term incremental funding to the capital market, but also enlarged the scale of institutional investors, Li said.

Another pilot project is the merger and acquisition loans targeting sci-tech companies. Li said the government is considering raising the proportion of loans in merger and acquisition financing from 60 percent to 80 percent, and extending the loan term from seven years to 10 years. Sci-tech companies, especially leading companies in the industrial chain, will be supported to speed up industrial integration.

The NFRA will collaborate with the China National Intellectual Property Administration and National Copyright Administration on a pilot project to enhance the financial ecosystem of intellectual property, according to Li.

Efforts will be made to crack chronic problems like pledge registration, evaluation and disposition of intellectual property, accelerating its transformation into practical productive forces, he added.