Year 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of ShanghaiTech University. As a connection between the past and future, ShanghaiTech Innovation & Entrepreneurship Summit (techIES) serves to welcome the university’s further development in the new decade. On December 22, 2023, the Carnival Event of the 6th techIES was held in the Conference Center, marking a successful conclusion of this year’s summit and a constant exploration of the new paradigm of university entrepreneurship events. The university leadership and distinguished guests from the government and other organizations attended the event.

At the beginning of the event, Vice President Jiang Ge announced the release of the ShanghaiTech Annual Report on Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2023, which reviewed what ShanghaiTech has achieved in scientific innovation, research platforms, tech transfer, and science popularization in the past year. Jiang Ge said that, in 2023, the number of scientific research projects and the amount of funding had reached new highs, fruitful research results continued to grow, the building of large-scale scientific facilities progressed steadily, and the construction of Shanghai Clinical Research and Trial Center was at an advanced stage. Additionally, the patent operation of ShanghaiTech has won seven awards in the industry, the number of patent licensing contracts has been at the forefront of Chinese universities for four consecutive years, and the transfer projects have also reached several landmark milestones.

Overview of the 6th techIES

During this techIES, ShanghaiTech Startup School, a series of lectures for the improvement of students’ and faculty’s startup knowledge, held four pre-competition training lectures followed by three domestic special sessions which are Physical Science Session, Information Science Session, and Life Science Session, and an International Session on Biomed.

The teams participating in the domestic sessions came from 42 universities, institutes, and hospitals in 7 cities within China, with 296 participants and 91 projects. The 460 investors and senior business executives who signed up to serve as judges for the four competitions came from 16 cities within China.

At the Carnival Event, five teams winning First Prize displayed their creative projects. The university leaders presented awards to teams inside and outside ShanghaiTech that had won the First, Second and Third Prizes in the techIES competitions.

In order to expand the global cooperation network of ShanghaiTech for tech transfer, the 2nd International Session on Biomed was held, attracting teams from six countries to submit their projects. After the judgement on the video clip of each submitted roadshow project, eventually, three projects from the United States, Hong Kong SAR, and Singapore won the First, Second and Third Prizes respectively.

Science Popularization Session continues to be popular

The Science Popularization Session has been running since the 4th techIES to encourage original popular science projects. Over the past three years, it has attracted more than 500 science enthusiasts to participate.

At this summit, over 200 faculty and students from ShanghaiTech University, partner universities, research institutes, hospitals, as well as high schools in Shanghai submitted 123 projects, an increase of more than 57% over previous years. After evaluation by invited experts, high school teachers, and professors in various disciplines, 16 projects stood out as candidates to win the Gold, Silver and Bronze Star Awards.

It’s worth noting that the Annual Science Popularization Role Model Award was set up for the first time at this year’s summit. There were 16 faculty members who won the award for their proactive participation in science popularization activities. President Jiang Mianheng and Vice President Li Ruxin presented medals to the winners.

Patent licensing promotes the commercialization of scientific achievements

The total value of patent licensing contracts signed at the summit exceeded 300 million CNY, involving licensing patents for new antidepressant drugs and gene-editing treatments. Additionally, an innovative pharmaceutical spinoff of ShanghaiTech, GlueTacs Therapeutics, signed an investment and financing agreement with investors, with a financing amount of about 100 million CNY.

Residential college enterprise tutors boost industry-education integration

In the appointment ceremony of the residential college enterprise tutors, 46 corporate executives with rich experience and high industry influence were issued letters of appointment by Vice Presidents Zhu Zhiyuan and Jiang Ge. The appointments are to promote industry-education integration in students’ graduation project, industrial practice, joint curriculum, and intellectual property transfer.

At the end of the event, Vice President Li Ruxin highlighted the importance of “Zero to One” and “One to Ten” for tech transfer under the current national strategy. He stressed that the techIES has created a nonprofit market-oriented platform for the transfer and financing of research achievements, facilitating the mutual promotion of high-level scientific and technological innovation and industrial development.

President Jiang Mianheng also delivered a speech in which he encouraged the faculty and students to make full use of the university’s disciplinary advantages and effectively carry out innovative and entrepreneurial activities. “ShanghaiTech will provide ongoing support to our faculty and students in entrepreneurship,” said President Jiang, “We look forward to more vigor and vitality of entrepreneurship and innovation here in the future.”

Currently, the techIES has achieved significant results—establishing an early incubation community for science and technology industries, linking science with early-stage capital, driving the trend of scientific spinoff companies, and nurturing plenty of innovative entrepreneurs—thus forming a system for entrepreneurial education, tech transfer, and financing. The summit will continuously contribute to the progress of the university’s tech transfer and support the innovation advancement of Shanghai Science and Innovation Center.