On 12th November 2025, Science and Technology Daily featured a special report as its front-page headline story focusing on Harbin Institute of Technology’s efforts to drive the industrial transformation and upgrading in Heilongjiang province through science and technology innovation. The report highlighted a typical case of collaborative innovation between industry, academia, and research led by Prof. Guohui Yuan's team, which successfully transformed technological achievements into real-world applications.
The full report is as follows:
“Longjiang Sci-Tech Innovation” Reshaping the Industrial Landscape
By Staff Reporter Hong Zhu
“We just passed the national project acceptance! A new type of graphite anode material suitable for energy-storage batteries and other fields has been successfully prepared at low cost, with a cycle life exceeding 3,000 cycles and a capacity retention rate of 80%.” When mentioning this development not long ago, Guohui Yuan, a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology beamed with joy when talking about this achievement.
On 25th May 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the Harbin Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Building. At that time, Guohui Yuan reported to the General Secretary while holding graphene conductive slurry. Recalling the General Secretary’s concern for the practical transformation and implementation of innovative achievements, Yuan still feels excited today: “We have lived up to the General Secretary’s earnest entrustment and are leading the revitalization of the graphite industry through sci-tech innovation.”
During that inspection tour in Heilongjiang, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Heilongjiang should rely on its higher education institutions and research institutes, give full play to the advantages of its traditional industries, and stimulate the vitality of enterprises, while the government should do a good job in service and guidance.”
Following the direction pointed out by the General Secretary, Heilongjiang province has embarked on a profound transformation in which sci-tech innovation is reshaping the industrial landscape. This old industrial base is embarking on a new journey of revitalization and development with a brand-new look
From “Technological Blossoms” to “Industrial Fruits”
“To implement the innovation-driven development strategy, we must strive to build a technological innovation system with enterprises as the main body, the market as the orientation, and the integration of industry, academia and research institutes;. The government should build platforms, create a favorable environment, provide relevant policy support, and protect intellectual property rights.” During his 2016 inspection tour of high-tech enterprises and research institutes in Harbin, General Secretary Xi Jinping thus pointed out the direction for independent innovation, propelling Heilongjiang’s sci-tech innovation and its reform and development to make great strides.
Guided by this, Heilongjiang province has anchored itself in “innovation-driven” development, transformed achievements by relying on the strengths of scientific research, fostered new drivers by leveraging the advantages of traditional industries to cultivate new drivers of growth, and stimulating enterprise vitality through government-enterprise collaboration, and launched two rounds of action plans for technology-based enterprises.
The first round achieved remarkable results in 2017 achieved an initial victory, with more than 1,000 technology-based enterprises springing up. 2018 to 2020 witnessed a greater success: more than 10,000 additional enterprises were established; the number of high-tech enterprises reached 1,500; and more than 50 “leading enterprises” with annual revenue exceeding RMB 500 million emerged, forming a flourishing innovation echelon.
In 2024, Heilongjiang province further proposed a reform approach summarized as “problems raised by enterprises, solved by researchers, and graded by the market,” allocating 70% of its science and technology funds to the front line of industry and making enterprises the lead actors on the stage of sci-tech innovation in Heilongjiang province.
Guohui Yuan deeply felt and told the reporter of Science and Technology Daily reporter with deep feeling that, thanks to the support of Heilongjiang’s science and technology funding program, his team has cooperated with enterprises to enhance the rate capacity and cycle life of natural graphite anode materials. Currently, this technology has been industrialized, and the new type of power-type natural graphite anode material for EVs has achieved cumulative sales of over RMB 600 million.
Meanwhile, 400 “sci-tech chief engineers” have entered enterprise workshops with research projects, promoting the in-depth integration of basic fundamental research and applied research. In Huma county, Daxing’anling prefecture, the arrival of the “sci-tech chief engineer” team led by Shuxia Liu from the Daqing Branch of the Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences has injected new vitality into Heilongjiang Guosheng Agricultural Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
According to the company’s head, Xueming Fu, “In recent years, due to the low temperatures and salinization in cold regions, the activity of microbial strains in biofertilizers has declined or even been lost, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the fertilizers.” The team led by Shuxia Liu has been deeply engaged in soil microbiology research for many years, and the low-temperature- and saline–alkali-tolerant strain resources they have accumulated are highly compatible with the company’s needs. To date, the team has preliminarily screened 5 potential functional strains from a large number of samples. If the tests prove successful, this is expected to fill a technical gap in the screening of functional strains under low-temperature conditions in Northeast China.
Over the past five years, the number of high-tech enterprises in Heilongjiang province has increased by 260%, with an average annual growth rate of 26.5%. A number of technology-based enterprises, including China Graphite Group Limited, Harbin Sayyas Windows Co., Ltd. and China Railway Harbin Group of Technology Corporation, have successively entered the capital market, turning "technological blossoms" into "industrial fruits”.
Link to the report: https://epaper.stdaily.com/statics/technology-site/index.html#/home
Guohui Yuan is a professor in the Department of Electrochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Harbin Institute of Technology, and a doctoral supervisor. He is a Heilongjiang Provincial “Longjiang Science and Technology Talent” awardee, and has been selected as one of the “Top Ten Innovation Figures of Heilongjiang.” He has served as a visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology, product standards lead of the UK-China Joint Working Group on Graphene Standardisation, a member of the Basic and Generic Technologies Sector Committee of the Chinese Standards for Testing and Materials (CSTM), a member of the expert group for the National Special Program for Science and Technology Development of the Graphite Industry, and chairman of the Heilongjiang Graphene Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance.
He has led 5 national-level science and technology projects, including projects under the National Key R&D Program, the National Science and Technology Support Program, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, as well as over 20 provincial/ministerial-level and enterprise projects. He has published over 30 high-level SCI-indexed papers, authored 3 monographs, and holds more than 20 granted invention patents. He has received 1 First Prize of the Heilongjiang Provincial Science and Technology Award (Natural Science category) and 2 First Prizes of the Science and Technology Progress Award of the former Ministry of Aerospace Industry. A number of his scientific and technological achievements have been successfully translated into industrial applications.
On 25 May 2016, during General Secretary Xi Jinping’s inspection tour of Heilongjiang, professor Guohui Yuan reported to General Secretary Xi on his own research work and on the technological development of Heilongjiang’s graphite industry. His work received high recognition from General Secretary Xi Jinping.
