Shanghai research program strives to find young academics

31-year-old Liu Chunsen from Fudan University, the youngest researcher selected in Shanghai's "Basic Research Special Zone" program, said he felt so grateful and encouraged to be involved in the program in 2021, the year when he started his teaching career at the university.

"It is my first time to win million-yuan-level financial support, it is so meaningful to a young scientific researcher," said the scholar, who focuses on the design of new structure and storage devices. Starting from a three-member team two years ago, he now has an 11-member team working on frontier technology research.

Liu is not the only scientist that has benefited from the program.

Advocating to the central government's requirement and established in 2021, Shanghai Basic Research Special Zone was the first of its kind in the country, as an innovative measure to accelerate the city's high-quality development of basic research.

The program selects universities and institutes with outstanding advantages in basic research, providing long-term support and allowing scientific researchers to engage in frontier exploration.

The city's science and technology commission, the administrator of the field, has given the Basic Research Special Zone sufficient research autonomy, supporting institutions to select topics, organize team members and use funds independently, according to Song Yang, head of the basic research department of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai, during a media brief on Saturday morning.

The program takes five years per phase and the funding for a single project ranges from one to 10 million yuan ($143,715 to $1.4 million).

At present, the city has two batches of six institutions including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tongji University, East China Normal University, and East China University of Science and Technology to set up basic research special zones.

Song said one focus of the program is to select a batch of courageous and talented young scientists that can scale the heights of research and innovation.

In Fudan University, a total of 37 projects based on the school's advantageous disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, medicine, biology and the environment have been selected, according to Xu Xiaochuang, deputy director of the university's science and technology research institute.

"After the launch of the special zone, we target young researchers under the age of 45 who have original ideas and need strong support. The average age of a project leader is only 37 years old, which is also said to be the age group with the strongest innovative vitality," Xu said.