As Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech at the 20th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the 15th Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the 10th National Congress of China Association for Science and Technology, "Based on the new stage of development, implementing the new development philosophy, building a new development landscape, and promoting high-quality development, we must fully implement the strategy of rejuvenating China through science and education, the strategy of strengthening the country through human resource development, and the strategy of innovation-driven development. We must improve the national innovation system, accelerate the development of China through science and technology, and achieve self-reliance through high-level science and technology." This important speech profoundly clarified a series of major issues for China to achieve self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology in the new stage of development, put forward the goal of "achieving self-reliance and self-improvement in high-level science and technology", and pointed out the direction for China to accelerate the building of a world science and technology power.

A strong science and technology makes a nation strong, and a strong science and technology makes a country strong. The world today is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century at a faster pace. Scientific and technological innovation has become a major battleground in the international strategic game, and competition over the commanding heights of science and technology is fiercer than ever. In order to win the initiative in this competition, independent innovation is indispensable. In view of the new stage of development, the new development concept and the new development pattern, we need more than ever to strengthen independent innovation and, on this basis, strive to achieve self-reliance in high-level science and technology.

To strengthen independent innovation and realize the self-reliance and self-improvement of high-level science and technology, we must strengthen the exploration and utilization of the application value of existing scientific theories in solving major practical problems and devote ourselves to "application innovation". If scientists have national boundaries and technologies have patents, scientific theories are public goods shared by mankind without national boundaries. We can fully study and deeply explore the existing and latest basic scientific theories at home and abroad, and carry out development and application research aiming at the technical and practical problems in China's economic society, industrial development and improvement of people's livelihood, so as to form innovative achievements in technology and knowledge. Since reform and opening-up, China's economic development has been driven by scientific and technological progress. In particular, the huge advantages in the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence are mainly reflected in application innovation. In the future, aiming at the technology "bottleneck" problem, while committing to original innovation, we should not only ignore, despise and give up the huge advantage in application innovation, but also strengthen and highlight the advantage in application innovation, pay attention to the training of application innovation thinking, and improve the ability of application innovation.

To strengthen independent innovation and achieve self-reliance and self-improvement in high-level science and technology, we need to pay more attention to empirical research on the basis of practice and experiment and commit ourselves to "incremental innovation". "Incremental innovation" is to expand, enrich and reform the existing knowledge theories and methods through new practical experience and scientific experiments, so as to form the incremental and independent innovation of scientific knowledge itself. On the one hand, we are faced with a large number of unprecedented new situations and problems, and on the other hand, we have accumulated a large amount of new experience, new data and new methods, which has become a good field for promoting incremental knowledge innovation. To promote "incremental innovation", we should not only find breakthroughs through solid case studies, but also put forward new ideas and methods to form new knowledge increments. And through inductive analysis, combing, summarizing and refining successful experience, and rise to the theoretical height, the formation of innovation increment. In the process of case study and inductive analysis, scientific theories should be promoted to continuously accumulate new knowledge, and on this basis, "incremental innovation" should be realized.

To strengthen independent innovation and achieve self-reliance and self-improvement in high-level science and technology, it is necessary to further promote systematic and collaborative interdisciplinary research and commit to "integrated innovation". When we research and solve new problems, to form a new knowledge increment and gradually accumulated to a certain level, the need for fresh and rich but scattered incremental knowledge systematically comb, overall analysis, collaborative integration, make incremental knowledge systematized, formed from individual to general, from part to whole, by the fusion of integrated and organic elements into the system, So as to promote scientific theory and key technology to achieve integrated innovation.

To strengthen independent innovation and achieve self-reliance in high-level science and technology, we must continue to strengthen basic scientific research and commit ourselves to "paradigm innovation". When the increment of innovative knowledge is promoted to the level of integrated innovation, and continuously promoted to the level of identification concept, important judgment, internal logic, and underlying architecture innovation, the core transformation of theoretical paradigm will be touched, and the original innovation of scientific theory may be realized. To realize the innovation of theoretical paradigm, we need to promote it from the three levels of discipline system, academic system and discourse system. First, we should strengthen basic scientific research, establish and improve a multidisciplinary discipline system, and give full play to the basic theoretical support of the discipline system. Second, based on the local, rooted in the nation, looking at the world, using Chinese discourse to summarize practical experience, create a new conceptual system, and form a research paradigm that is suitable for China's national conditions and with Chinese characteristics; The third is to focus on the integration of various theories and knowledge systems, enhance the integration of theories, and activate and trigger the innovation of scientific research paradigms.

Looking back at the extraordinary years of modern times, China's development has never been easy to achieve. China, a poor and weak country in modern times, has made hard-won achievements in development. Standing at the historical juncture of the two centenary goals, we need innovative thinking more than ever before. This is an important condition for us to strengthen our originality and pioneering efforts in science and technology, win the battle against key and core technologies, and achieve self-reliance and self-reliance in high-level science and technology.

Source: State-owned Assets And Administration Commission of The State Council