The new Chlorofluorocarbons-free (CFCs-free) Polyurethane Foam technology was invented by Professor BI Yusui in SDUT and has been considered by the state authority as the revolutionary and innovative technology in this field. He signed the exclusive license contract of this patent and got 520 billion RMB Yuan, which hit the record in China and gained widespread attention at home and abroad. After a period of six months, how was Bi’s project going? What were the difficulties ahead? On November 1, 2017, LYU Chuanyi, Secretary of SDUT’s Party Committee, and ZHANG Tiezhu, President of SDUT, came to the laboratory where the new CFCs-free Polyurethane Foam was invented, and conducted a special symposium. Present at this symposium were representatives from School Party Committee (headmaster’s) office, Human Resources Department, Science and Technology Department, and School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and leading members of this research team.
BI Yusui made a brief introduction in three aspects: project progress, laboratory building and team building. Currently, the related goods were in mass production and on sale; the application tests of some companies had come to an end; the all-round layout of patents were coming into being, in which two core technologies had been patented while more than 30 patents were under review; the laboratory was under construction steadily. All in all, the project had gone very well.
Representatives from Human Resources Department, Science and Technology Department, and School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering all said that they would play their own active part in the implementation of the project.
After listening to the report carefully, ZHANG tiezhu thought that the team building of this project was relatively weak so more talents should be attracted in targeted ways for the project development, such as integrating some visiting scholars or post-docs into this team. Then, it was necessary to improve the project by finding out weaknesses according to the evaluation criteria of high-level awards of scientific research and optimizing the project in a system, striving to win national awards. In terms of the laboratory and subject building, we should learn from the domestic and foreign rich experience in high-level laboratory building, sticking to high standards and clear planning. In this way, the overall layout of plan would be built including the current situation of the research, working foundation, existing problems, future vision, goals and tasks and the policy support.
LYU Chuanyi responded the questions and difficulties in the course of the project implementation. He said that 500 million RMB Yuan was not the final goal SDUT wanted to achieve in this project. The most significant result lay in the fact that this breakthrough tackled one of barriers in the process of sustainable development of mankind. This achievement was the product of years of painstaking researches by Professor Bi and his team, which was a great honor to the school, and a golden opportunity for school’s development. Both School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and every department of SDUT should be fully aware of the importance of this project and help seize the big opportunity. SDUT should also free its mind and work together to support the implementation of this project.
LYU Chuanyi pointed out that a team pursuing the sustainable development was the premise of the project of sustainable development. The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering should plan to hold a symposium on team building and project development of the new CFCs-free Polyurethane Foam. While attracting talents into it, the School should also cooperate with experts from other related Schools, such as School of Materials Science, School of Electrical Engineering, and School of Mechanical Engineering to build a collaborative innovation platform aiming to make the team bigger and stronger with more outstanding achievements in the future.
LYU Chuanyi stressed that SDUT should offer conveniences and set up a special subject zone to fully support the team building and the implementation of the new CFCs-free Polyurethane Foam. In the past, SDUT had put forward the focused projects and the featured projects during the subject building. The current task was to establish a special subject zone related to the project on the new CFCs-free Polyurethane Foam. Conveniences and solutions should be given in time in terms of the recruitment of postgraduates, talents attracting and laboratory building for the improvement of this project.