Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory Explores A New Path Of "Production, Teaching And Research": Across The Death Valley From Laboratory To Production Line

On the morning of November 27, at Hyatt Songshan Lake Hotel in Dongguan, 16 innovative enterprises took their projects with outstanding technical advantages to roadshow at the Songshan Lake new materials summit, expounding their technical strength and imagining the market prospect. The scene was hot, and the two roadshow halls were full of people.

Interestingly, one of the organizers of this summit is a scientific research laboratory, Dongguan Songshan Lake materials laboratory. Chen Dongmin, who is sitting on the stage and listening carefully to the roadshow, is the executive deputy director of the laboratory. His titles known to more people are semiconductor scientist and former president of Industrial Technology Research Institute of Peking University.

But now Chen Dongmin spends most of his time in Dongguan, because it is the most potential new material R & D base in South China. Wang Enge, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, served as the chairman of the Songshan Lake materials laboratory. He disclosed that at present, the laboratory has introduced nearly 800 talents of all kinds, including 10 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has undertaken 46 projects including the National Natural Science Foundation and the national key R & D programs. What's more, the most special feature of this laboratory lies in the whole chain of R & D from frontier basic research to industrial technology transformation. Since its establishment, it has undertaken the mission of exploring new models and exploring new ways for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

"To explore the significance of this achievement transformation is not only to find several industries in Songshan Lake or Dongguan, but also to explore a more efficient transformation path with Chinese characteristics." Chen Dongmin told the 21st century economic reporter that the cooperation between the laboratory and the State Investment Corporation is not only an investment, but also of multi-level and multi-dimensional value.

Chen Dongmin refers to "SDIC", which is another sponsor of the summit, namely, China Development and Investment Group Co., Ltd. In recent years, Mr. Bai Guotao, the chairman of the board of directors, has set up more than 200 enterprises in the field of joint investment. After the 14th Five Year Plan period, SDIC will become a strategic emerging industry, especially in the new material industry, and actively cultivate invisible champions with key and original technologies and expertise. However, innovation is a systematic project. Only when scientific and technological innovation and institutional innovation are driven by two wheels, can we get twice the result with half the effort. Therefore, it is expected that the strategic cooperation between the state investment and the laboratory will be promoted immediately after the "strategic dialogue between the state investment and the laboratory" will be set up in August.

"The industrial chain environment in Dawan district is good and the system is flexible." Huang Xuejie, a lithium battery expert and deputy director of Songshan Lake materials laboratory, is optimistic about the future of the laboratory. At this time, it is also at the take-off stage of new material investment boom. Yuan Baocheng, vice chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference, disclosed that the scale of the new material industry in Guangdong Province is about 50 billion yuan. According to the new material industry plan issued by the government, it is expected to reach 100 billion yuan by 2025.

In Dongguan, Guangdong Province, researchers are doing experiments in the material R & D Laboratory of Songshan Lake materials laboratory. -Visual China

New path of achievement transformation

When it comes to Dongguan, most people's first impression is the city of foreign trade and manufacturing. Can you imagine that in the near future, Dongguan will become the leading scientific research center in China?

The change comes from the Songshan Lake in the southeast corner of Dongguan. It was originally a large natural reservoir located in Dalang Town, Dongguan City. The government divided Dalingshan, Liaobu and Dalang towns along the edge of Songshan Lake by taking the lake as the center, and re combined with the lake area to form a new national high-tech Industrial Development Zone, namely Songshan Lake High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (referred to as Songshan Lake).

As of 2019, Songshan Lake has attracted about 8590 enterprises to settle in, including Huawei, easmart, Shengyi technology, wanderer, Dajiang, etc., with an output value of more than 400 billion yuan. In 2019, the GDP of Songshan Lake high tech Industrial Development Zone increased by 11% year-on-year.

People's eyes are often attracted by big companies such as Huawei, but they don't notice that a number of great people came to Songshan Lake in 2018. Academician Wang Enge, Academician Wang Weihua, academician Zhao Zhongxian and other top scientists went to Songshan Lake for innovation and entrepreneurship, and established Songshan Lake materials laboratory. This is one of the first batch of four laboratories in Guangdong Province. The Institute of physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is one of the first batch of laboratories in Guangdong Province.

Wang Enge said that at present, the laboratory has introduced nearly 800 talents of all kinds, including 10 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has undertaken 46 projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation and the national key R & D plan. The total project funding is about 340 million yuan. It has introduced 24 innovative model factory teams, and is carrying out in-depth industrialization docking with many famous domestic enterprises. He said that the layout of Songshan Lake has four core plates, namely, frontier scientific research, public technology platform and large scientific devices, innovation model factory and cross science center of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, which will form a whole chain innovation mode of "frontier basic research → applied basic research → industrial technology research → industrial transformation".

Huang Xuejie revealed to reporters that the Songshan Lake material laboratory will be built into a national material laboratory south base. In fact, there is no national laboratory for new materials research, and Songshan Lake is expected to win the first prize. If so, after Beijing, Shanghai, Hefei and Shenzhen, the title of national laboratory will fall to Dongguan, which will undoubtedly greatly improve the scientific research level and talent attraction ability of Dongguan.

This is obviously beneficial to Dongguan, so why are the scientists? For example, for scientists such as Wang Enge, Wang Weihua, Chen Dongmin and Huang Xuejie, the original scientific research conditions in Beijing have been considered superior. Why do they want to go to Dongguan, a "desert of scientific research", to start over again?

Huang Xuejie disclosed to reporters that starting from the model factory plate, through exploring a new path for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, we will first attract scientists with better achievements and teams. The scientific research cycle of the material industry is quite long, and the things that the researchers have worked hard to produce are likely to be hard to be accepted by the market. Huang Xuejie thinks that scientific research must be close to the market and meet each other's needs, which is a benign transformation path. After the gathering of more than 20 scientists whose main task is to transform achievements, this year the platform has also been partially completed and opened. With the Talent Gathering and scientific research conditions, more and more frontier basic research scientists at home and abroad have begun to compete for research posts in the materials laboratory, and the social influence and popularity of the laboratory have risen.

After the selection of Dongguan, many enterprises have made great efforts to manufacture new materials. Liang Weidong, Secretary of the CPC Dongguan Municipal Committee, said that the city has formed a relatively complete manufacturing industry system covering more than 30 industries and more than 60000 products. The number of various industries, enterprises and national high-tech enterprises ranks second in China's prefecture level cities. It has trade relations with more than 200 countries in the world, and more than 10 kinds of products account for more than 10% of the international market. In 2019, the city's GDP will reach 948.25 billion yuan, ranking the top 20 in China and ranking first in the Pearl River Delta.

"The laboratory is open here, and from time to time, people from the industry will come and walk around. If you look at it, you can see several projects and come up with new ideas." Huang Xuejie said.

More importantly, the mechanism here is quite flexible. It is reported that the Dongguan municipal government supports the implementation of a new management system and operation mechanism in line with the international innovation law, and gives the material laboratory autonomy in the aspects of research direction selection, scientific research project approval, technical route adjustment, talent introduction and training, title evaluation, scientific research achievements disposal and fund use.

Under the cultivation of this new mechanism, Wang Enge disclosed that at present, 22 industrialization companies have been established in 24 innovative model factory teams of the laboratory, and the "Songhu wood" Industrial Development Center was established at the beginning of this month, which has taken a key step to promote the industrialization of new material scientific and technological achievements.

Across the valley of death

If we think that if the laboratory is built in the place where manufacturing enterprises gather, we can promote scientific and technological personnel to make achievements.

"Material research needs a long process. From basic research to the application of achievements, there is often a" Death Valley ", which makes it difficult for many research results to produce due benefits Chen Dongmin drew a picture and explained to reporters that tens of thousands of new materials are patented every year, but few are truly industrialized because the transformation of achievements has to stand through a valley of death. Researchers are generally good at the basic research and application research stage, and the follow-up work of product development and industrial production is heavy, which is not suitable for intervention. However, enterprises have the instinct to pursue profit maximization and are unwilling to bear many risks in the application of scientific and technological achievements. They will not easily touch the stage before product prototype and system test. Therefore, the technology development stage between the end of scientific research funds and the entry of venture capital often becomes the "death Valley" of scientific research achievements.

"We hope to build an iron bridge on the death valley where scientific and technological achievements are transferred to industrialization," Chen Dongmin said. The role of the laboratory is to select the most worthwhile industrialization projects among thousands of new material patents, provide scientific research funds, continue to incubate projects, and do a good job in related cumbersome services, and send these projects to the angel round financing stage. "We can also call the angel mother wheel before the angel wheel of project financing." Huang Xuejie said with a smile.

However, the laboratory itself, after all, has limited financial strength and financing capacity. On August 19, 2020, Songshan Lake materials laboratory signed a strategic cooperation agreement with SDIC to jointly explore the cooperation mode of "scientific research, industry and capital integration development" in the field of new materials.

As the only investment holding company in central enterprises, SDIC has made remarkable achievements in prospective strategic industrial investment in recent years. As a holding forward-looking strategic emerging industry investment platform, its China state investment high tech Industry Investment Co., Ltd. actively manages a fund scale of nearly 150 billion yuan.

Most importantly, Zhong Guodong, deputy general manager of SDIC, revealed that SDIC has natural material genes. In 1988, the state reformed the investment and financing system and established six major investment companies including raw materials investment company. In 1994, in the second investment system reform, six major investment companies were merged to form the State Investment Corporation with operational assets. After its establishment, materials has always been one of the main businesses of SDIC, with many professional teams working in the field.

Up to now, SDIC has invested nearly 10 billion yuan in the field of new materials, of which the fund investment is 6.4 billion yuan, accounting for 12% of the total amount invested. More than 20 sub funds have been set up to invest in more than 200 new material enterprises. In the past, the investment of SDIC in the field of new materials focused on the cultivation and opening up of the industrial chain, and also focused on key technologies to solve the "neck sticking" problem.

In the field of integrated circuits and semiconductors, the investment idea of SDIC is also along the demand of the industrial chain, "the purpose is to play the strategic and guiding role of the state-owned fund, and support the major needs of national innovation and development." Zhong Guodong said.

Bai Tao also said that in the "14th five year plan" period, the SDIC will focus on increasing the forward-looking research and cultivation of the new material industry, help solve the "neck sticking" problem, increase the investment in early-stage risk funds, help the development of start-up technological innovation enterprises, strengthen the holding investment, integrate upstream and downstream industries around the new material industry chain, and help improve the integrity of the industrial chain and supply chain.

Both sides are looking forward to the future, and the "14th five year plan" has clearly proposed that we should focus on the development of nine strategic emerging industries such as new materials. "The next five years will be the five years of great change and development of the new materials industry," Wang said. In this leap forward process, how to speed up the transformation of scientific research achievements from samples to products and then to commodities is the core key. "The transformation of scientific and technological achievements is the result of the joint action of talents, scientific research, funds, information, market and other factors. It requires the close cooperation of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and investors, as well as the joint participation of scientific research institutions, government departments, enterprises and financial institutions. None of them is indispensable." Wang Enge said that in order to connect the whole elements, process and chain of the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, the State Investment Corporation, the laboratory and the Dongguan Municipal Government jointly held the Songshan Lake new materials summit, hoping to build a dialogue platform of "scientific research industry capital" in the form of "Forum + roadshow".

In fact, capital has long been ready for new materials. Zhong Guodong provided a set of data. In 2011, the output value of the whole new material industry was 0.8 trillion yuan, reaching 1.8 trillion yuan by 2015, 4.5 trillion yuan last year, and expected to reach 6 trillion yuan this year. The average annual compound growth rate reached 21.2%, with a significant growth rate. In the A-share market, there are 478 enterprises in the new material industry, accounting for about 20% of the total number of A-share listed companies. Among the new listed enterprises since last year, there are 49 new material enterprises, accounting for about 15%. The total amount of IPO Financing is about 50 billion yuan, accounting for 12.5%. The market value of the top five enterprises, such as Ningde times and Wanhua chemical, has approached or exceeded 100 billion yuan. Moreover, in recent years, the number and amount of investment in the field of new materials have remained high, reaching 115 in 2017 and 15.8 billion yuan in 2018, respectively, reaching a record high.

On the spot of the summit, the reporter also saw that dozens of investment institutions participated in the summit and roadshow, closely contacted with project negotiations. During the forum, the national new materials venture capital service alliance was launched and the Songshan Lake new materials venture capital fund was established. Zhong Guodong said that the fund will focus on Songshan Lake material laboratory, as well as important projects in Dongguan and even Dawan District, and help break through the bottleneck of transformation from frontier basic research to industrial landing through investment.