The 2nd Xiangjiang Science Week opened in Changsha on the morning of July 23. The event was hosted by the Management Committee of the Hunan Xiangjiang New Area and organized by the Xiangjiang Group. Outstanding young scholars from top global universities, experts from research institutions, technology innovation entrepreneurs, and representatives from investment organizations gathered together to discuss cross-border technology transfer and industrial integration, seeking opportunities for collaboration.
Themed "Global R&D Innovation, Powered by Hunan Xiangjiang New Area," the event highlights cutting-edge fields such as intelligent manufacturing, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence. The Science Week brings together outstanding scientists, academic elites, and innovative enterprises from around the world, aiming to accelerate the cultivation of new quality productive forces and to inject fresh momentum into the building of a globally influential hub of sci-tech innovation.
In recent years, Hunan has fully supported Changsha in building itself into a global R&D center city. In 2024, Changsha added 866 R&D institutions with an investment of 50 billion CNY, and its global technology cluster ranking rose to 32nd place. Currently, the Hunan Xiangjiang New Area is home to more than 3,100 high-tech enterprises, 142 national specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprises, 19 national manufacturing individual champion enterprises (products), and 57 listed companies both domestically and internationally. The New Area's whole-society R&D investment intensity, measured by the ratio of R&D investment to GDP, reached 9.52%. All these figures stand at the forefront of national-level new areas.
In particular, as the core leading area of the global R&D center city, Xiangjiang Science Town (Changsha Area) has a total planned area of 95.5 square kilometers, with cumulative investments approaching 20 billion CNY. With main structures already capped, the five major buildings in the pioneering zone of Xiangjiang Science Town are expected to be completed and put into use next year, becoming a vibrant hub for innovation and entrepreneurship.
"This is my first visit to Changsha, and I'm very grateful for the warm reception of my colleagues here," said Professor Nabil Hajji from Spain. As a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Seville, he expressed great anticipation for exchanges with Chinese enterprises and research teams, especially dialogues on medical technology, during the Xiangjiang Science Week.
Dr. David Comellas, who specializes in new energy and waste heat energy utilization, stated that he was pleasantly surprised by the strong research teams and well-established industrial chain in the Xiangjiang New Area. He hopes to engage in in-depth cooperation with the New Area in both products and R&D.
This year, the Xiangjiang Science Week has been elevated to a roundtable meeting aimed at building a complete ecosystem for industry-university-research-application collaboration. In the coming days, a series of closely linked activities will be organized, including academic salons, themed discussions, roadshow matchmaking events, innovation and entrepreneurship sharing sessions, and visits to technology companies. These activities will promote in-depth dialogues among top scientists, leading institutions, and senior experts from home and abroad and local enterprises, breaking down barriers across the entire chain from laboratories to production lines, and turning "blueprints on paper" into "achievements in workshops."
This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.
Translator: Kuang Zhenzhen
Chinese source: hunantoday
