PREFACE

The establishment of the National engineering technology research centres (Engineering Centres for short) is a key task of science and technology that was started during the Eighth Five-year Plan period as officially arranged by the state, according to the objectives and tasks stipulated in the Ten Year Plan and Outline of the Eighth Five year Plan for the Development of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China.

I. BASIC PURPOSES

1. Probe into new approaches to the combination of science and technology with economy, strengthen the intermediate links in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into productivity and shorten the transformation period. At the same time, promote the matureness, completeness and application to engineering of existing scientific and technological achievements, promote the technical reform of enterprise production, accelerate the renewal of products, so as to meet the practical needs of production of scale of enterprises ,and provide basic technical support for enterprises to incorporate, digest and absorb advanced foreign technologies.

2. Emphatically select a batch of research institutes, in key sectors and scientific and technological fields of priority development for the national economic and social development, representing the sectoral scientific and technological level, having the strength of engineering research and development and implementing new managerial and operational systems, as backing units and organize the Engineering Centres based on those units by dividing staff and retaining better teams and adjusting organizational structures so as to promote the formation and establishment of a batch of new type research and development bases in China.

II. OBJECTIVES

According to the objectives established for the national economic and social development, the state will establish about 200 Engineering Centres in batches by year 2000 to from outstanding teams of 30000 to 40000 members in total for the research and development of engineering technology, so as to continuously provide advanced and practical achievements of engineering technology, accelerate the extension and application to production enterprises and hence make great contribution to the further development of science and technology, as the first productivity, and to the promotion of the quality and benefits of the national economic growth.

The Engineering Centres should

1. Possess first-class engineering technology, outstanding professional teams for research and development, design and experiment, relatively complete conditions for comprehensive experiments in sets for engineering technology, function as research and development bases for engineering technology of sectors or fields and have the strength to participate in international competition;

2. Have high abilities of experiment and engineering design for research and development on application to engineering, can rapidly transform scientific and technological achievements into commercial goods and promote the formation of industries. The Engineering Centres are the convergent points of sectoral scientific and technological achievements and the sources of sectoral engineering technologies;

3. Have operational mechanism fit for the socialist market economy systems and have the abilities of self-operation and self-development financially.

III. MAJOR TASKS

1. Undertake the key research and development tasks entrusted by the state and complete and provide the first-class achievements of engineering technology.

2. Continuously carry out research and development to promote the completeness, matureness and application to engineering of scientific and technological achievements aimed at the key, basic or common technical problems in the development in related sectors or fields; actively digest, absorb and innovate technologies imported from foreign countries to provide technical support for the sectoral technical progress and industrial structural adjustment.

3. Meet the needs of technical achievements, and provide turnkey projects for key construction projects of the state and technical reform of enterprises through engineering technology contract.

4. Realize financial self-reliance and self-development through multiple approaches and guarantee value preservation and appreciation of the state-owned asses of the Engineering Centres.

5. Train and stabilize high level teams for research and development of engineering technology and provide training service for technical personnel of enterprises.

IV. GENERAL LAYOUT

1. Under the guidance of the national industrial policies, select the vital technical fields with strategic impacts on the national economy, the key technical fields with impacts on the overall situation of sectoral development, the major technical fields with lots of imported projects and the vital technical fields that foreign countries implement blockade.

2. Pay attention to the organic linking with basic research and applied research so as to rationally consider the needs of long- term development and the near term needs, and emphasize the linking with the related vital scientific and technological programmes of the state.

3. Pay attention to the intersecting, comprehensive and complex features of inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral fields, and strengthen technical integration and stress comprehensive benefits.

4. Implement on-spot organization or re-organization of existing major research institutes by dividing staff and retaining better teams and adjusting structures so as to promote the transformation of the management mechanism towards that of new type research and development entity or science and technology type enterprise.

The Engineering Centres are mainly concerned with the major fields of agriculture, basic industries, mainstay industries, new/high-tech industries and social development, with emphases on the main sectors of agriculture, energy, traffic, electronics, communication, chemical industry, metallurgy, light and textile industries, building, etc. and on the key technical fields of advanced manufacture technology, information technology, biological technology, new materials, medicine and health, environmental protection, resource development and utilization, etc.

V. OPERATION MECHANISM

Under the precondition of the socialist market economic system, probe into and establish step by step a mechanism of sound development in the three aspects of technology, economy and talents, with the mechanism of economic benefit as the link and technical superiority as support, involving.

1. Sound development in technology. The Engineering Centres should continuously absorb scientific and technological achievements of upstream research communities including the baking units, carry out engineering type, integrated economic development, and continuously transfer engineering type technologies to downstream enterprises and market development into a new cycle of technical development.

2. Sound development in economy. The Engineering Centres should participate in competition and thus undertake vital scientific and technological development projects of the state or sectors and development tasks entrusted by enterprises, get income from technologies through the transformation of engineering type technical achievements and technical consultation, share economic benefits though joint venture with enterprises, get direct economic return from intermediate experiment of a certain scale of superiority products of themselves and at the same time, use those derived development and improving their own financial status.

3. Sound development in talents. The Engineering Centres should adopt a open, floating and competitive mechanism, continuously dismiss unqualified staff members, recruit new ones and retain teams small in number but highly picked so as to gradually form outstanding engineering technology teams of rational age grading and disciplinary structure.

The Engineering Centres will grow continuously by orienting to enterprises and taking part in market competition rather than relying on the state.

VI. MANAGERIAL SYSTEM

1. The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for formulating the overall plan for the formation of the Engineering Centres, clarifying the general policies for the formation, layout principles, priority fields and policies and carrying out macroguidance and policy based control according to the general arrangement of the national economic and social development.

2. The related sectoral or local authorities are responsible for the implementation of the formation and operational management of the Engineering Centres and carry out management for the Engineering Centres highly comprehensive, covering more than one sectors or departments through coordination committees involving representatives from related parties.

3. The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for the organization of comprehensive review expert groups for the Engineering Centres, which are in charge of providing consultation for the decision making on the formulation of plan, project institution, examination and acceptance, evaluation and operational examination of the Engineering Centres.

4. The highest level decision organization of the Engineering Centre is the Managerial Commission adoption the director general responsibility system.

VII. PROCEDURES OF FORMATION

1. The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for the overall planning, rational layout and comprehensive arrangement for the formation of the Engineering Centres.

2. In order to put the Engineering Centres under scientific and standardized management and realize objective, just and equal competition, the state has already formulated the Provisional Regulations for the Management of the State Engineering Technology Centres. The procedures for project institution include application organized by department (or locality), expert demonstration, consultation and discussion, and state examination and approval.

3. The expert consultation and discussion is made in two steps: preliminary examination in which experts of same discipline discuss the Report of Feasibility Study on the Formation of State Engineering Technology Centre, and re-examination in which the comprehensive review expert group makes comprehensive discussion and the chief of the Engineering Centre makes on-spot defense. After the re-examination is passed, the project is submitted to the state for examination and approval.

4. Generally, the formation of the Engineering Centre lasts about three years and is implemented according to the objectives and tasks in the Task Document for the Plan of Formation of the State Engineering Technology Research Centre approved by the state.

5. After the formation is completed, the state organizes related authorities and expert groups to made examination and acceptance according to the Task Document for the Plan of Formation of the State Engineering Technology Research Centre is officially awarded to those that have successfully paced the procedures of examination and acceptance. Those failing in the examination and acceptance. Those failing in the examination and acceptance must improve within a specified time and if they still cannot meet the requirement, they may be dismissed.

6. After an Engineering Centre is put into operation, the state will periodically examine its operation and achievement, and give commendation and reward to those meeting the requirement; those continuously failing two times in the examination will be moved from the position of Engineering Centre.