AMSTERDAM, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Scientific cooperation between China and Europe has evolved into a partnership of equals, moving beyond the traditional model in which Europe trained Chinese scientists, a renowned Dutch oncologist has said.
"We are now essentially at the same level. In terms of scientific output, China has even surpassed Europe and the United States. It is a remarkable accomplishment within about 10 years," Rene Bernards, who was conferred the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award in Beijing on July 8, told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview.
Bernards, a senior staff scientist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and an Academy Professor and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, has worked closely with Chinese researchers for more than a decade. Since 2015, he has collaborated with Renji Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Cancer Institute on precision therapies for liver cancer.
Looking back on the early years of the partnership, Bernards recalled that Europe still held advantage in scientific quality and research output.
"When I began my scientific collaboration with China around 2015, Chinese scientists could still learn a great deal from researchers in top European laboratories such as mine," he said. "Today, we function much more as collaborators who have our own strengths and are complementary."
In Bernards' view, China has rapidly evolved from an important participant in global science into one of the world's leading innovators with the fastest growing innovation capacity which he attributed to sustained investment in scientific research, long-term planning and talent development.
According to the report released on this June by China's National Bureau of Statistics, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the country's total research and development spending grew by an average of 10 percent annually, while R&D intensity rose from 2.36 percent to 2.80 percent of GDP.
"China has invested much more money in biomedical research over the past several decades which had to result in a significant elevation of the scientific standard," he noted.
Bernards also highlighted China's success in attracting internationally trained scientists back home. He noted that China's talent-recruitment programs, such as the Thousand Talents Program, have also helped attract highly trained Chinese scientists back to the country.
"Many of the talented students studying abroad have now returned to China and established highly successful research groups with strong funding," he said. "I think the young generation is one of the main forces behind Chinese scientific innovation. They are setting up their own research groups and pushing the related field forward."
More importantly, Bernards stressed China's emphasis on long-term planning, saying in a system with greater continuity in central leadership policy continuity can provide important advantages for scientific research.
"Scientific research takes time," he said. "The consequences of decisions made today may only become clear five or ten years from now."
Bernards called for stronger international cooperation in the fight against cancer. "Cancer is an enemy of all humanity," he said. "It is such a complicated problem that we need the sharpest minds from across the planet to conquer this disease."
For decades, Europe looked primarily to the United States for scientific partnerships, he noted. But the global landscape is changing. "There are tremendous scientific capabilities in China, and in some respects they may even be greater," he said.
Bernards believes China and Europe increasingly recognize each other as natural partners in scientific research.
"China is also realizing that Europe can be a very good partner for scientific collaboration," he said. "In that sense, there is a natural tendency for Europe and China to work together scientifically." ■
