The Seventh National Conference of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) opened in Beijing on Tuesday. To coincide with the conference, Science and Technology Daily published results from a nationwide survey conducted by CAST on the general conditions of scientific and technological research.

CAST boasts a membership of over four million.

CAST initiated the survey in 2002. Over the five-year period, it delved into the conditions of research in the country, and the needs of scientific and technological workers in privately run enterprises, organizations and institutes, and studied the policy environment in underdeveloped western China.

According to the survey, only 0.78 projects per sci-tech person is actually transformed into a product or applied in production; 74.5% of projects fail to come to anything.

In relation to policies, sci-tech personnel are indifferent. However, the survey showed that workers in state-owned enterprises are generally more satisfied with the policies than their counterparts in the private sector.

Funding is another issue that the survey results threw up. Although China has increased its investment in scientific research in recent years, funding is still small compared with developed countries. The channels of funding in China are also very inadequate. In the basic research area, only the National Natural Foundation of China is approved to provide funding for projects not sponsored by the government.

According to He Guoxiang, one of the facilitators of the survey, China lacks the channels for private scientific research. In a modern society, scientific organizations are one of the cornerstones of social development. Their resources are a mixture of government, enterprises and private funds. In China, the lack of investment from enterprises and private organizations limits scientific innovation.

CAST suggests that more needs to be done to encourage the private sector to sponsor and play a more important role in sci-tech research.

The survey also highlights that China's west still lags far behind the east in terms of scientific strength and development. More patents are owned and registered in the east.

Dissatisfaction among sci-tech specialists in the west is the most severe, and those involved in agricultural research are the most unhappy. Reasons cited include low incomes that make it difficult for the underdeveloped west to attract talent, the lack of any inspiration or encouragement and access to relevant information, and a harsh natural environment.

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, May 25, 2006)