By Staff Reporters

On July 19, Premier Li Keqiang said that China is "at a critical moment to call for greater efforts in basic research," while inspecting the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

The establishment of the NSFC marks a historic shift in the allocation of scientific and technological resources from planned distribution to merit-based competition, said Li, adding that the foundation should make better use of the valuable funds in supporting scientific research.

Li stressed the core position of innovation in the country's modernization endeavors, calling for stimulating the enthusiasm of society for innovation through deepening reform, in order to produce more sci-tech achievements that can benefit the country's development and people's livelihood.

Li pointed out that current international circumstances are witnessing great changes, and China still has a number of weak links in sci-tech development. And many bottlenecks of industrial technologies stem from weakness in original innovation. Basic research is the cornerstone of promoting original innovation, science and technology, and industrial development.

Li called on researchers to work without distraction, never be self-satisfied or afraid of failure, strengthen international cooperation, and scale new heights of sci-tech with unrelenting perseverance and focus. Li called for increasing financial investment in basic research, encouraging enterprises to carry out basic research and applied basic research through tax incentives, and investing more efforts to do research on basic theoretical problems that constrain industrial development.

Education in basic subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry should be enhanced to foster more talents for basic research, Li added. Highly qulified personnel should be brought on board through multiple channels to improve the level of basic research.

Li emphasized that talented individuals should be valued, and scientists should be allowed to determine their subjects, teams, fund usage centering on major strategic needs and frontier areas.