Li Lanjuan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and a research team led by Zhang Jianfeng, who founded the Alibaba DAMO Academy, were each awarded a top scientific technology award by the Zhejiang provincial government at the province's award conference for scientific technology on July 17. They are the first-ever recipients of the honor.

The top honor, which includes a 3-million-yuan ($428,400) award, was introduced in 2019 to recognize individuals or teams in Zhejiang province who have made major breakthroughs in scientific research or great contributions towards scientific development. No more than two individuals or teams can be awarded the honor each year.

Li Lanjuan, 73, an epidemiologist and expert from the National Health Commission. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

Li Lanjuan, a renowned epidemiologist, was the inventor of a highly efficient artificial liver and won the special prize at the State Science and Technology Progress Awards in 2017 for her groundbreaking studies of the H7N9 influenza. As a top expert from the National Health Commission, Li had been working in Wuhan, Hubei province, in the battle against the coronavirus outbreak this year.

The Alibaba DAMO Academy is launched at the Computing Conference in Yunqi town, Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, on Oct 11, 2017. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

The other recipient of the top honor was a research team led by Zhang Jianfeng. They built the technical architecture for the "City Brain", a national artificial intelligence innovation platform, and founded the Alibaba DAMO Academy, which is strong in the study of AI.

Apart from the top scientific technology award, Zhejiang also presented 43 natural science awards, 11 technological invention awards, 240 science and technology progress awards, and one award for international cooperation on science and technology. The total prize money for all these awards amounted to 36.9 million yuan ($5.27 million), a record high, with 300,000 yuan and 150,000 yuan for the first prize and second prizes, respectively.

More than half of the awarded programs focused on three research areas: internet applications, health, and new materials. Nearly a quarter of the awarded programs were being undertaken in the Hangzhou West Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, a 224-square-kilometer hub for research institutes and hi-tech firms in western Hangzhou.