On the afternoon of December 1, Zhou Xudong, deputy secretary of Kunshan Municipal Party Committee and acting mayor of Kunshan, sent the first cross-regional use and cashing of the Yangtze River Delta's science and technology innovation vouchers to Kunshan Fuliwang Precision Machinery & Electronic Co. and Shanghai 114 Industry-University-Research Service Platform, which will cash in 300,000 yuan at the National Technology Transfer Eastern Center. According to the Innovation Service Department of the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission and the Kunshan Municipal Government, the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Vouchers will not only be used in both Shanghai and Kunshan, but will also be redeemed at the Eastern National Technology Transfer Center and the Kunshan Productivity Center, respectively, which is the first of its kind in China.

"Redeeming Innovation Vouchers Without Leaving Shanghai

An innovation voucher is a policy tool that uses financial funds to support enterprises in purchasing science and technology services. It is usually in the form of electronic vouchers, which are applied for and used by enterprises and collected and applied for redemption by service providers.In 2016, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission took the lead in piloting technology transfer innovation vouchers, with service categories covering the whole chain of scientific and technological achievement transformation, and entrusted the operation and management of the National Technology Transfer Eastern Center. By the end of November this year, Shanghai had issued a total of 56,568,560,000 yuan in vouchers and cashed out 47,949,660 yuan; served 500 enterprises, including 457 private enterprises, driving 110 million yuan in investment in innovation and 200 million yuan in savings in R&D costs; boosted the income of service providers by more than 120 million yuan; facilitated technology transactions of more than 1.2 billion yuan and drove industrialization investment of 1.5 billion yuan.

In April this year, Kunshan City Bureau of Science and Technology Director Lu Chenjun and his party visited the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission Innovation Service Division to discuss the launch of the Kunshan-Shanghai technology transfer class innovation coupons, in order to encourage Kunshan enterprises to cooperate with Shanghai science and technology services to promote Shanghai and Kunshan industry, academia and research collaborative innovation. At that time, staff of the SSTC told Lu Chenjun: "There is a precedent for the common use of innovation vouchers in the Yangtze River Delta, but the pass has not been realized because of the bottleneck of financial cross-regional settlement."

Can we explore a compliant and convenient exchange solution to accelerate the integration process in the Yangtze River Delta? Since then, the National Technology Transfer Eastern Center, under the guidance of the Municipal Science and Technology Commission, has met monthly with the leaders of the Kunshan Science and Technology Bureau and the Finance Bureau. The four parties also often discuss issues in WeChat. "Every time we meet, I have to pull up Wang Jianming, deputy director of the Kunshan City Finance Bureau," Lu Chenjun said, "without his participation, we can't engage in fiscal innovation ah." According to Wang Jianming, the parties discussed a variety of exchange options, including: transferring Kunshan's financial funds through local banks to banks in Shanghai for bank settlement; or through Kunshan's state-owned enterprises for bidding and procurement.

In September this year, in order to ensure financial security and meet the needs of enterprises in both cities, the "Shanghai-Kunming Solution" was finally released: the Kunshan Productivity Center (an institution under the Science and Technology Bureau of Kunshan City) will allocate financial funds to the National Technology Transfer Eastern Center (a state-owned enterprise in Shanghai) for regular settlement. Innovation vouchers can be redeemed "without leaving Shanghai".

"The Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Voucher breaks through geographic boundaries and makes it easier for the Eastern Center and its vetted Shanghai quality institutions to serve Kunshan enterprises and accelerate the flow of technological factors in the Yangtze River Delta." Mr. Yan Mingfeng, CEO of the Eastern National Technology Transfer Center, expressed his hope that the "Shanghai-Kunshan Solution" would be replicated in the Yangtze River Delta, so that "Shanghai Services" could help more enterprises in their technological innovation.

Harmonization of standards for four-way interoperability

In recent years, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission has been vigorously cultivating the science and technology service industry, and there are already about 220 high-quality service institutions that have been audited by the Eastern National Technology Transfer Center. These organizations are in dire need of expanding into the Yangtze River Delta market to provide professional services covering the entire chain of technology fruit transfer for enterprises in the region. Similar to the Shanghai Innovation Voucher for Technology Transfer, the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Voucher includes eight major items and 18 sub-items, including results (patent) management, competitive intelligence analysis, technology evaluation, proof of concept, results maturation, technology transfer, talent cultivation, and in-depth demand excavation, as support areas. In terms of subsidy criteria, the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Voucher is also the same as the Shanghai Innovation Voucher: the subsidy ratio is limited to 50%, with a maximum subsidy of 300,000 yuan. In Yan's view, the unification of government support, management and subsidy standards across the region is an important initiative to promote the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

According to Jin Jianhong, Member of the Standing Committee of the Kunshan Municipal Party Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of Kunshan, the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Vouchers have achieved interoperability in four aspects. The first is interoperability of service contents: the contents of the innovation vouchers supported by Kunshan and Shanghai are unified, with the purchase of eight major items and 18 detailed scientific and technological services being the main contents of the innovation vouchers of the two cities at this stage; the second is interoperability of service providers: the two sides have unified the registration standards for service providers, relaxed the restrictions on the place of registration of service providers and supported enterprises of the two cities to procure scientific and technological services in other places; the third is interoperability of service processes: the construction of the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Vouchers has been completed. -The Shanghai Innovation Voucher Comprehensive Service Platform, relying on the experience of the Eastern National Technology Transfer Center in operating and managing innovation vouchers for a long time, will unify the process of issuing, using and encashment of innovation vouchers. It is easier for enterprises to carry out STI activities across regions.

Shanghai institution links up to facilitate industry-university research cooperation

As a beneficiary of the first Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Coupon, the 114 Industry-Academia-Research Service Platform successfully facilitated the cooperation between Fuliwang and Shenyang University of Technology's Associate Professor Zhou Qi's team this year. Earlier this year, Zhou Qi saw on the 114 platform the technical needs of the Taiwan-funded enterprise: to improve the combination of diamond powder and cutting line. As a researcher of diamond grinding wheels, he thought he could give it a try, so he submitted his technical proposal to Fuliwang through the 114 platform. After receiving the enterprise's approval, he came to Kunshan with his postgraduate students and started the R&D in the factory. Now, this industry-university-research cooperation project has yielded very good results. Zhou Qi's team has significantly improved the bonding force between diamond powder and cutting line, and developed a powerful tool for cutting photovoltaic silicon wafers for Fuliwang. As a result of this cooperation project and the whole process management, 50% of the cooperation agreement between Fuliwang and 114 platform, i.e. 300,000 RMB, was subsidized by innovation vouchers.

114 platform founder Shi Zhidong introduced, this year the platform hosted the third China Innovation Challenge (Kunshan), has collected and tapped 847 technical needs of Kunshan enterprises, screening and verifying 246 effective needs, industry-university research pairs close to 30 times, held eight large institutions of industry-university research docking activities, the intention to sign 50. "The launch of the Kunshan-Shanghai Innovation Voucher will encourage Kunshan enterprises to put forward more technical needs, cooperate with researchers from major institutes to carry out collaborative innovation, and turn laboratory results into real productivity."