China's current laboratories can be roughly divided into: school/institute level, city level, provincial/ministerial level, state key laboratories and national laboratories. Among them, there are hundreds of national key laboratories and national engineering laboratories, but the number of national laboratories is very small.
The highest-level laboratory in our country is the national laboratory . The national laboratory is a strategic scientific and technological force that embodies the will of the country, realizes the mission of the country, and represents the national level. It is an innovative basic platform for international scientific and technological competition, and it is the core support for ensuring national security. It is a breakthrough, leading, and platform-based integration. A large comprehensive research base.
Before the State Planning Commission was reorganized into the National Development and Reform Commission, the following five national laboratories were successively approved for construction (by the end of 2000, all of them had passed the inspection):
Among them, the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory is located in the West Campus of the University of Science and Technology of China, which is the first national laboratory built in my country. The laboratory was approved as a project on April 8, 1983, which is the origin of the 8348 Academic Cafe on the West Campus of the University of Science and Technology of China. In 1985, my country's national economy entered a period of adjustment. Due to the shortage of national funds, engineering construction was facing the danger of being discontinued. Yan Jici reported the matter to Comrade Deng Xiaoping, and the central government successively sent Hu Qili and Song Jian to HKUST to understand the situation. With the support of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, the synchrotron radiation laboratory project not only did not stop, but overcame difficulties and stepped up construction.
The Electron Positron Collider National Laboratory is located at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. On October 7, 1984, Deng Xiaoping planted the first shovel of soil for the cornerstone at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Electron Positron Collider National Laboratory. The laboratory is the prototype of the "Liangxiang Accelerator" in the recent TV series "Three-Body Problem".
In 2003, the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the new first batch of 5 national laboratories and started to build them. However, after so many years of construction, these laboratories still have not removed the word "chip". Around 2019, the Ministry of Science and Technology converted these laboratories into national research centers.
Among them, the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale (in preparation) is located on the East Campus of the University of Science and Technology of China. The laboratory will be included in the list of sanctioned entities by the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce in 2021.
On December 5, 2006, the Ministry of Science and Technology held a national laboratory work briefing meeting, and decided to expand the pilot projects of national laboratories and start marine, aerospace, population and health, nuclear energy, new energy, advanced manufacturing, quantum regulation, protein research, agriculture and Preparatory work for the construction of national laboratories in 10 important directions such as rail transit.
For the 2006 batch, in fact, the construction has not been officially approved by the state. The first batch (2003) was officially approved for construction, and the second batch (2006) only required some units to submit applications. The project has not been approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The lack of approval made the laboratory staff feel aggrieved. When the clean energy national laboratory of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics was preparing to start, relevant personnel from the Ministry of Science and Technology did not even attend.
The situation improved later. In October 2011, Chen Xiaoya, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, successively inspected and investigated the second batch of national laboratory construction units including the Dalian Institute of Chemistry and Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This batch of unapproved "black household registration" national laboratories (preparation) that only received local support is actively developing by various supporting units, striving to be transformed into a national research center like the batch of national laboratories that were prepared in 2003.