Zhang Yaoxue, head of the Science and Technology Department of the Ministry of Education, said in Beijing that the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology had selected 15 universities with suitable conditions and different focuses including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Harbin Polytechnic University, and Zhejiang University as pilot sites. These 15 universities are now accelerating the construction of the parks and will be checked by the government before the end of the year.

It is hoped that college high-tech parks will become the most active component of China’s technology innovation system over the next 10 years, adds Zhang. The goals are as follows: to establish 100 fully functional college high-tech parks, of which 50 will also serve as models; to train a large number of innovative talented people and scientific and technological entrepreneurs; and to establish relatively perfect information services and organizational networks for the national college high-tech parks.

According to Zhang, the college high-tech parks are now in the construction stage, so the main tasks at the moment are to enhance the functions of the parks, perfect their innovation environment, improve their operational quality, continuously establish high-tech enterprises, train innovative talents, and form a new economic growth point.

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology will collect whatever information is available in the world and extend all efforts to build college high-tech parks and formulate scientific and standard management and operating systems, thereby turning college high-tech parks into important bases for technological innovation, establishment of high-tech enterprises, training of innovative talents, and building high-tech enterprises and enterprises that will become models of combined production, study, and research.

(Huasheng Monthly (Voice of China))