Vienna, Beijing 24 February 2025 – Upon invitation of Chinese Academy of Sciences Member Hong Yongmiao, Dean and Professor of School of Economics and Management of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), CDA President Alexander G. Welzl visited UCAS in Beijing from 5 to 12 November 2024. Both academic institutions maintain a comprehensive collaboration based on a bilateral agreement in 2022. Against this backdrop the goals of this first longer official visit to China after the end of the pandemic were threefold: to deepen personal and institutional relations, collect facts regarding Chinas current development with a focus on indigenous innovation and the National Innovation System of the country and to gain insights in the green transition in China as well as other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
At this occasion Welzl personally met with all Beijing-based Members of the CDA Scientific Advisory Board. Furthermore the CDA President followed official invitations for bilateral meetings with representatives of organisations and institutions from Europe, China and the United States. Besides an invited lecture at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing President Welzl also delivered an invited lecture at Xiamen University’s School of Economics
in Xiamen and he gave remarks at an international conference of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Tianjin.
During CDAs bilateral appointments in Beijing Alexander G. Welzl personally met with Wang Haiyan (Dean, Sino-Danish Center), Zhang Fuchun (Director, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences), Laurent Bardon and Katarzyna Zelichowska (Section Heads, Delegation of the European Union to the People’s Republic of China), Auvo Kaikkonen (Head, European Investment Bank, Representation in China), Martha “Mattie” Bekink (Regional Director China, Ford Foundation), Josh Cheng (Executive Director, Stanford Center at Peking University) as well as Liu Fei and Zou Xinju (Deputy Chief Manager of Board of Directors Office and Chief Manager of ESG and IR, China Construction Bank).
Personal meetings with Beijing-based Members of the CDA Scientific Advisory Board
On his first day at Chinese Academy of Sciences’ university CDA President Alexander G. Welzl was welcomed as visiting scholar at No. N601 teaching building in Zhongguancun Campus area by Professor Lv Ping, Associate Dean of UCAS School of Economics and Management (SEM). She is also the Chinese Chairwoman of CDA’s Scientific Advisory Board. Professor Lv introduced President Welzl to Professor Hong Zhao (Vice Dean of UCAS SEM) and provided him with his working office which was located on the UCAS SEM dean’s office floor. On 11 November 2025 Welzl’s invited lecture was presided over by Associate Dean Lv and she introduced Alexander G. Welzl to the audience of the hybrid event taking place in the conference room of the MOE Social Science Lab of Digital Economic Forecasts and Policy Simulation located in the UCAS teaching building.
On 6 November 2024 CDA President Welzl met also personally with Dean Professor Hong Yongmiao and explored the current framework conditions for the development of China’s National Innovation System and challenges as well as opportunities for collaborative research and innovation of Chinese research institutions with research partners in Europe and the United States. With Professor Hong being a Member of the CDA Scientific Advisory Board it was the first time both met in person after the end of the pandemic. Professor Hong is currently the Dean and a Distinguished Professor of the UCAS School of Economics and Management (SEM) as well as a Distinguished Research Fellow at Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science (AMSS) and Center for Forecasting Science of CAS. Until 2020 he served for some ten years as the Ernest S. Liu Professor of Economics and International Studies, Department of Economics, Cornell University in the United States. In his role as Dean of UCAS SEM he had invited Alexander G. Welzl to stay as a visiting researcher from 5 to 12 November 2024 at his school.
In the afternoon of his first day at his visiting office at UCAS School of Economics and Management President Welzl welcomed Professor Liu Xielin one of China’s leading economists in the field of innovation economics and a professor at UCAS for an exchange of thoughts. Formerly with Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED) of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in Beijing, Professor Liu is a prolific author. In recent years he was invited repeatedly to contribute to conferences in Europe and to bilateral Sino-European conferences organised in the context of the European Union. Liu is amongst others well known as author of a book on ‘Regional Innovation Index of China, 2017: How Frontier Regions Innovate’. Against the backdrop of one of the hot topics of global innovation research – China’s focus on indigenous innovation – Liu Xielin co-authored a paper on ‘Enterprises’ response strategies towards a mission-oriented innovation initiative – a reflection on China’s indigenous innovation’ published in the Asian Journal of Technology Innovation in May 2024. In their discourse during their meeting Liu and Welzl discussed the status quo and further development of the National Innovation System of Peoples Republic of China.
On 8 November President Welzl met with Professor Gao Xudong at his office at Tsinghua University. Gao Xudong is professor of Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management (SEM), Chief Professor of Tsinghua’s prestigious Schwarzman College (an elite international graduate program aiming at representing the Rhodes Scholarship for the 21st century) and former vice director of the Tsinghua University Research Center for Technological Innovation. He is also the Director of the MIT-Tsinghua MBA Program and he runs the MIT-Tsinghua entrepreneurial strategy course together with colleagues from MIT. Since October 2020 Professor Gao is a Member of our CDA Scientific Advisory Board. During the meeting Professor Gao and President Welzl discussed the question of the potential existence of corporate innovation management with Chinese characteristics, framework conditions for indigenous innovation in Chinese (multinational) enterprises, innovation management in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and peculiarities of China’s National Innovation System referring amongst others to findings in his publication ‘Key Characteristics of China's National Innovation System: Some Historical Observations’
Zhongguancun Campus in Beijing – The Hi-tech Center of China’s National Innovation System
The No. N601 teaching building of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences is in Zhongguancun campus in the Haidian district of Beijing. In the era of the Republic of China, two universities - Tsinghua and Yenching - were built at the base of imperial gardens, which are near the western suburbs of Zhongguancun. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Zhongguancun was designated as the capital’s cultural and educational district. The Zhongguancun National Demonstration Zone dates to the "Zhongguancun Electronics Street" in the early 1980s. In May 1988, the State Council approved the establishment of the Beijing New Technology Industrial Development Trial Zone (predecessor of the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park). Thus, Zhongguancun became the first high-tech park in China. From then on, this area gradually became the hi-tech center of the city and even the whole National Innovation System of Peoples Republic of China. Today Zhongguancun is the leading scientific, education and talent resource base in China. It boasts almost 40 colleges and universities like Peking University and Tsinghua University, more than 200 national (municipal) scientific institutions such as institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 67 state-level laboratories, 27 national engineering research centers, 28 national engineering and technological research centers as well as 24 university science and technology parks. Located in the core area of the Zhongguancun Science Park, Tsinghua University Science Park (TusPark) sits on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University – China’s most prestigious university - with a floorage of 770,000 square meters and is home to more than 400 enterprises and organizations.
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