On the morning of September 27, the Foreign Affairs Office and the Information Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality held a press conference on strengthening Beijing's role as the center for international exchanges. Representatives from municipal departments including the Foreign Affairs Office, the Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, the Bureau of Culture and Tourism, and the Beijing Talent Work, as well as those from Chaoyang District and other competent authorities attended the event. The press conference included a briefing on the layout in relation to the center for international exchanges, integration of culture and tourism, building global talent communities and responses to questions from reporters.
Liu Minhua, Deputy Director-General of the Beijing Talent Work, provided an overview of building international talent communities.
The capital international talent community is an innovative brand that Beijing strives to build to optimize the development environment and attract more foreigners with professional skills. It is also an exploration and experiment to promote urban renewal and development through talents and improve the quality of life for citizens.
In 2016, the Municipal Talent Work Leading Group proposed the concept of building international talent communities in Beijing, which was the first of its kind in China. In 2017, after being approved by the city leaders, the first batch of four pilot projects, i.e. Chaoyang Wangjing, Zhongguancun Science City, Future Science City, and New Shougang, were confirmed and then officially launched. In 2019, four new pilot areas were added, i.e. Tongzhou, Shunyi, Huairou Science City, and Economic-Technological Development Area. As a result, a full coverage of the "Three Science Cities plus One Development Area" was achieved. This year, we issued the Guidelines for Building International Talent Communities in Beijing (Trial) (hereby referred to as the Guidelines) as the official standard and main reference for building communities for international talents. Thereby, the answers to such questions as "what kind of communities should be built" and "how to build such communities" have become clearer. The building of international talent communities has been included in the new version of the city's master plan. It has become a key task for Beijing to strengthen its roles as Four Centers, especially the center for international exchanges and the scientific and technological innovation center.
At present, under the leadership of the Leading Group for Strengthening Beijing's Role as the Center for International Exchanges and led by the Beijing Talent Work, a special working group for building international talent communities has been established. The concept of such communities has developed continuously in the past three years. A number of platforms, such as the workstation for overseas academicians and experts, Future Forum, and Overseas High-level Talent Mansion have been set up in an orderly manner. In addition, a number of key projects, such as apartments, schools, and hospitals for international talents have sped up in their construction, with the community ecosystem "optimized" and the community brand gradually "formed". Next, I will introduce the status quo to our friends from the press from the following five aspects.
First, the top-level design is being improved. Scientific planning will maximize benefits. Since the introduction of the concept of international talent communities in Beijing, we have always aimed high and benchmarked against world-class standards. In 2017, the Guiding Opinions was issued and implemented to clarify the overall idea, development goals and main tasks of the community building. In 2019, the Work Plan was issued and implemented to strengthen the work force, expand community pilot projects, and specify construction tasks. This year, in order to make the community building more science-based and professional, we commissioned Wu Chen, an expert in strategic science and technology from Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, to put together a working team. Moreover, we joined hands with the School of Architecture and the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua to form a research team. We conducted 3 rounds of surveys in 8 communities, and a comparison study of the urban construction experience of nearly 30 developed countries and regions such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, to draw up the Guidelines that covers 9 major construction scenarios and an evaluation indicator system. It has been jointly issued and implemented by Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources and Beijing Talent Work, and it constitutes the main framework of such community building. In addition, we have introduced a distinctive identification system for communities for international talents to boost their brand image.
Second, project-driven growth has achieved preliminary results. Both opening-up and development must be driven by specific projects. We focus on the needs of international talents, as well as detailed and quantitative projects, and give priority to key projects for overall development. Last year, the List of 24 Key Community Building Projects was issued and implemented for the launch of key planning, construction, improvement, and event projects via "monthly scheduling, quarterly review, and annual acceptance". This year, the List of 10 Key Tangible Tasks was issued. Such tasks include building apartments, international schools, international hospitals and service sites for international talents, renovating and upgrading demonstration blocks with distinctive features, launching innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, holding top-level international events, setting up community identification systems, and so on. All projects take the Guidelines as the construction standards, and specify all details, including location, leading department and responsible entity. With joint efforts at the municipal and district level, Beijing's first characteristic demonstration block--"Wangjing Street" in Chaoyang has been opened, the first "Overseas High-level Talent Mansion" has been built in Shunyi, the app "Easy Beijing" that offers service for international talents has been launched, the New Shougang International Talent community has started construction, and a group of talent development platforms such as Yanqi Lake Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA) headed by Academician Qiu Chengtong and Kilo-Innovation Research Institute (KIRI) headed by Professor Ding Hong have been established in Huairou.
Third, policy dividends are gradually released. In 2017, the Guiding Opinions was issued and implemented, proposing to build international talent communities into "pilot zones for talent policies". Since last year, the Beijing Talent Work, together with competent authorities, has actively sought support from the National Immigration Administration and other national ministries and commissions to introduce innovation policies for international talents in Beijing. In particular, the National Immigration Administration signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Beijing to establish a ministerial-municipal cooperation mechanism to steadily innovate in the system, improve policies and synergize immigration and overseas affairs services. This has set a good example nationwide, making international talent communities much more attractive and embracing more talents. Currently, various such talent communities are working on the implementation of the Guidelines. They have formulated policies and measures aiming at medical care, children's education, housing, etc. of international talents, so that a preliminary policy matrix of international talent communities has gradually taken shape.
Fourth, high-quality resources are pooled together. Community building is all about “attracting first-class talents through first-class environment" and "pooling together top-notch resources through first-class talents for a first-class cause". In the process of community building, we benchmark against world standards as we pool together international resources in an orderly fashion. Meanwhile, we bring the role of overseas liaison agencies into full play, gather international innovation resources and global talents in a market-oriented way, integrate the talent chain, capital chain, industry chain and policy chain, so as to cultivate new growth drivers. In recent years, we have built the Overseas Academicians & Experts Workstation in Qiaomenyuan, facilitated the International Technology Transfer Center of City University of Hong Kong to enter the Future Science City, and supported the cooperation project between Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. In particular, we have hosted the HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit and Entrepreneurship Competition, attracting 2,026 high-quality projects, 44 of which have received over 50 million yuan in financing, and gathering 3,085 overseas entrepreneurial talents including 164 from the world's top 10 universities. The Summit was successfully held on September 12 in Shunyi District, with more than 700 overseas media reporting on the event and media coverage of over one billion people worldwide.
Fifth, the community atmosphere is growing stronger. Building international talent communities needs the clustering effect and greater publicity so that more talents from home and abroad can know about the community and pitch in together. In recent years, the international influence of these communities has been continuously enhanced through major events such as the ZGC Forum and its parallel forums, China-Europe Talent Forum, meetings and conferences by Yanqi Lake and the Future Forum, and through brand activities including the "Belt and Road" Global Youth Leaders Summit, the Global Academicians Forum on Science & Technology Innovation Cooperation, and the Beijing Tour for Overseas Talents, etc. We have established a distinctive identification system for international talent communities in Shunyi District, Chaoyang District, and the Development Area, building up the overall image of the communities and making them more well-known.
Currently, the building of international talent communities in Beijing is in full swing and has entered a new phase. We hope that our friends from the media and the general public could actively participate, introduce such communities to talents at home and abroad, enhance their publicity and influence, and attract more foreigners with professional skills to innovate and start businesses in Beijing.
Reporter: How does the Guidelines reflect the common requirements for the building of international talent communities and the differences in resource endowments among different communities?
Liu Minhua:
There are mainly four sections in the Guidelines, with the middle two sections relevant to your question. One is about the common standards and the other about the individual differences.
The former section presents the common standards of international talent communities in Beijing and proposes the "1+3+9" top-level design. "1" represents centering on the demand of international talents, and "3" represents taking internationalization, ecological progress and digitalization as the main orientation and guiding principles. On this basis, we have proposed nine scenarios for community building, which are: livable communities, neighborhood interactions, education and culture, innovation and entrepreneurship, medical and health care, transportation network, ecology and low carbon, service facilities, and management and governance, covering nine key areas of concerns for international talents. Accordingly, we have proposed an indicator system of 9 major indicators, 33 medium ones and 115 minor ones. However, this is not a one-size-fits-all system. Some of the indicators are binding, and only by meeting such criteria could a community be called "international", while others are more of expectation because the conditions of each district are different, and the aim of these indicators is to charter a course. The indicators are precisely matched with both the built-up and the completed areas. Based on that, we provide recommendations on zoning and solutions tailored to the resource endowments and development stages of each community, which is manifested in the following aspects.
One is the construction scope which determines the overall layout of the core areas and their radius. For example, in Chaoyang District, although the main area is in Wangjing Electronic City, there are various international resources in the District, which in turn can fuel the whole district. The focus is to make recommendations based on the principle of "adding what is missing" and to place community building in a big picture. Starting from development space, platform building, service facilities and living environment, we offer guidance for the building of each community. In terms of the development stage, these eight international talent communities are in different stages. For built-up areas such as Chaoyang Wangjing and Zhongguancun Science City, we focus on their upgrade and transformation; for areas under construction such as Shunyi District and the Economic Development Area, we emphasize absorbing and integrating international resources; for new areas such as New Shougang and Huairou Science City, we prioritize planning and taking the lead. By giving respective and targeted solutions, we channel the requirements of the nine scenarios into the zoning guidance. We have reserved enough space for each community, in the hope of combining the common requirements with individual resource endowments and giving full play to their own strengths. Our aim is to build colorful international talent communities based on both the common standards and individual differences, which could jointly attract global outstanding talents to innovate and start businesses in Beijing.
