What role do universities play in the development of new productive forces in the new era? The University Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Promotion Conference (hereinafter referred to as the "Promotion Conference"), with this as the main theme for discussion, will be held at Beijing University of Technology from April 27th to 29th.
As the organizer of the Promotion Conference, Beijing University of Technology has been continuously exploring in the field of technology transfer in recent years, leveraging the advantages of the school's characteristic disciplines to form a unique mode of achievement transformation. On April 7th, reporters from China Science Daily visited Beijing University of Technology to explore the stories of technology transfer from laboratories to the market.
"Taking the lead in promoting" courageous shoulders responsibilities
"The upcoming Promotion Conference will connect the front-end innovative scientific and technological research and the back-end industrialization of achievements, promote the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, facilitate the deepening of comprehensive reform in education and technology talent, and jointly shape new development dynamics and advantages." Chen Shujun, member of the Party Committee and Vice President of Beijing University of Technology, introduced the relevant situation of the Promotion Conference to China Science Daily.
Chen Shujun stated that this year's Promotion Conference will focus on the exchange of scientific and technological achievements in six major fields: future information, future health, future manufacturing, future energy, future materials, and future space.
One year ago, at the Technology Innovation Achievement Transformation Promotion Conference held at Beijing University of Technology, Associate Professor Ji Shutin's team from the School of Mechanical and Energy Engineering cooperated with Beijing Zhitong Precision Transmission Technology Co., Ltd. to jointly develop and produce cycloid gear hobbing machines.
It is understood that in the industrial production lines in China, industrial robots that can shoulder heavy responsibilities often need to bear loads of more than 50 kilograms, and the elbow joints of these "pillars" must use Rotary Vector (RV) reducers. Ji Shutin introduced that cycloid gears are the core components of RV reducers, and their production has long relied on foreign machine tools.
After understanding the demands of the enterprise in detail, Ji Shutin's team learned that the difficulty of domesticating high-precision cycloid gears lies in the design of tooling for machine tools, and major domestic enterprises still lack the ability to independently design such tooling.
In response to this problem, Ji Shutin's team challenged the cycloid gear manufacturing process and successfully developed tools for processing high-precision cycloid gears. They established an original high-precision cycloid gear processing technology and a matching tool profile inspection method, relying on domestically produced machine tools.
"After factory inspection, the precision of the cycloid gears processed by this set of technology meets the requirements, and the tooth profile error is kept within 4 micrometers." Ji Shutin said, "We have reduced the production cost of high-precision cycloid gears by two-thirds and increased production efficiency by 2 to 3 times."
Beijing Zhitong Precision Transmission Technology Co., Ltd. paid 10 million CNY in research funding for this technology to support Ji Shutin's team's research and development. Currently, this technology has been put into factory application.
This case is also a typical example of Beijing University of Technology focusing on the high-end and sophisticated industries in Beijing, focusing on the advantages of the school's engineering disciplines, and implementing organized scientific research through the "taking the lead" approach. An Quanfu, Executive Deputy Dean of the Institute of Science and Technology Development of Beijing University of Technology, said, "We will also leverage the geographical advantages of Beijing University of Technology, take innovative platforms as traction, actively undertake major strategic needs of Beijing, and regional industrial planning."
Reform of the "three rights" demonstrates effectiveness
In recent years, Beijing Municipality has actively implemented relevant national laws and regulations, promoted pilot reforms in advance, continuously strengthened the construction of policies and systems for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, successively introduced local regulations and policies such as the "Beijing Municipal Regulations on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements," and took the lead in implementing the reform of the "three rights" of disposal, use, and benefits of scientific and technological achievements.
An Quanfu introduced that as one of the first batch of universities in Beijing to pilot the granting of ownership or long-term use rights to scientific research personnel for their job-related scientific and technological achievements, Beijing University of Technology has formulated a management mechanism of "granting ownership and incentives," strengthening incentive mechanisms for all subjects during the empowerment reform process. In addition, the school has increased the proportion of rewards allocated to scientific research personnel, with gradients of not less than 80% for licensing and transfer, and not less than 75% for equity participation.
The team led by Qin Wenbin, a researcher at the School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering of Beijing University of Technology, is one of the beneficiaries of the reform.
Qin Wenbin answers journalists' questions. Photo by Shen Chunlei.
From September to December 2021, Qin Wenbin's team completed 11 laser technology-related patents in accordance with the school's technology transformation process, including patent evaluation, empowerment change, and valuation for equity, and established a disciplinary company—Beijing Institute of Technology Asia Core Optoelectronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as BIT Asia Core). In February 2022, BIT Asia Core received a 15 million CNY angel investment.
According to reports, since 2000, the Institute of Advanced Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technology of the School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering of Beijing University of Technology has successively made breakthroughs in key technologies of the entire industry chain such as high-brightness semiconductor laser chip epitaxy and preparation, device packaging, beam shaping and synthesis, optical fiber coupling, and system integration and engineering in high-power semiconductor laser technology research, realizing the national production of lasers. It has obtained more than 60 patents, one second prize of national scientific and technological progress, and one third prize of national defense scientific and technological progress.
"We are also the first case in Beijing to adopt the pilot policy of patent empowerment reform, transforming scientific and technological achievements through the method of patent valuation for equity and landing in Beijing enterprises," said Qin Wenbin. In May 2022, BIT Asia Core received a 1 million CNY special award for patent transformation from the Municipal Intellectual Property Office, and was approved as a "national high-tech enterprise" in 2023.
Officials from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Zhongguancun Management Committee stated that in order to give full play to the role of the Zhongguancun Demonstration Zone as a "test field" for pioneering reforms, national and municipal departments have issued more than 50 supporting policies, including major policies such as the pilot of basic research tax incentives, "use first, pay later" for scientific and technological achievements, and separate management of official scientific and technological achievements, promoting the ability to transform scientific and technological achievements.
Original achievements landing and transformation
Traditionally, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements from basic research to industry faces several "death valleys", including both original innovation and industrialization landing difficulties.
Professor Ma Xuemei from the School of Chemistry and Life Sciences of Beijing University of Technology has been deeply engaged in hydrogen medical basic research and achievement transformation for 10 years. During this period, she and her team have achieved multiple breakthroughs in the basic theories of hydrogen biology mechanisms, and several clinical studies are underway.
In the field of trauma repair and stem cell regenerative medicine research, Ma Xuemei's team found that hydrogen can activate the wound's own collagen and other extracellular matrix accumulation cells, promote the activation of autologous stem cells, enhance the repair function of wound tissues, and create a natural moist healing environment, alleviating the body's inflammation storm, promoting comprehensive repair of blood vessels, nerves, and muscle tissues, thus achieving rapid epithelialization and scarless healing of various wounds.
Ma Xuemei said, "Our team proposed the concept of 'hydrogen medical aesthetics' and successfully developed a series of original hydrogen dressings for medical aesthetics, opening up new directions in high-end cosmetics and medical aesthetic dressing fields, and achieving breakthroughs in original innovation."
Ma Xuemei's team also applies artificial intelligence platforms to multi-omics analysis, imaging omics, and case omics research. She explained, "Based on the microfluidic array spatial transcriptome sequencing technology, we have realized efficient visualization and quantitative analysis of gene expression on tissue sections, with sequencing quality comparable to that abroad, but with greatly reduced technical operation difficulty and testing costs."
Regarding the transformation of hydrogen energy achievements, Beijing University of Technology and Daxing District are building the Beijing University of Technology Daxing Hydrogen Energy Production-Education Integration Base, mainly carrying out frontier basic research and concept verification in hydrogen energy production, storage, transportation, utilization, and full-life cycle evaluation, as well as innovative incubation and enterprise landing services, to create a world-class new research and development institution.
