Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

FOUR scientists at research institutions and enterprises in Shenzhen received Mayor’s Awards for achievements in scientific and technological innovation.

At a ceremony held Thursday, Zheng Hairong, vice president of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technologies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Lu Xianping, chairman of Chipscreen Biosciences Co. Ltd., won the awards for 2018. Kang Feiyu, vice president of Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, and Chen You, chairman of Shenzhen Tianyuan Dic Information Technology Co. Ltd., won the awards for 2019.

A total of 208 projects were awarded for 2018 and 2019.

Zheng, a world-renowned scientist, made a technological breakthrough in the interaction mechanism between sound waves, magnetic fields and living organisms.

Lu, founder of Chipscreen Biosciences, is a leading scientist who won the first prize in the 2013 National Science Advancement Awards and the gold prize in the 2017 China Patents Awards.

Kang solved the key technological problem in the application of graphene into the lithium ion battery.

The system software developed by Chen and his team broke the monopoly of foreign countries and became the standard for China’s telecommunications industry.

Among the winning projects for 2018 and 2019, 92 and 73 were completed by enterprises, respectively.

Among the 1,392 winners that participated in the projects, the average age was between 39 and 40, and nearly 60 of them were under 40. They were awarded for technological innovations, scientific advancements, patents and standardization.

“Innovation is the driving force for Shenzhen to press ahead and is sure to be the root and soul for Shenzhen to be the vanguard in the new era,” said Shenzhen Party chief Wang Weizhong. He added that the city will seize the historic opportunity, remain firm in innovation and make bigger contributions to the country’s three-step strategy to become an innovation-based country.

In recent years, the city accumulatively built 46 new provincial-level research institutes, including Pengcheng Laboratory, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, and the AI and Digital Economy Laboratory. The city is also home to 11 laboratories named after Nobel laureates, as well as 2,260 innovation carriers and platforms. Based on these platforms, 16 projects from Shenzhen won 2018 National Science and Technology Awards and 34 projects won 2018 Guangdong Science and Technology Awards.

“These technological infrastructures and platforms are playing their roles and making up the shortage in the city in basic researches. I believe they will play bigger roles in the future,” said Pan Feng, dean of the College of Materials of Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, in an interview Thursday.

Between January and November last year, the output of Shenzhen’s high-tech industry was 2.38 trillion yuan (US$342 billion), an increase of 10.41 percent over the same period in 2018. The industrial added value was 819 billion yuan, an increase of 11.52 percent year on year.