One of the main issues addressed is how to restructure the network of national key laboratories, which require improved quality and effectiveness.
The Agricultural Genetics Institute’s National Key Laboratory was established in 2001 with investment of 2 million USD. The laboratory has partnered 3 research institutes from the US, Japan and France as a strategic way to boost its effectiveness and performance. Thanks to this partnership, the number of published papers from the laboratory has increased threefold. However, currently the institute receives too little funding from the national budget to maintain operations.
To resolve these severe financial problems, the institute is encouraging scientist to source their own research projects from outside the organisation. However, this leads to another obstacle.
This is also a difficulty for other national key laboratories. There are total 16 national key laboratories nationwide. However, some have not achieved the expected performance standards.
With the plan on national key laboratories restructuring, the Ministry of Science and Technology suggest solutions to boost effectiveness, scope and capital of these key laboratories.
According to the restructuring plan, the number of ineffective national key laboratories will be reduced by 2017. This is an effort to focus resources to develop productive national key laboratories.
