Beijing has connected the innovation chain from the budding of original ideas to the landing of hard core results, supported extreme frontier exploration with a layered and classified matrix of large scientific facilities, driven disruptive innovation through institutional and mechanism reform, and strengthened the foundation of young talent through full chain training and long term stable support. In this way, the city is turning its top tier advantages in education, science and talent into a core capacity for continuously producing original results from zero to one, accelerating its rise as a global innovation source and steadily moving toward leadership in core frontier technology tracks worldwide.
In recent years, Beijing has advanced its leading action in basic research, and core science and innovation indicators have continued to rank first nationwide. In 2025, the city's research and development spending intensity remained stable at around 7 percent, and the share of basic research funding exceeded 16 percent. The total number of national key laboratories in Beijing ranked first in the country, the number of active researchers per million people reached 52,000, and its highly cited scientist community remained in the first tier among global cities. By continuously strengthening the three support systems of platforms, institutions and talent, Beijing has steadily consolidated the underlying foundation of original innovation.
The high energy synchrotron radiation source facility matrix in Beijing's Huairou Science City supports extreme exploration
In 2025, research on samples from the far side of the Moon brought back by Chang'e 6 was selected as one of China's top ten scientific advances. This result was achieved by a team from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with multiple partners, relying on the powerful computing capacity of the Earth system numerical simulation device, screening target particles from more than 1,600 micron scale rock fragments, completing age inversion and extraction of ancient magnetic field signals, precisely calculating the formation age of the South Pole Aitken Basin, and capturing key evidence of the early lunar magnetic field rebound. Decoding this time capsule from the far side of the Moon would not have been possible without the hard core support of Beijing's large facility cluster.
Beijing has built the country's densest cluster of major science and technology infrastructure, creating a layered, classified and precisely matched hardware foundation for original innovation and providing solid hardware support for various frontier scientific explorations. As a national level scientific research carrier, the Huairou Comprehensive National Science Center plans its layout around the national strategic frontier and has established 6 major science and technology infrastructure projects, 17 science and education infrastructure projects, and 14 interdisciplinary research platforms, covering five basic research fields: matter, space, life, Earth systems, and information intelligence. It has created a national level scientific research matrix featuring multi facility coordination and interdisciplinary integration.
Within this matrix, the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) located in Huairou Science City is one of the most representative projects in the field of material science. As the world's leading fourth generation synchrotron radiation facility in terms of brightness, since trial operation at the end of 2025, HEPS's 14 beamlines and stations have provided more than 10,000 hours of experimental beam time to more than 90 research institutions, achieving multiple technological breakthroughs in microscopic dynamic observation of materials and precision device testing. Tao Ye, deputy director of the HEPS beamline and station department, said that many extreme experiments that were difficult to carry out in the past can now be conducted, effectively expanding the boundaries of basic research and industrial technology tackling.
A number of national heavyweights, including the Comprehensive Extreme Conditions Experimental Facility, the Meridian Project, and the Multimodal Cross scale Biomedical Imaging Facility, have entered a stage of efficient operation and continuous output of scientific research results. The world's only extreme condition combination platform, the Comprehensive Extreme Conditions Experimental Facility, provides full chain services for frontier exploration from material preparation and physical property characterization to device testing, with cumulative open beam time of 594,000 hours. The Meridian Project, a leader in the global space environment monitoring network, serves 267 research institutions and has supported more than 100 major national space missions, including Tiangong and Chang'e, throughout the process, achieving dual support for scientific research and major national tasks. Cheng Jinguang, deputy director of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the Huairou facility cluster enables multi platform coordination and linkage, effectively compressing research cycles and improving the efficiency of scientific exploration, with the cluster's enabling effect constantly emerging.
Wang Enge and Jiang Ying's team at the School of Physics of Peking University, relying on the Light Element Quantum Materials Interdisciplinary Platform, solved the century old problem of quantum effects of water and ice and won the first prize of the National Natural Science Award. Jiang Ying said that conventional laboratories find it very difficult to verify frontier basic hypotheses, and the open sharing of large facilities provides valuable room for trial and error for high risk, high value original exploration.
In 2025, the International Science and Technology Innovation Center Index showed that Beijing's science center index jumped from eighth globally in 2020 to first in the world, and its hardware support capacity for original innovation ranked among the world's top.
Institutional and mechanism reform drives disruptive innovation
Beijing continues to deepen reform of science and technology institutions and mechanisms, creating an institutional environment suited to frontier exploration, inclusive innovation, and tolerance of trial and error. The Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation has fully implemented a lump sum plus negative list management system for project funds, giving researchers greater autonomy in the use of funds, so that research no longer revolves around budgets and can follow scientific principles in exploration. This has already benefited nearly 1,000 institutions. In response to the difficulty of establishing non consensus topics and supporting obscure exploration, Beijing has established a non consensus project cultivation mechanism featuring expert real name recommendation and due diligence exemption, opening special support channels for niche frontier, controversial innovation and high risk exploration. So far, Beijing has funded 120 non consensus projects, and the youngest project leader is only 27 years old.
The diversified investment system has continued to expand and improve efficiency. Beijing has built a three level joint funding model of city district linkage, government enterprise coordination and social participation, forming a joint fund cluster including models such as national fund municipal fund district government, municipal fund district government enterprise, and municipal fund public welfare foundation. The municipal natural science foundation joint fund has guided 10 districts, more than 80 enterprises and public welfare foundations to contribute, attracting 750 million yuan in external investment in basic research. It has cumulatively condensed more than 2,300 enterprise technical problems into scientific questions and supported nearly 2,000 research teams to take on the challenge. Taking the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation Shunyi New Energy Intelligent Connected Vehicle Innovation Joint Fund as an example, it targets core technologies in intelligent connected vehicles, focusing on frontier directions such as large models and intelligent chips, funding multiple top teams and supporting breakthroughs in common technologies in the new energy vehicle industry.
Full chain training strengthens the talent foundation
Beijing has built a full chain talent training system, moved the threshold of scientific research training earlier, enriched the fertile ground for the growth of young scientific and technological talent, and continuously strengthened its reserve of original innovation talent. Relying on eight key universities including Peking University and Tsinghua University, Beijing has advanced the Strong Foundation Plan, implemented an integrated undergraduate and graduate long cycle training model, and deepened core basic disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology to solidify the research foundation of young students. It has also innovatively launched the Qiyan Plan, opening an independent scientific research project channel for undergraduates at universities across the city, breaking the traditional model in which undergraduate research depends on mentor projects, and encouraging young students to choose topics independently and carry out scientific exploration on their own. So far, the Qiyan Plan has supported thousands of undergraduates from more than ten Beijing universities to devote themselves to basic research, with projects focusing on areas such as next generation information technology, medicine and health. More and more young researchers are taking on major roles and becoming protagonists on the front lines of scientific research.
The 2025 Measures for Capital Universities to Play the Main Force Role in Basic Research proposed accelerating the selection and support of young talent in basic research and cultivating young leading talent. Beijing adheres to both local cultivation and global talent attraction, implementing the Foreign Scholars Huizhi Plan, opening an independent topic selection research channel for foreign scientific and technological talent in Beijing, supporting curiosity driven pure basic research, and continuously attracting global basic research talent to gather in Beijing. This forms a steady and continuous talent reservoir with successive echelons, injecting new momentum into original innovation.
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