On February 24, the preliminary meeting of the Electric Vehicle Battery Talents Innovation & Entrepreneurship Alliance (referred to as the Alliance), co-hosted by the Tianjin’s Talents Office and Nankai University, was held at Balitai Campus of Nankai University.

Zheng Bayin, deputy director of the Tianjin’s Talents Office and director of the Organization Department of the Tianjin Committee of the CPC, Zhang Lizhu, vice president of the Tianjin Science and Technology Association and Chen Jun, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice principal of Nankai University attended the meeting. Zheng Bayin and Chen Jun both hosted the meeting, in which representatives from the Tianjin’s Talents Office, the Tianjin Science and Technology Association, research institutes and enterprises in Tianjin, as well as experts and scholars from Nankai University in the advanced materials field all joined together for the preliminaries of the Alliance.

Chen Jun, on behalf of Nankai University, appreciated the support for the Alliance offered by the Tianjin’s Talents Office, the Tianjin Science and Technology Association, research institutes, and enterprises in Tianjin, expressed the warmest welcome to the representatives from the Government-Industry-University-Research Cooperation program and presented the current research progress of Nankai University in the field of electric vehicle battery research. He also added that, because the electric vehicle battery industry in Tianjin, which has developed a complete industry chain, has a solid research background and strong support from governments, the market potential to be exploited is therefore enormous and its future seems to be bright. While the Alliance is established, it is hoped that all participants can work together on the new cooperation of the Government-Industry-University-Research for the development of electric vehicle battery research and the economic growth of Tianjin City; thus, the goal of carbon neutrality can be achieved sooner.

Zheng Bayin gave a brief introduction to the ten industrial talent innovation & entrepreneurship alliances in Tianjin and offered valuable opinions on the establishment of the Alliance. Zheng hoped that the Alliance could draw on the experience of other alliances and unite the synergy of development to make the electric vehicle battery industry in Tianjin bigger, better, and stronger, so that it can horizontally link and empower the ten industrial talent innovation and entrepreneurship alliances, and advance the high-quality development of Tianjin.

Zhang Lizhu said, the Tianjin Science and Technology Association would implement the “four services” to serve technical workers and science & technology innovation enterprises, in order to make the Alliance stronger and more solid, and to contribute to the stimulation of the regional economy, scientific and technological innovation, as well as creating a favorable business environment.

Since June 2020, Tianjin’s Talents Office has been gathering enterprises, universities, research institutes, and relevant enterprises and organizing key industries such as industrial internet, cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence in Tianjin. The office has ramped up efforts in the  building of ten industrial talent innovation and entrepreneurship alliances in the industries such as drone and advanced material production, intelligent connected vehicles, high-end equipment and intelligent manufacturing, etc. As the Alliance comes into place, the aim is to strengthen the cooperation between universities and enterprises, and to guide the relevant talent teams on key technological research, and at the same time, to promote talent training in the universities for the newly-booming industries. Up to now, the ten alliances have built cooperation with 50 universities & institutes and 1200 leading enterprises, hired 40 members and experts from two academies (the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering), and gathered 20,000 scientific researchers. Nankai University has taken the lead in establishing the New Economy in Internet Era Talents Innovation, the Entrepreneurship Alliance, the Tianjin Biomedical Talents Innovation, and the Entrepreneurship Alliance.

(Reported by Fang Lan, Translated by Meixu Wu, Edited by STEFAN SARAH DANIELLE and JianjingYun)