Make good use of "two hands" to promote the integration of four chains

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed during his recent inspection in Hunan that we should strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, promote the deep integration of the innovation chain, industry chain, capital chain and talent chain, and accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity. At a time when global science and technology and industrial competition are becoming increasingly fierce, promoting the deep integration of "four chains" is an important path and inevitable choice for China to realize taking enterprises as the main body of scientific innovation, improve the overall efficiency of innovation, and promote the self-reliance of high-level science and technology, which must be highly valued.

The process of modern economic growth shows that technology, capital, talent and other factors are endogenous variables that determine growth. The enterprise is the natural carrier to maximize the aggregation and release the vitality of elements. In this sense, to promote the deep integration of the "four chains" is to allow all kinds of innovation elements to flow fully in the national unified market, and to gather in enterprises, so as to smooth the channel from strong science and technology to strong enterprises and strong economy.

However, if there are different degrees of disconnection between the "four chains", it is bound to affect the role of the main body of enterprise innovation. For example, the supply of scientific research does not match the needs of the industry. On the one hand, the effective amount of domestic invention patents ranks first in the world, and on the other hand, the patent industrialization rate of universities is far lower than the international advanced level. The gap between the two shows that a considerable number of innovation factors have not been able to enter the industrial sector smoothly, bringing about a substantial increase in productivity.

The integration of "four chains" is also a problem of how to efficiently allocate the production factors of each chain. The mechanism of resource allocation is not perfect, and the elements are naturally difficult to circulate. The key to break through the blockages is to give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, while giving better play to the role of the government, making good use of the "two hands" of the effective market and the promising government.

On the one hand, enterprises are the most sensitive to market demand and the most willing to upgrade technology, which is a key bridge to integrate the "four chains" and collaborate with industry, university and research. To strengthen the innovation chain to support the industrial chain, we should give full play to the role of "chain owners" of innovative enterprises, especially the leading scientific and technological enterprises, and support "chain owners" to bravely undertake major national science and technology strategic projects; Through such modes as "leading enterprises set questions and scientific research institutions answer questions", we will promote "order based" R&D and produce more patents that meet the needs of the industry. To promote the capital chain to connect with the industrial chain, we should guide social funds to "invest in early and small investment in science and technology". For start-ups with difficulty in obtaining bank credit, improve the exit mechanism of angel capital, venture capital and industrial capital, improve the tolerance rate of state-owned investment funds, and develop multi-level capital markets.

On the other hand, the establishment of an innovation system with enterprises as the main body does not mean that the government "lets go". On the contrary, the government should do everything possible to create conditions for enterprises with innovative ability to use factors and improve incentive mechanisms. For example, the public nature of basic research is obvious, which depends more on government investment; It is also necessary to improve the diversified investment mechanism of "government+enterprise" to guide enterprises to deploy basic research prospectively. For another example, SMEs generally lack the ability and funds to break through key common technologies in the industry, and need to be led by the government to build a common technology platform.

The innovation chain, the industry chain, the capital chain, and the talent chain are intertwined and supported each other. To promote the "four chains" deep integration, we must not only make efforts at a single point, but must comprehensively deploy and promote in an integrated way. Only by making good use of "two hands" and strengthening the "four chains" coordination can we form an open innovation ecology dominated by enterprises and better realize innovation driven development.