China Focus: China rolls out comprehensive measures to foster young scientific talent

NANJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The 2025 China Youth May Fourth Medal honor was recently awarded to 30 individuals and 30 groups for making outstanding contributions, with sci-tech professionals accounting for a significant and growing share of recipients, showcasing the dynamism of China's young scientific talent.

Recipients this year include Gui Haichao, an astronaut who served as a payload expert on the Shenzhou-16 mission, and Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Technology, who made breakthroughs in the robotic technology field. The 2025 list also features researchers such as Du Lingjie, whose team for the first time presented experimental evidence of a graviton-like particle called chiral graviton modes.

Du comes from the School of Physics, Nanjing University, in east China's Jiangsu Province. The findings presented by Du and his team were published in the journal Nature in 2024, marking the first experimental substantiation of the concept of gravitons, posited by pioneering works in quantum gravity since the 1930s.

As this study demanded costly and specialized equipment to operate in extremely low temperatures and strong magnetic fields, the research team once found itself in a budget crisis.

A lifeline came from the Jiangsu provincial natural science foundation, which had established a special funding channel for early-career researchers. After expert reviews of his efforts, Du secured 3 million yuan (about 416,586 U.S. dollars) in project funding, resolving the team's financial difficulties.

"Early-career researchers face critical funding gaps despite the transformative potential of their research," said Sun Jian, vice director of Nanjing University's Office of Science and Technology.

In recent years, Jiangsu Province has significantly boosted its support for early-career scientists, increasing both project allocations and financial grants -- while eliminating application quotas in physics and applied mathematics and other fields.

To incentivize innovation, a special funding channel for non-consensus research has been established, supporting projects that challenge conventional scientific paradigms. Once general objectives are approved, the funding channel grants the relevant research team full autonomy in terms of experimental design and budget execution.

This mechanism minimizes the burden of operational management for scientists and maximizes intellectual freedom for groundbreaking discoveries, Sun added.

While easing financial concerns faced by fundamental researchers, China has simultaneously bolstered efforts to commercialize applied research -- ensuring that laboratory breakthroughs translate into tangible societal and economic gains while guaranteeing that scientists can benefit from the fruits of their applied work.

Taking drug development as an example. This process requires rigorous testing, leading-edge infrastructure and specialized industrial services. To empower medical researchers to translate theoretical achievements into tangible clinical applications, China's Ministry of Education and local governments in Jiangsu have established several biomedical innovation centers to facilitate related development. These centers provide research equipment leasing and other services, including intellectual property protection and funding applications.

To further lower the risks in commercialization for research institutions and businesses, the innovation center in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu has creatively partnered with an insurer to launch an insurance program, which covers losses arising from failed technology transfers, patent disputes, and other risks.

Lin Yuhui, a 36-year-old associate professor at Nanjing Medical University, took part in this program through a stroke medication project. "Such institutional innovation empowers young scientists to focus on research and entrust commercialization to market forces, and provides financial incentives for our work," said Lin.

Many local governments across China are increasing the benefits scientific researchers can derive from transforming scientific research into practical outcomes -- thereby encouraging the commercialization of research.

Central China's Hubei Province has introduced a policy requiring that at least 70 percent of net income or equity from commercializing scientific breakthroughs should be allocated to the researchers or teams behind them.

East China metropolis, Shanghai, aims to achieve 100 billion yuan in cumulative technology commercialization contracts across public research institutions by 2027, while also embedding tech transaction services into Yangtze River Delta integration strategy.

Over the past several years, the central government has consistently emphasized support for young scientists and the need to give them important responsibilities in government work reports.

As part of this push to develop young scientists, China has introduced a series of policies, such as requiring researchers aged under 40 to fill at least half of leading or core roles in major science and technology projects. Meanwhile, the government requires setting aside over 45 percent of projects in the National Natural Science Foundation of China for early-career scientists, targeting pioneering work in emerging fields and interdisciplinary breakthroughs.

"While research funding and equipment have been improved, the spirit of truth-seeking has persisted across generations of scientists. Today's young researchers are not only passionate and innovative but also committed to upholding this spirit, thereby continuing to explore and pioneer new frontiers in technology," said Zhang Jingyang, a professor at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. ■