Domestic development of new scientific instruments

The self-equipment level of scientific instruments is one of the important signs of national independent innovation capability. The tremendous progress made in the domestic instrument industry has benefited from the plan to revitalize the domestic scientific instrument industry. In 2011, the central government invested 1.3 billion yuan for the first time in the field of scientific instrument research and development, and launched special projects for the development of national major scientific instruments and equipment and major national scientific instruments. Beijing, Shanghai and other three provinces and cities and 11 departments such as the Ministry of Education were included in the first batch of pilots. In the past three years, there have been 14 projects recommended by the Science and Technology Commission for the development and application of experimental devices for the evaluation of materials and components in extreme environments. These projects have been approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

In 2012, the Capital Science and Technology Condition Platform Scientific Instruments Development and Cultivation Project was launched in an effort to tap and utilize the advantages of platform resources to actively guide the production, research, and use of various types of entities such as open laboratories, engineering centers, and enterprises to carry out R&D activities and promote the transformation of results. Combine. A total of 203 national, municipal-level key laboratories, and engineering centers of the capital science and technology conditional platform were mobilized, and 227 times such as instrument R&D and production enterprise organizations participated in the cultivation project.

Prior to this, the Capital Science and Technology Resource Service was described as "hungry cattle while tied with grass." How to make the "sleeping" technological innovation potential into practical productivity? The Beijing Science and Technology Commission carried out a series of top-level system designs, focused on setting up the "Capital Science and Technology Conditional Platform", and exploring the "Beijing model" that promotes sharing of scientific and technological resources in the capital and common development. Since June 2009, 38,400 sets (sets) of instruments and equipment worth 19.2 billion yuan on the “Capital Science and Technology Condition Platform” have been open to the public and have promoted the transfer and conversion of more than 500 mature scientific research achievements. 10,670 companies enjoyed various types of services in the Capital Science and Technology Conditions Platform, and the service contract amounted to 2.056 billion yuan.

In 2015, the center of the Capital Science and Technology Condition Detection and Certification Center established a domestic verification and equipment evaluation and comprehensive evaluation service platform. At present, an innovative service platform covering the entire process of the R&D, production, and application of the instrument, and a full-chain innovation service platform, a common technical service platform dedicated to the development of testing methods, standard research services, and various innovative entities has been formed.

At present, China's economy is in a period of “downshifting”. On the one hand, economic downward pressure is further on the other, and on the other hand, it is also a critical period for industrial upgrading and achieving sustainable economic development. Under such a "new normal," what are the challenges faced by the domestic scientific instrument industry? How will a new road be developed?

Situation: Domestic scientific instruments are repeatedly squeezed

For a long time, there has been a trade deficit between domestic and imported instruments. Li Yueguang, deputy director of the China Instrument Industry Association, said that in recent years, domestic instruments and imported instruments have been in a state of trade deficit. From 2012 to 2014, the deficits were 17 billion, 16.6 billion and 17.7 billion, respectively.

“We are eager to buy home-made equipment. The price is definitely more cost-effective, but according to our experience, domestically-made equipment is prone to problems after some time. Therefore, it would rather spend a little more money on imported instruments.” A researcher engaged in virus research People say this. Presumably this is also the common feeling of many instrument users in China.

After years of development, China has established an instrumentation industrial system with a relatively complete range of products and a complete system, and has become the world's fourth and Asia's second instrumentation producer. However, the characteristics of being big but not strong are very prominent. In general, it is still at the low end of the global value chain.

The Chinese Association for Science and Technology has conducted an investigation on domestically produced instruments and imported instruments. In terms of technology, most of the existing domestic middle- and low-end products can replace imported products, but the reliability index (average failure-free operation time) of high-end products is about 1-2 orders of magnitude worse than foreign products. In terms of measurement accuracy, existing domestic products and foreign products generally differ by one order of magnitude.

However, this phenomenon has greatly improved in recent years.

The reporter learned that the gap between domestic scientific instruments and foreign products in price, quality, and performance has been continuously narrowing in the past decade. The China International Scientific Instruments and Laboratory Equipment Exhibition established an independent innovation award in 2006. In the nine selection activities, domestic equipment won 63 gold products and 81 silver products. The award-winning products have obvious innovations and high technology levels. Difficult characteristics, reach or close to the international level.

However, technological progress has not brought about corresponding sales growth. Low-grade homogenization competition, “expulsion” of bidding, and foreign recessive technical barriers have caused the current situation of domestically produced scientific instruments.

Fan Fei, general manager of Beijing Xianfeng Weifeng Technology Development Co., admitted to the reporter that he had met the instructions for “requiring the instrument to support the seven foreign languages” in the bidding document of the prefecture-level city food and drug administration. The bidding document is not written according to actual needs, but is intended to crowd out domestic equipment and deliberately write down specific indicators. Li Yueguang, a full-time deputy director of the China Instrument and Meter Industry Association, believes that in the next few years, China's testing institutions, industrial projects, major science and technology projects, and new drug research will also purchase a large number of imported instruments. If these detection data, process parameters and other information are all mastered abroad, it is not good for China's information security.

Change - the "deep understanding" of scientific instruments out of the laboratory

In the image, scientific instruments are scientific and technological workers' tools used in the laboratory to do scientific research. They are expensive and mysterious, and they are even slightly squeamish, and they are basically not bound by ordinary people.

In recent years, with the increase in market demand and advances in related technologies, various scientific instruments have jumped out of the traditional scope of scientific experimental applications, and have rapidly developed toward new directions such as on-line, on-site applications, and automatic detection of field applications, as well as computer hardware and software systems. When combined, a more precise, accurate, rapid, remote and non-polluting new technology for measurement and control is formed, and the scientific instrument industry is reborn. Miniaturization, networking, and intelligence have become a development direction that scientific instruments cannot ignore.

Smart phone APP, thumb size spectrograph, 3D printing technology, big data era, personalized medicine... The rapid development of modern science and technology has added a fresh and strong vitality to the development of the entire instrument market. China's scientific instrument industry is also more people-oriented and serves people's livelihood. The scientific instruments that were originally cultivated by people who are not well-informed are slowly unveiling their veils and have entered hospitals, supermarkets, and food courts to conduct safety tests on the environment, agricultural products, food, and medicines to ensure people's lives and health.

Domestic rapid detection equipment has played an increasingly important role in China's inspection and quarantine frontline. Cao Yongbin, Director of the Inspection and Quarantine Bureau of Beijing West Railway Station, said that in accordance with actual needs, the Beijing West Railway Station Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, together with General Analysis General Co., Ltd., jointly developed three types of rapid testing equipment, equipped with GPS and GPRS modules, and a tablet computer for rapid detection of terminals. The dynamic monitoring of data effectively solved the problems of difficult reading, difficult recording, and difficult judgment in the fast inspection process on trains.

Food safety detectors, enzyme-linked immunoassay analyzers, frying oil quality detectors, heavy metal detectors, soil moisture detectors, and other detection instruments have been widely used in people's lives, and some of them even have direct access to families. Smartphone ultrasound system allows parents to see their baby at any time; the most innocent ghost electromagnetic field detector is said to be particularly suitable for the old house adventure; the most popular among girls is the skin moisture measurement and UV monitoring, to remind the skin at any time Replenishment and sun protection...

“Actually, for a large number of food quality and safety inspection projects, most of them involve constant and trace detection and analysis, and it is not necessary to use imported instruments.” Researcher Jiang Shiqiang, senior advisor of the Analytical Instrument Branch of the China Instrument and Control Society, said, “For the Chinese scientific instrument industry, The transformation of the industry is actually a good opportunity for development. Enterprises should seize the opportunity to increase R & D efforts, and actively expand the market, so as to change the status quo of imports of scientific instruments dominate the market.

Opportunity - embark on the "beat" of mass innovation

In today's China, technological innovation and institutional innovation dance together, and full innovation with science and technology as the core is in full swing, injecting a powerful new impetus for economic development. In the face of the good opportunity of mass innovation for the masses, the scientific instrument industry is also thinking and acting in order to achieve better development.

The emergence of the GEM has brought about no small development opportunities for the instrument industry. Concentrated, Tianrui, Bohui Innovation, Xianhe Environmental Protection, Xuedilong and other companies that use scientific instruments as the main business went public and obtained more convenient financing channels. Capitalism began to flourish in the field of scientific instruments.

In the capital market, the most dazzling thing is the acquisition of foreign-funded enterprises by Chinese scientific instrument companies. From 2009 to 2015, Chinese instrument companies acquired more than 10 foreign companies in total. Against the image of “weak, scattered, and small” scientific Chinese instrument companies, domestic scientific instrument companies gradually began to compete with foreign companies in the positive market.

Entering 2015, the acquisition of foreign companies by domestic scientific instruments companies has accelerated significantly. The direction of mergers and acquisitions of Chinese instrument companies has undergone some changes. Markets and channels are no longer the most important acquisition content, and more is the pursuit of the world's leading core technologies.

In June 2015, Bohui Innovation wholly acquired Advion, a mass spectrometry company. Advion is a leader in mass spectrometry and microfluidic systems based on LC/MS expertise for decades. The small mass spectrometer developed by the company is the future of experts' predictions. The direction of development is highly praised among the top users at home and abroad.

People in the industry believe that the current increase in acquisitions also shows that some companies have gradually gained the advantages of technology and market after years of accumulation, thus favoring capital. In general, the quality of several recent acquisitions has begun to rise, and Chinese companies have gained a lot. The goal has shifted to a core technology with world-class competition. Use foreign advanced technology to achieve your goal.

At the 2015 annual meeting of the China Instrument and Instrument Society's Analytical Instrumentation Subcommittee 2015, five top domestic well-known scientific instrument companies, including Pudong Universe, Bohui Innovation, Tianmei Technology, Xianhe Environmental Protection, and Haineng Instrument, gathered at the “New Normal Enterprise”. The leading scientific instrumentation industry competition summit forum discussed issues such as the advantages and disadvantages of capital behaviors in promoting the development of enterprises, and shared the thinking on the prospects of the Chinese scientific instrument industry.

The chief executive of an equipment company stated: “Our grassroots-originated companies have accumulated nothing. When the business operations are relatively difficult and the market development opportunities are big, the capital market has given us an opportunity and capital has played a vital role in promoting it. "But some entrepreneurs have expressed concern that "the frighteningness of the capital market lies in the urgent need to make profits and it will be particularly short-sighted. It will not allow us to spend a few years to invest in research and development." "Acquisition is just a means but some things are not buyable." To come, R&D is something that a company looks at."

To force - to boost the leap-forward development of domestic scientific instruments

In order to promote the development of domestic scientific instruments, in recent years the country has launched a series of plans to revitalize the domestic scientific instrument industry, assisting the development of domestic testing instruments and establishing a docking and exchange platform for the development of domestic testing instruments. "In recent years, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance have jointly set up special projects for major national instrument and equipment development. They have invested billions of yuan in succession and launched several batches of projects to promote the localization, industrialization and demonstration of large-scale instruments." The responsible person of the Party Committee stated that with the increase of national policy support, the development environment of China's domestic scientific instruments will be further optimized.

As one of the gathering places of China's scientific instrument industry, Beijing has a number of leading companies in the domestic scientific instrument industry and innovative companies with development potential. Therefore, the Beijing Science and Technology Commission will focus more on the scientific instrument industry, especially the scientific instrument companies with development potential, and provide long-term and sustained support for these enterprises, and provide enterprises with a good "soil" for growing up and strengthening. .

Beijing Municipal Government issued the "Beijing Technology Innovation Action Plan (2014-2017)". The plan revolves around the country's major strategic needs and the strategic positioning of the capital city. It proposes to adhere to the needs of major people's livelihoods, break through a number of key common technologies, cultivate competitive industries, create an ecological environment conducive to innovation, and deepen enterprise-led production, research and development. Collaborative innovation mechanism, around the innovation chain and industrial chain layout innovation resources, deepen the construction of capital science and technology conditional platform and transformation platform of scientific and technological achievements, promote the open and sharing of scientific and technological resources; persist in highlighting innovation orientation, actively carry out basic, strategic, and frontier scientific research Common technology research, increase the reserves of scientific and technological innovation, and actively cultivate leading technologies and strategic emerging industries.

The Center for Detection and Certification of the Capital Science and Technology Condition Platform established by the Beijing Science and Technology Commission is currently working on the verification and comprehensive evaluation of domestic testing equipment and equipment, building a verification and comprehensive evaluation service platform for enterprise products through the Capital Science and Technology Condition Platform, and building services for enterprises. The innovative environment of manufacturers promotes the development of enterprises at the level of social management. Not only for more enterprises and laboratories to build interactive exchanges, learning platform, but also carries the dream of boosting domestic research and development of equipment and equipment, independent innovation and development, opening up a new way to serve the economic and social development of the capital.

The platform establishes an objective, fair, and authoritative third-party testing platform, and concentrates on accrediting localized instruments for various experimental parameters, providing powerful authoritative data for the promotion and application of domestic instruments and equipment, and is expected to further promote the domestic testing instrument industry. development of.

Zheng Huanmin, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, told reporters: “Utilize the laboratory resources of the Capital Science and Technology Conditions Platform, build an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem that serves instrument manufacturers, and do a good job in the joint development of the testing service industry and the instrument R&D industry to create a capital city. The technological conditions platform is a resource-supported system for verification and comprehensive evaluation of domestic testing equipment and equipment, and the development of new economic growth points for equipment and equipment verification services for major needs in the people's livelihood area, serving more enterprises, boosting domestic equipment development, and promoting traditional industries. Upgrading and the nurturing of new industries, promoting the integration of technology and economy."

“The next step we hope to do three combs, the first is to comb instrument companies and their products, encourage companies to actively apply for the development of the instrument, we have an orderly classification of these instruments, according to the needs of the company's main business, market development, The second is to comb the testing agencies' needs for the instruments and their own resources, to sort out the needs of the market and the technical support for key inspections, and to sort out the demand for equipment and equipment to form a traction for the equipment manufacturers. More than 500 key laboratories using the Capital Condition Technology Platform, based on the first two tasks, will sort out the ability of high-end equipment resources to provide instrumentation verification services. These three catalogs are collaboratively coordinated and fully rolled out.” With full confidence, "I think this platform plan is not simply for Beijing-based companies. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and even domestically-made equipment and equipment all over the country, can be served through our platform."