Independent innovation

While tackling major scientific and engineering projects with heavy investment from the government, scientists also made some remarkable progress in small scale and independent research projects.

"The big collective science and technology programmes involve hundreds of excellent scientists and huge investment. Compared with them, our work, based on our daily research, marks the more independent innovation of the Chinese science community," Chen Lidong, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, CAS, told China Daily.

Scientists at Chen's institute, led by Shi Jianlin, have developed a new nanotechnology-based drug carrier, which can accurately deliver drugs to human organs.

Shi and his colleagues published their research results in the internationally leading journal Angew Chemistry in Germany in August last year.

The diameter of the drug delivery carrier is only 200 nano metres and it can pass most human blood vessels, according to Shi.

The researchers have designed an accurate time for the outer layer of the drug carrier to dissolve. Only when the drug carrier arrives at the correct organ or area, will medicine in the carrier be released.

Although Chinese scientists achieved great progress last year, along with the rest of the world, they lag behind in basic research, technical equipment and research originality, Du told China Daily.

He said it showed China faced a tough challenge in making the nation an innovation-based country in 15 years, as proposed by President Hu Jintao last year at the National Science and Technology Congress.

Chen said that the major innovations made by the Chinese scientists in single research projects are still too few.

The research capacities of the individual Chinese scientists and institutes remain insufficient and need further development, he added.