Six years ago, when Zhu Jianqiang, director of the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOFM), wanted to have a small lawn in the institute, he went to great lengths to raise the 50,000 yuan (US$6,024) needed.

He eventually gave up in despair.

Now, standing in a meeting room with a Suzhou-garden decor, Zhu proudly declared that his institute, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), plans to launch a major research project on large-scale lasers, at a cost of more than 1 billion yuan (US$121 million) in the next five years.

Zhu's institute is not alone. Some other Shanghai-based institutes affiliated to the CAS have also become major players in various State-level key research programs, thanks to a massive knowledge innovation project.

From mini-satellites and laser equipment for China's moon mission to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), these projects aim to "help China leapfrog into the higher echelons of economic and social development," Chen Zhu, vice-president of the CAS, told US-based The Scientists magazine.

The innovation program was not a moment late - this was the time the CAS discovered its institutions had become somewhat marginalized even in domestic research fields.

"Around the year of 1999, many of us were unsure about our future. Researchers were paid small salaries and did everything they could to get funds for, no matter how small the project," said Zhu.

According to the director, by the year of 1999 or 2000, more than 300 of its 400 doctoral students went to the United States or Japan to work after they graduated, or gave up their doctoral studies at the institute to pursue education in the US.

Wang Jianyu, director of Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the CAS, said: "Every government department had its own research facilities while the capability of Chinese enterprises were far from enough to support the work of all the institutes."

The knowledge innovation program changed the scenario.

In 1999, the CAS headquarters asked major research institutes to review their research targets and focus on fewer objectives which could potentially meet the demands of key national projects.

Each institute head was endowed a special fund of up to several million yuan to attract top talents and as start-up funds. Meanwhile, it was required that by 2005, the headcount at each institute be reduced to one-third of the 1998 levels.

Jiang Xiezhu, a spokesperson for the CAS, said the knowledge innovation project was launched in tandem with the State's rising capacity to launch major scientific and technological programs, such as manned spaceships, upgrading production methods in large enterprises and the initiative to develop the western region.

Mini-satellites

Geng Haiyang, a senior researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), is enjoying the fruits of the knowledge innovation project.

In the mid-1990s, Geng found mini-satellite research was booming in the United States, but was neglected by Chinese institutes.

Although Geng and his colleagues had never done satellite research, he realized the potential by instinct.

"We used to produce many electronic parts for satellites developed by other institutes so we had wide contacts in the sector," Geng told China Daily.

The special fund enabled SIMIT to hire senior experts on satellites; and they tackled key technical problems in mini-satellites, which took two years, and devoted another two years to persuading government departments to develop mini-satellites.

Their efforts paid off. In October 2003, Innovation-I, a mini-satellite weighing only 100 kilograms, was sent into low-altitude orbit to aid telecommunications in mountainous and desolate areas.

The second satellite in the Innovation-I series is now being developed and Geng said the mini-satellites, which cost only about one-eighth of those in the United States, could soon be used for prospecting, space observation and experimental research.

Chinese Apollo

Like SIMIT, more CAS institutes in Shanghai are involved in key State programmes.

Wang's technical physics institute, for instance, is now concentrating its efforts on a laser altimeter to be used in Chang'e Project - China's plan to send astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Consisting of a laser-detecting head and information-processing equipment, the laser altimeter will send laser signals to the moon surface from the Chang'e detector in the moon orbit. After dozens of flights, the laser signal will cover most of the moon surface, enabling Chinese researchers to gauge the shape of the moon surface, the height of the mountains and volcanoes, and the best landing place for moon-landing detectors. According to Wang, the laser altimeter will be followed by a laser-imaging system, which will enable scientists to develop a holograph of the moon.

The Shanghai Institute of Ceramics has contributed heat-and-pollution resistant coats for the Shenzhou series spaceships.

"Space trash and the stress of re-entry can create a thick layer of dust, covering the portholes of the spaceship and preventing astronauts from viewing the outside. After years of experiments, we have developed pollution-free coating for Shenzhou spaceships," said Luo Hongjie, director of the institute.

Using different dilatability indices, the coating can stop space trash and other contaminants from sticking to portholes.

According to Luo, his institute will develop a coating that would enable the whole body of Shenzhou VI remain intact even when it returns to earth.

Other frontiers

The optics and fine mechanics institute focuses on super-strong and super-short laser equipment. The small-scale OPCPA (optical parametric chirped pulse amplification) laser system developed by the institute can produce strong optical energy of 16,700 mega watts within 0.00012 second. The technology, which can be used to explore deep-sea resources and to simulate atomic fusion, was awarded the first prize in the 2004 Annual National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, which was presented by President Hu Jintao in March.

Meanwhile, in life sciences, scientists at CAS' Shanghai institutes have made great strides.

In 1999, eight biological institutes and three life science centres were merged into Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences (SIBS) so that scientists could combine their efforts in basic research while cutting costs at the same time.

Scientists at SIBS have obtained 25 new drug licences in the past five years, including recombinant staphylokinase a protein drug used for cardiac infarction which is the first drug of its kind in the world. Chinese scientists have full intellectual property rights of the drug, quite rare in the pharmaceutical industry dominated by generic drug production.

Xuan Lijiang, a scientist at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, under SIBS, has successfully identified the chemical compounds of red-rooted salvia a TCM against heart diseases in the molecular level.

The effective chemical contents of very few TCM prescriptions can be totally identified in the molecular level.

The licence for a new drug whose clinical trials were completed in mid-2004 based on the compounds of red-rooted salvia is expected to be issued by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) this month.

From Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, scientist Hu Jun says she has isolated a single DNA molecule for the first time in the world.

The isolation of a single DNA molecule can help make clear the function of each gene in the whole series of the human genome, said Hu.

(China Daily June 4, 2005)