Shanghai – From Development To Knowledge City

This report provides insights on the expansive development in Shanghai of human resources in higher education and the creation of a huge web of incubators, university science parks, district industrial parks, and various specialized development zones. With a total population of some 17 million and a GDP per capita of around US$3,000 the city planners expects that 2.5 per cent of its GDP will in 2005 be used for research and development. FDI in high technology and returning scientists in microelectronics illustrate the ambitions of Shanghai to become a knowledge city. More than 140 foreign-controlled R&D laboratories have already been established in Shanghai. Their number and sizes will increase and also involve more basic research as the IPR regime improves. Shanghai will emerge as innovative knowledge region on the world stage that before 2020 will be competing with other global knowledge regions such as the Oxford-London-Cambridge triangle by attracting talent and creating new knowledge. This report highlights a rapid and continued expansion of higher education in Shanghai that now has 59 colleges and universities with a total enrolment in 2004 of 600,000 students. The City has 10 universities which are included in the national list of Top-100 Universities which have been selected by the Ministry of Education to receive special treatment and extra resources. Three of a dozen Chinese universities with expectation to become recognized as world-famous research universities are located in Shanghai – Fudan University, Tongji University and Shanghai Jiaotong University. Fudan University Science Park and the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University provide examples of the changing character of the university system in Shanghai Linked to the development of human resources is a web of technological infrastructure of which Zhangjiang High-Technology Development Zone provides an illustration of ongoing efforts to integrate industrial production, research and university education. Shanghai is attracting overseas entrepreneurs in its advancing semiconductor industry, exemplified by SMIC with one of its bases in Zhangjiang High-Technology Development Zone, Shanghai is also attracting returning scientists to expand its IC knowledge base as exemplified by the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University, which has 600 graduate students.