By looking back 20 years development path, it is a significant testimony that only technology &science innovation can bring a long-term development.
In March of this year, ‘Science and Technology Innovation Daily’ and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of Shanghai (ISTIS) jointly launched the "2022 Science and Technology Pioneer " list. After more than four months of information collection, data verification and multi-dimensional rating, the list is officially unveiled.
A total of 97 pioneering science & technology entrepreneurs divvyed up in four lists, including 30 scientist entrepreneur pioneers, 15 industry driving scientists pioneers, 20 female scientist entrepreneurs pioneers, and 32 pioneering entrepreneur elites.
From the outcome of the list, the list is mainly from the new generation of information technology, biomedical, enterprise services, cutting-edge manufacturing and other essential science and technology innovation areas, they are focusing on the forefront of each area, hoping to foster the development of the industry through independent research and development of scientific and technological innovation technology products, explore a new scenario for scientific and technological innovation application.
The list is generated based on two aspects: academic aspect and business aspect.
From an academic aspect: the basic dimension to judge the scientific research background of scientists based on academic ability, academic level and academic status. Business aspect: basic dimensions to judge leadership, scientific creativity and business ability of scientific innovators. There are different criteria and focus areas of each list from the three.
Let’s have a view of the lists:
For the list of scientist entrepreneur pioneer, we found that 48.9 % are from the next generation of information technology field. In terms of the founders' background, 84.4% of the list have a PhD degree, 62.2% have overseas study experience, and 73.3% have overseas work experience. In terms of academic achievement, 68.9% of the list have worked or had part-time experience in universities or scientific research institutions (more than 20% of the list are from the Chinese Academy of Sciences), 55.6 % have won national science awards, and 48.9% have accumulated more than 10 years of experience in their fields. In terms of corporate governance structure and team composition, cooperative teams with more than 10 years account for 48.9%, and 62.2% of the core team have a share of more than 10% of the company. Listed member with both features mentioned above accounted for 31.1 %.
Scientists &entrepreneurs represented by Jiangxing Intelligence’s Liu Jiangchuan and AISpeech’s Yu Kai, have made great academic achievements. Due to its outstanding number of patent achievements, TGZX has a relatively impressive performance in the scientific research area. From a commercial aspect, of the listed enterprises, round B, round C and round A accounted for 28.9%, 26.7% and 20% of the financing rounds, respectively. Those who have studied the track for more than 10 years accounted for 57.8%.
In addition, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there were many outstanding enterprises whose founders had a very deep industrial background, and their commercial value was fully demonstrated because of their rich scientific research background and previous work experience in large enterprises. Their company's financing rounds are mostly divvyed up in B and C rounds. Among them, 46.7 percent of such enterprises received investment from first-line industrial capital. It is noteworthy that up to 60% of enterprises have received investment from the national industrial funds. Among them, Holomatic and Hyperview, are under the limelight.
For the pioneering entrepreneur elite list, from the perspective of educational background, 60.6% of the list has overseas study experience, more than 90% of them are graduated from the QS World Top 100 universities. Overall, 46.8% of the founders had a doctorate degree, and 47% of those on the list were trained by leading scientists in their field. Most of the elites are from the new generation of information technology and cutting-edge manufacturing area, accounting for 34.4% and 28.1% respectively. Among those on the list, 37.5% are serial entrepreneurs, 56.3% have work experience in the world's top 500 or China's top 500, and 46% have commercialized their patent achievements. In terms of the performance of enterprises in the financing market, B-round enterprises account for 34.3%, and 68.8% of the listed enterprises have received investment from Head dual-currency VC.
For the list of female entrepreneur pioneers, the original purpose of this list is to better explore the contribution of female roles in science and innovation, and on the other hand, to objectively present the business environment of contemporary women entrepreneurship and the true aspirations of female science and innovation pioneers. Of the 20 top female innovators on the list, 12 are founders/cofounders, and 55% have a master's degree. Compared with scientists or entrepreneur elites, the academic performance of female science and innovation elites is relatively in common level, but from the perspective of past work experience, 12 of them have worked in the global 500, and 4 of them have D-level work experience. 35% of the financing rounds of the listed companies are Series A. Among them, Beijing Ai Robotics led by Shuaimei, Graviti led by Wu Qiongjing, Qingflow led by Li Tingting and other enterprises show outstanding performance in the capital market.
In order to better understand the current situation of women in the field of science entrepreneur, the list also conducted a separate individual survey on a number of female science entrepreneurs. We have learned that in the current core executive team of female entrepreneurs, women can almost ensure that more than 20% of the C-suite are female. However, the small number of women in the research field and the limited proportion of female executives in the industry are also critical features. As a female entrepreneur, "personal life balance" is the most difficult transition process. At the same time, many women also mentioned that they may have encountered repeated verification of their scientific research achievements, unfair treatment of scientific research funds, and discrimination in the process of corporate financing. We also observed that the majority of participants agreed that "entrepreneurship is difficult, gender discrimination is wrong ", and that the pressures and difficulties faced by both men and women, from scientists to entrepreneurs, were similar. Hereby, we call on more women to participate in China's science and technology entrepreneurship, and call on the society to treat women entrepreneurs in a more fair manner.
Overall, in terms of research experience of years in relevant areas, pioneering scientists show their long-term commitment -- 70.5% of the listed scientists have studied for more than 10 years in specific subject. While the scientific innovation elite, as the new generation of scientific innovation, their research years are evenly divvyed up in 10 years, 5-10 years, 3-5 years. To translate to relevant products or services with their own scientific research achievements, and then develop innovative manufacturing enterprises or innovative service enterprises, is the idea of changing the identity from scientist to entrepreneur. However, the commercialization of individual patents is not so easy. In this ranking list, less than half of the scientific innovators have commercialized their individual patents.
Team, VCs and other external factors will help to pave the road for science and technology entrepreneurship. Among the listed entrepreneurs, the cooperation time with the core team is divvyed up around 6-10 years, and the shareholding ratio of the core team members other than the listed ones is more than 10% on average. In terms of financing, the listed companies are in many rounds of A and B financing stage. Among the top well-known investment institutions that have been supported, two-thirds of the members are from Star-Edge Pioneer Alliance.
Lastly, in order to further analyze the "leadership" of the participants, we also listed the ‘Five Personality Scale’ in the data collection stage, so that the participants could self-evaluate in five perspectives: openness, responsibility, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. According to the results, most participants choose "openness", which corresponds to "imaginative, emotional, creative and unconventional", while "agreeableness" and "extroversion" are the least selected, which reflect the positioning and expectation of scientists entrepreneurs. The scientist entrepreneur pioneers are a group of people who are not hasty but imaginative and creative.
The evaluation dimensions and scoring of this list are jointly completed by ‘Science and Technology Daily’, Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of Shanghai (ISTIS) and Star Mining Data. Science and Technology Board Daily reserves the final right to interpret the list.
