Chapter 40: New Economic Plan (Part 2)
The new economic plan, apart from people-benefiting projects such as education, housing and healthcare, places the most importance on Lin Feng's proposed top ten technological fields of the new century. As science and technology and economics globalize, international competition shifts towards comprehensive national strength competitions centered around high-tech competition and mainly consisting of economic competition.
During this period, Lin Feng's science and technology plan will strive to comprehensively control and seize the high ground of science and technology in the new era, maintain its technological competitive advantage and emerging industry control advantage. The plan will launch the Human Genome Project, Information Superhighway Plan, Laser and Nanotechnology Plan, etc. At the same time, in order to prevent and combat terrorism and ensure the safety of the island, three biological anti-terrorism plans, namely Biological Monitoring, Biological Sensing and Biological Shield, were successively introduced.
Taiwan's local governments will start implementing the Advanced Technology Plan next year, a science and technology plan managed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs' National Standard Technology Research Institute, which is also the main innovation partner plan. The Advanced Technology Plan was officially launched in 1975. The purpose of the plan is to build a bridge between research laboratories and markets, fill the gap between them, and promote the commercialization and industrialization of research results.
The Advanced Technology Program was prepared to invest in at least 6,000 projects between 1974 and 1984, with funding of up to $2 billion, ranging from $430,000 to $31 million per project. The program involved 1,511 project units and a similar number of sub-project units, most of which were universities and non-profit independent research institutions. According to government regulations, the Advanced Technology Program can only provide project funding in the form of cooperative agreements. The Advanced Technology Program mainly funds high-risk research with commercial benefits and widespread social benefits, and is primarily focused on technological research rather than product development.
Because these R&D risks are too high, or the research results will not bring sufficient natural returns to investors, a single company usually does not invest in such research and development. Other financial institutions, venture capital, angel investors generally do not care about this uncertain early technology. Therefore, advanced technology plans will not replace corresponding private capital investment from civilians, nor will they produce crowding-out effect.
Advanced Technology Program supports a wide range of new technology areas, such as: adaptive learning systems, component software, digital data storage, health care information facilities, microelectronics manufacturing facilities, photonics manufacturing technologies, automotive and printed circuit boards, tissue engineering technologies, biopolymer repair, and DNA diagnostic tools.
These technologies have a broad prospect, but also with higher risks. This means that some of the projects funded by this program may fail. But this can also be seen as proof that the research funded by this program is indeed high-risk and in line with the original intention.
To safeguard the interests of inventors, Lin Feng subsequently submitted a series of bills to the Legislative Yuan as a legislator, including cooperative research bills, technological innovation bills, and technology transfer bills. The overall spirit of these bills is that the ownership of intellectual property rights generated by government-funded research and development projects belongs to the project units. Some specifically stipulate that these intellectual property rights can only be owned by for-profit organizations. The government may use patented or copyrighted research results conditionally free of charge.
In addition, the government retains an intervention power. That is, under certain circumstances, the government has the right to require the project unit or the patent holder or the exclusive patent license holder to grant non-exclusive, partially exclusive or exclusive patent licenses to third parties on reasonable terms. In general, the government does not seek direct economic returns from patents or patent licenses arising from research results, or from commercialization of research results.
The advanced technology plan is the foundation for achieving the top ten scientific and technological fields. Lin Feng's proposed new century top ten scientific and technological fields include (1) material science field. In the new century, from the universe to particles, advances in material science will enable humans to further understand the micro and macro worlds, and understanding of complex world and cosmic origins will also undergo revolutionary changes. Advances in basic research on material science will give rise to a series of new technical principles, and progress in material properties research will undoubtedly provide scientific basis for the development of new materials and new energy sources, and even hope to obtain new means of communication through advances in neutrino and gravitational wave research.
(2) Life Sciences. In the 21st century, life sciences will develop into a new round of natural science revolution and bridge the unbridgeable gap between the physical world and the biological world, making them unified. After humans obtain the full sequence of genomes, the deciphering of human genetic codes will enter a brand-new stage of information extraction. Major disease genes will be discovered, some life-threatening diseases will be treated, the biological basis of human behavior can be explained, and human physiological quality can be improved, leading to revolutionary changes in biotechnology. At the same time, the development of genomics, bioinformatics, and integrative biology will enable humans to understand the mechanisms of major life phenomena such as heredity, development and evolution, growth and aging, metabolism and immunity at the molecular level, as well as the laws of biological diversity succession, thereby connecting and unifying macrobiology and microbiology. Research on life forms and phenomena under extreme environmental conditions is becoming increasingly important.
(3) Earth System Science. In the 21st century, Earth system science will study the overall behavior of the Earth system with a global, unified, holistic and systematic perspective, and on multiple spatial and temporal scales. The breakthrough development of Earth system science will enable humans to better understand the environment they depend on for survival, and more effectively prevent and control the damage caused by sudden disasters to human beings. Digital Earth will become an important feature of Earth science in the new century, driving Earth system science from qualitative description of natural phenomena to quantitative direction.
(4) In the field of neuroscience. Unveiling the mysteries of the human brain, exploring the essence of consciousness and thinking activities, is a dream that humanity has been striving for for many years. In the 21st century, humanity will make breakthrough progress in several major issues in brain science and cognitive neuroscience research. Understanding the organizational structure principle of the brain, through experimentation to study and analyze, leading to new concepts and new ideas about consciousness, grasping the mechanisms of cognitive and intelligent activities, conquering brain diseases, using human brain principles to develop intelligent computers, manufacturing brain-like devices and structures as well as simulating brain information production and processing systems, developing computers that can recognize people's thoughts and behaviors, as well as machines that can understand people's hopes and intentions, thinking and acting like humans.
(V) Energy Science and Technology Field. At present, 70% of the energy consumed by humans comes from fossil fuels. In the 21st century, with the awakening of human environmental awareness and changes in values, humans will continue to pursue a more harmonious way of life with nature. The production of renewable clean energy will be one of the main development directions of energy science in the 21st century, and the energy supply will show a diversified development trend. From the process of human development and utilization of solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, ocean energy, and hydropower and other renewable energies, it is predicted that in the 21st century, 50% of the world's future energy supply will be met by renewable clean energy. In addition, natural gas hydrates with reserves exceeding the total of known oil, coal, and natural gas have broad development prospects.
(6) Materials Science. Materials science has evolved from the study of the relationship between composition, structure, and properties to a comprehensive system study of materials' composition, preparation, structure, processing, and performance, with the notable feature that materials science and technology are inseparable. The core issue in the development of 21st-century materials science and technology is the discovery and development of new advanced materials. There may be significant breakthroughs in several areas: the discovery of superconducting mechanisms will bring about a real breakthrough in superconducting materials; high-performance polymer fibers prepared using DNA technology have excellent mechanical properties that cannot be compared with those of steel and other metal materials; nanomaterials and nanotechnology will create the smallest machines - molecular machines, which can solve biological engineering problems that are currently unsolvable, opening up a new era for biology and technology; intelligent materials will have stronger bionic functions.
(7) Biotechnology. The future development of biotechnology depends on the breadth and depth of technological platforms. It is expected that several new biotechnological platforms will be formed in the future, which will make the development of biotechnology unpredictable. There are already three platforms for biotechnology: DNA recombination, cell culture, and DNA chips, which have achieved considerable results and cultivated new biotechnological industries. It is expected that new platforms such as genomics, biochips, stem cell biology, bioinformatics, and neuroscience will be formed in the new century. In addition to the above five predictable platforms, there may be other new platforms emerging, making the prospects for biotechnology development immeasurable.
(8) Information Technology Field. In the 21st century, information technology will develop in the direction of high integration, high speed, low power consumption, and low cost; computers will develop towards ultra-high speed, miniaturization, parallel processing, and intelligence; communication technology will develop towards fiber-optic, digital, integrated, and networked directions. The development of information technology will fundamentally change the way humans engage in business activities, exchange, entertainment, learning, and even work, while creating a better living environment for humanity, it also closely connects people with each other and with society. For people in the 21st century, the information revolution provides them with endless possibilities, allowing them to break free from restrictive factors such as age, gender, region, culture, and ethnicity, and live a life that is completely different from their ancestors, one that is created and explored according to their own will and ideals.
(9) Space technology field. In the 21st century, humans will continue to massively and deeply explore the solar system, return to the moon with new goals, conduct in-depth inspections of Mars, and mainly explore extraterrestrial life phenomena on Mars, Titan, and Europa. Humans will reach the edge of the solar system for exploration and research activities. Humans will continuously look into the deepest part of the universe to explore the energy mechanism of active galactic nuclei, dark matter, antimatter, black holes, the formation of cosmic structure, galaxy origin, cosmic origin, etc., and continue to explore extraterrestrial civilizations with difficulty.
(10) Ecological and environmental protection. As human civilization advances, humans are increasingly concerned about the survival environment of themselves and their offspring. In the 21st century, ecological and environmental issues will be addressed from molecular to individual organisms, from populations to landscapes, from local time and space to regional, and even larger scales such as continental plates and globally. These issues include: long-term and large-scale positioning research, establishment of a global ecological environment change warning system, restoration and reconstruction of degraded ecosystems, effective management and sustainable development of ecosystems, structure and function of complex ecosystems, ecological safety countermeasures for alien species, environmental pollution control and clean water quality management. The solution to ecological and environmental problems will become more regionalized and globalized.
