High-profile gathering in Beijing's Zhongguancun has grown into global, open event to enhance exchanges

The Zhongguancun Forum, named after Beijing's northwestern Zhongguancun technology business hub, has become a premier event to facilitate dialogue in science and technology between China and the rest of the world, supporting the city's efforts to grow into a global center for scientific and technological innovation, officials and business executives said.

Launched in 2007, the Zhongguancun Forum, or the ZGC Forum, has grown into a "global, comprehensive, open and high-level international event to enhance global innovation in science and technology", its organizers said.

The 2021 session of the event set up 17 branch venues overseas, with thousands of delegates from 66 countries and regions participating.

This year, the forum is scheduled to be held in late November, with the theme of "Open Cooperation for a Shared Future".

As a conference series under the umbrella of the ZGC Forum, the Cell Press-Beijing Conference, which is organized by Cell Press and the Beijing Science and Technology Commission and Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park, has been held four times since 2019.

Cell Press is a publisher of leading primary research and review journals covering the full spectrum of biology. It is owned by Elsevier, a Netherlands-based academic publishing company and a part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

The four sessions of the conference were under the themes of artificial intelligence and brain science, the COVID-19 pandemic, precision oncology, and a net-zero future.

"The conferences invited prominent scholars and leaders from around the world to conduct in-depth discussions on the latest developments in scientific research revolving around different topics," Zhang Yuguo, senior vice-president of RELX, said at a September news conference. "They shared diverse views, which stimulated international and interdisciplinary cooperation."

Han Dan, head of Novo Nordisk's China research and development center, told the Beijing Business Today newspaper: "At the ZGC Forum, Novo Nordisk's China R&D center will be demonstrating to potential partners its open attitude toward cooperation and the actions it has taken. We will be looking for partners at the forum and work with them to innovate and accelerate the industrialization of basic research results so as to provide breakthrough treatments for patients in a more efficient manner."

Lu Jiang, general manager of ZGC International Holding, told Science and Technology Daily that the ZGC Forum gave the company the opportunity to establish a relationship with senior scholars like Ada Yonath, an Israeli crystallographer and a Nobel Prize laureate.

"Although face-to-face communication is not readily accessible during the pandemic, we can take the forum as a starting point to establish contact with research institutes and companies from overseas and work to foster a long-term relationship," Lu said.

As one of the most attractive hubs for innovation and entrepreneurship in China, the Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone, also known as the Zhongguancun Science Park, is committed to fostering a professional and international ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship services that cover whole industrial chains and the entire life cycle of a business.

The Zhongguancun demonstration zone has been making steady progress in turning itself into a gathering place for global talent. The number of returned overseas Chinese students and foreign professionals working in the area has more than doubled in a decade, growing from 24,000 in 2012 to 66,000 in 2021, official statistics show.

More than 300 regional headquarters and R&D centers of multinationals and the branches of over 130 Fortune Global 500 companies are operating in the zone. Listed companies based in the zone have set up nearly 1,000 overseas branches.

Leveraging the ZGC Forum, Beijing will further promote Zhongguancun's pioneering role and make good use of favorable policies to attract top scientists, foreign-funded R&D centers and other high-quality innovation resources from across the globe, officials said.

In addition to the ZGC Forum, the Zhongguancun demonstration zone will seek to ensure that "events are organized every month and every season offers some highlights", Yang Song, deputy division director of international cooperation of the Beijing Science and Technology Commission and administrative commission of Zhongguancun Science Park, said at a September news conference.

Zhongguancun will continue organizing events including the China-Italy Science, Technology and Innovation Week and the Beijing International Academic Season in an effort to build long-term, sustainable mechanisms for cooperation and communication, Yang added.

A staff member of Genfire Innovation Park of CAS, a sci-tech innovation complex affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Zhongguancun area, introduces innovative products to visitors. REN CHAO/XINHUA

An augmented reality-backed immersive 3D simulation system is displayed at an exhibition center in the Zhongguancun Science Park. CHINA DAILY

A visitor uses her smartphone to take photos of an array of names of tech companies displayed on the wall of an exhibition center in the Zhongguancun Science Park. CHINA DAILY

A robot dancer attracts the attention of visitors at the Zhongguancun No 1 science park. CHINA DAILY