(Yicai) Dec. 4 -- Shanghai’s government, state-owned enterprises, and other institutions have joined Fudan University to set up a fund of funds aimed at better supporting the commercialization of the renowned university’s scientific and technological innovations.

Established yesterday with CNY1 billion (USD140.5 million) of initial investment, the Fudan Science and Technology Innovation Fund of Funds will invest in other funds to form an open science and technology ecosystem involving the university’s top achievements, projects, and teams at home and abroad, its manager Sun Pengjun told Yicai.

The new fund focuses on key technologies that Fudan University is good at and China needs, Sun said, adding that it will guide other funds to grow in the long run as well as discover and invest in promising high-growth projects. It will target the fields of life and health, integrated circuits, new energy and new materials, artificial intelligence, next-generation information technology, and extended reality, he said.

The fund aims to help turn scientific and technological achievements into industrial and commercial products, Sun said. It should help integrate innovation and industrial fields via capital to accelerate the transformation of such achievements from zero to 100, he added.

In 2021, Fudan University ranked second among the almost 1,500 Chinese universities that penned CNY13 billion (USD1.8 billion) of contracts to convert scientific and technological achievements into products, up 14 percent from a year ago, according to a report. 

The universities inked nearly 18,980 contracts last year, an increase of 10 percent. But only 17 percent of their innovation patents were used last year and just 4 percent were turned into products, much lower than in developed countries such as the United States.

Editor: Emmi Laine