Forum to highlight achievements of scientific infrastructures

The Guangming Science City Forum 2025, hosted by the Shenzhen Municipal Government and organized by the Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the Guangming District Government, and other government departments, will be held in Guangming District from Dec. 4 to 5, city officials announced at a press conference Dec. 2.

With “Guangming: Building Dreams for the Future” as its permanent theme, this year’s forum will focus on “Openness · Intelligent Innovation · Leadership,” highlighting a series of major achievements from Guangming’s rapidly expanding cluster of national scientific infrastructures.

The forum will adopt a “1+1+7” structure — an opening ceremony, a plenary session, and seven parallel sub-forums. The opening ceremony and plenary session will take place at the Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum, featuring keynote speeches by leading Chinese and international experts.

A series of high-profile announcements will also be made, including the launch of the National Industrial Innovation Center for Bio-manufacturing, the opening of the Shenzhen branch of the GBA High-end Scientific Instruments Center, the establishment of the Guangming Sci-tech Mother Fund, and the formation of user committees for the synthetic biology and brain science infrastructures.

The seven parallel forums will revolve around three key areas — frontier science, industrial development, and open collaboration, the press conference was told.

Since planning began in 2018, Shenzhen has been building Guangming Science City into a world-class science hub at an unprecedented pace. The area now hosts multiple national scientific facilities, two research-oriented universities, two Guangdong provincial laboratories, and 11 research institutes. More than 3,000 top-level researchers — including renowned academicians such as Yang Xueming and Fan Jianping — have settled in the district. Guangming Science City has ranked among China’s top 100 science and technology clusters for three consecutive years, rising from No. 24 in 2022 to No. 7 in 2024.

“Guangming Science City is making solid progress,” said Zhu Yun, deputy director of the Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

According to Zhu, the district’s major facility clusters — including those for synthetic biology, brain science, and materials genome research — are operating efficiently and have served more than 200 universities, research institutions, and enterprises.

Yao Gaoke, executive vice district chief of Guangming, said the district is committed to building a world-class innovation ecosystem.

“We offer competitive talent policies, strengthened sci-tech finance and IP services, and an environment that fully supports innovation,” he said.

Guangming has created a multi-tiered science-and-technology financial system with a combined fund size of roughly 30 billion yuan, including government-guided funds, sci-tech mother funds, industrial funds, seed funds, and market-oriented funds. The district has also established the Guangming Science City Intellectual Property Service Center and a fast-track patent review mechanism, reducing the average invention patent approval time from 15.5 months to under three months, Yao added.