Chengdu Hi-tech Zone focused on talent recruitment drive

By the end of 2020, the Chengdu Hi-tech Zone will have invested an accumulated approximately US$730 million to entice and recruit talent from around the globe, while another US$1.46 billion will be added to augment the competitiveness of its innovation system.

Gan Lijun, head of the human resources department at Chengdu Hi-tech Zone, said that the zone will continue reinforcing cooperation with global innovation hubs. In particular, the zone will focus on strengthening an offshore overseas talent base, creating mass entrepreneurship spaces and offshore incubators with overseas "pre-incubation" functionality, as well as fortifying exchanges with educational institutions like Harvard University and Stanford University so as to "promote reform on the science and technology supply side, and attract talent from across the globe".

Source: Sichuan Revotek. Professor Kang speaks at a conference.

World-class talent is based in the zone. In 2016, Sichuan Revotek, led by Professor Kang Yujian, an expert in regenerative medicine, successfully transplanted a 3D-printed stem cell-based abdominal aorta into a rhesus macaque monkey. As of December 1, 2016, Sichuan Revotek has completed 30 vascular implantation experiments with rhesus monkeys. The survival rate was 100%.

In 2016, the Chengdu Hi-tech Zone attracted 12,700 science and technology companies. Of the 83,000 companies it hosts, more than 1,000 are foreign-funded enterprises while 115 are Fortune Global 500 companies. The area has realised about US$23 billion in total trade.

Chengdu Hi-tech Zone is a national independent innovation model area, comprehensive innovation reform trial area and a core zone of the free trade trial area. The Chinese government has also tasked the city of Chengdu with the goal of becoming the science and technology centre of western China.