A new platform may help deal with chronic duplication and lack of funding in scientific research. The aim of the system is to meet the country's science, technology and social progress development demands by 2010.

The Ministry of Science and Technology released national guidelines to give scientists across the country better research conditions and facilitate the sharing of resources, Vice Minister of Science and Technology Liu Yanhua said on Wednesday at a press conference in Beijing.

The government's focus in the near future will be on building a legislative framework to encourage sharing of data and resources.

Sixteen cabinet departments have already created an inter-ministerial meeting system to build an innovative basic research platform. Twenty-three senior scientists are working as advisers.

Liu said the idea is to address major problems that are creating bottlenecks in basic science research.

China has not had a national blueprint for basic research during the past two decades, he said, which has led to frequent duplication of projects. At the same time, government funding is far from sufficient.

"So it has thus far been difficult for Chinese scientists to make breakthroughs in some key technologies," said Liu.

Liu Chuang, a senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said she has high hopes for the new platform.

Previously, the various research institutes maintained their own records, making it very difficult to search for specific data. Scientists had to pay to use data maintained by other institutes, and it was impossible to buy data because research funds were very limited, she said. Government support under the new platform enables scientists to share data freely.

The SARS outbreak last year and bird flu this year were catalysts for the program, said Liu. The outbreaks sent out a clear warning that more emphasis was needed on scientific innovation.

Sources from the Ministry of Education said China's scientific brain drain can be partly attributed to the country's poor basic research conditions.

The state's long-term scientific plan (2005–2020) is scheduled to be completed later this year and the ministry will begin drafting the national scientific plan for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010) period.

"All this will rely heavily on having an effective basic research platform," said Liu.

The idea for the platform is not entirely new. China started the project a couple of years ago.

In 2002, the government launched the Scientific Data Sharing Program, part of the National Facility Information Infrastructure, to maximize the efficiency of the country's investment in science and technology.

Vice Minister of Science and Technology Cheng Jinpei said that sharing data is vital to sharpening the competitiveness of Chinese researchers and scientists. Inefficient data sharing and duplication of theoretical research have hindered the development of science and technology.

China has built up vast reservoirs of scientific data, most of which is kept on shelves or in archives.

Meanwhile, barriers against sharing remain between different organizations, institutes and research fields.

"Some basic data is just exclusively owned by a single institute and exchanges between research organizations are rare," said Cheng.

(China Daily July 22, 2004)