Latest Progress of Mass Entrepreneurship and Mass Innovation in China

Mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation represent an important measure to implement the innovation-driven development strategy in China. It was clearly stated in the Report on the Work of the Government in 2018 that the government should provide all-dimensional innovation and entrepreneurship services, facilitate the establishment of bases for innovation and entrepreneurship, encourage big enterprise, universities and research institutes to open their innovation resources, develop platform economy and sharing economy, create a pattern featuring online-offline integration, industry-academia-research cooperation and integration between big, medium and small-sized enterprises and work for an upgraded version of mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation. At present, entrepreneurship and incubation have become an important component in cultivating new development engines, underpinning supply-side structural reform and fostering entrepreneurship.

The 2018 Report on Entrepreneurship and Incubation Development in China published by Torch High Technology Industry Development Center of Ministry of Science and Technology shows 

1. The makers' spaces bring increasing impact to industries and become basic service platforms

In 2017, there were 5,739 makers' spaces according to statistics of Torch Center, an increase of over 33% compared with 2016. The spaces covered a total area of more than 25 million ㎡, provided over 1.05 million job opportunities, a year-on-year increase of over 36%, served over 410,000 start-up teams and companies, up by 52% compared with the previous year, had 87,000 new enterprises registered, a year-on-year increase of 22% and held more than 250,000 entrepreneurship activities and training sessions of all kinds, up by 37% compared with the previous year. More than 1.7 million people were hired, among whom over 460,000 were those who graduated two years ago.

2. Top-level design has been strengthened gradually and policy dividend released

In 2017, local governments mapped out over 300 policies for mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation. The local governments focused on the removing obstacles impeding development of innovation and entrepreneurship, stressed the role of innovation and incubation carriers, aroused the initiative of the major players and carriers and effectively pushed forward the development of mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation. In 2017, the spaces helped incubated enterprises gain 3.15 billion yuan of government funding, a year-on-year increase of 37%.

3. The full participation of capital empowers the makers' spaces

In 2017, capital participated in development of the makers' spaces in an in-depth manner, which became an effective approach to enterprises' growth and enhanced the quality and efficiency of the spaces. According to statistics, over 400 of the spaces in the country were established by investment agencies. Capital plus incubation has become an important model of the development of the spaces. In 2017, the spaces helped 18,000 teams and enterprises win investment of about 67 billion yuan, among which 57 billion yuan came from social sectors while about 10 billion yuan came from the spaces.

4. The makers' spaces start networked development by chain-store operation and brand management

Numbers of better developed makers' spaces have already set up branches in major cities at home or even abroad and built up networks through brand management or chain-store operation. Since its establishment two years ago, UCOMMUNE has set up 100 shared office spaces and pooled over 4,000 enterprises in 30 cities of six countries.  

5. Graduated companies build up spaces and a virtuous circle is formed

A virtuous circle has been formed as the graduated companies agree on the philosophies of the incubators and start building up makers' spaces. Quite numbers of companies graduated from incubators provide whole life-cycle services on the open online platform, adopt the model featuring online services and offline incubation and serve entrepreneurial teams through crowdsourcing. They have further gained development momentum and impetus through opening up makers' spaces.

6. Makers' spaces serve as critical players for acceleration of transforming research outcomes by enterprises, universities and research institutes

A number of leading and backbone enterprises and research institutes have contributed to establishing makers' spaces, offered one-stop entrepreneurship, incubation and investment services, accelerated translations of research findings and laid a solid foundation for new types of commercial activities. The cooperation among state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, universities and research institutes has led to two innovation and entrepreneurship models driven respectively by model innovation and technical innovation, which can underpin the economic transformation and upgrading.

7. Makers' spaces cultivate a large number of excellent enterprises for transformation and upgrading of conventional industries

Over the past three years, the makers' spaces have cultivated a batch of leading enterprises in sharing economy and Internet. While changing people's lifestyle, it also attracts more and more people for innovative and entrepreneurial activities.For example, HUIBO incubated by Sudatiangong Makers' Space is specialized in R&D and manufacturing of industrial robots, service robots and precision robots. The company now ranks among the top players in China as it has won a total investment of 150 million yuan and a turnover of 250 million yuan in 2017. Flowerplus incubated by Suhehui grew to become the champion of flower industry over two years and completed four rounds of financing within a year. At present, its monthly turnover exceeds 80 million yuan and its net sales volume reached 640 million yuan in 2017.