On the 24th, the 2023 National Highest Science and Technology Award was announced in Beijing, with Academicians Li Deren and Xue Qikun receiving the prestigious honor of the National Highest Science and Technology Award. Concurrently, the first prize of the National Natural Science Award was granted to "Computational Prediction of Topological Electronic Materials," and the first prize of the National Technological Invention Award was awarded to eight scientific and technological achievements, including "Key Technologies and Equipment for Chemical Mechanical Polishing in Integrated Circuits." The special prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award was given to three scientific and technological achievements, such as "Fuxing Hao High-Speed Train," and the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award was awarded to 16 scientific and technological achievements, including "Key Technologies and Applications of the 'Deep Sea No.1' Ultra-Deepwater Atmospheric Field Development Project."

On the 26th of the previous month, the revised "Regulations on National Science and Technology Awards" were promulgated and implemented, with the third article amended to state: The National Science and Technology Awards should adhere to the national strategic orientation and be closely integrated with the country's major strategic needs and medium to long-term scientific and technological development plans. The National Natural Science Award should focus on forward-looking and theoretical aspects, the National Technological Invention Award should emphasize originality and practicality, and the National Science and Technology Progress Award should highlight innovation and efficiency. The scientific and technological achievements that won this time reflect such characteristics.

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Science and technology are the primary productive forces. After years of effort, our country's scientific and technological progress has achieved historical accomplishments. According to the "2023 Global Innovation Index Report" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, our country's innovation capability ranks 12th in the world, and the number of global top 100 science and technology innovation clusters has risen to the first place for the first time.

Scientific and technological innovation is the core element of developing new quality productive forces and is a major task that must be well-executed in the future.

Firstly, scientific and technological innovation cannot be separated from substantial financial investment and requires the participation of all sectors of society. Data shows that in 2023, the total R&D expenditure in our country was 3,327.8 billion yuan, with an R&D input intensity of 2.64%, exceeding the average level of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This total amount and input intensity will continue to grow steadily in the future.

At present, our country's enterprises have become the main body of scientific and technological innovation and are the most active force for innovation, which is a particularly gratifying phenomenon. Among the three main bodies of R&D expenditure, namely enterprises, research institutions, and higher education institutions, the contribution of enterprises accounts for more than 80%. There have also emerged "giants" in R&D investment like Huawei. In 2023, Huawei's R&D investment reached 164.7 billion yuan, accounting for 23.4% of the annual revenue, with a cumulative R&D cost exceeding 1.11 trillion yuan over ten years.

In July 2023, 28 measures to promote the development of the private economy were released, which clearly stated support for private enterprises to participate in major scientific and technological research, and to take the lead in tackling tasks in fields such as industrial software, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, industrial internet, gene and cell medical treatment, and new types of energy storage. This will encourage more Chinese enterprises, especially technology-oriented enterprises, to value and participate in scientific and technological innovation.

The widespread participation of enterprises can not only provide continuous financial support for scientific and technological innovation but also help to better achieve innovation, practicality, and efficiency.Secondly, talent is an important foundation for scientific and technological innovation, and it is necessary to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of scientific researchers.

At present, China has become the country with the richest scientific and technological human resources in the world, with indicators such as the scale of talent resources, scientific and technological human resources, and the number of R&D personnel ranking first globally. The British magazine The Economist recently published an article stating that data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that China now employs more researchers than the United States and the entire European Union combined.

To fully mobilize and utilize the enthusiasm of scientific researchers, in addition to reforming talent evaluation and selection mechanisms, it is equally important to improve the mechanism for the return on scientific and technological achievements. In terms of the latter, it is necessary to promote the decentralization of the rights to use, dispose of, and benefit from scientific and technological achievements, enabling researchers to become wealthy through their achievements; to implement distribution policies oriented towards increasing the value of knowledge, allowing researchers to legally and in accordance with regulations engage in part-time work and entrepreneurship; and to pilot the ownership or long-term use rights of scientific and technological achievements by researchers. This is the "trilogy" for implementing the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Furthermore, it is important to value the industrial application of scientific and technological innovation achievements and to quickly form scale advantages and leading advantages.

Data indicates that in 2023, China's production of "new three items" such as new energy vehicles, solar cells, and automotive lithium-ion power batteries grew rapidly, with year-on-year increases of 30.3%, 54.0%, and 22.8%, respectively. The export value of the "new three items" also broke through the trillion yuan mark for the first time, with a growth rate of 29.9%. These are the results of scientific and technological innovation achievements promoting the high-end, large-scale, and leading development of industries.

Taking Academician Xue Qikun, who received the prestigious national highest scientific and technological award, as an example, he led his team to experimentally observe the quantum anomalous Hall effect for the first time and discovered enhanced high-temperature superconductivity at interfaces in heterojunction systems, opening up a new direction for international high-temperature superconductivity research. These have strong prospects for industrial application and can occupy a leading position in the industry.

In summary, in the field of scientific and technological innovation, forward-looking, theoretical, original, practical, innovative, and beneficial are the basic requirements for the country to encourage and reward scientific and technological progress, and are also the direction of effort for researchers. A high-quality and highly motivated team of scientific and technological innovation talents is the foundation, continuous, comprehensive, and societal investment is the guarantee, and the efficient application of scientific and technological innovation achievements is the direction. All of these rely on further deepening reforms in the scientific research field to achieve.