Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) was established in November 1949 and consists now of about 110 institutes at present. During past 50 years, CAS has adjusted its development goals based on continuous communication with decision-makers and the public so as to adapt itself to the new social-political and scientific & technological environment.

At its early stage, as the National R&D Institution and Administration Agency, CAS was mainly responsible for introducing western science and technology and bridging the gaps in S&T by conducting S&T research with its institutes and acting as the national administration agency of S&T to organize science and technology activity. During 1966-1976, CAS had suffered a very difficult time. Over one third of its institutes were transferred to the defence sector and another one third transferred to local government.

After ten-year Cultural Revolution, science and technology had drawn increasingly more attention from the public and decision-makers during 1977-1986. CAS as National R&D Institution became focused mainly on basic research and high level research or frontier science. Although CAS was no longer national administration agency for science and technology, it still had strong impact on the public at that time. However, CAS received lots of criticism from and had small impact on decision-makers because of lacking effective communication with them.

CAS changed its philosophy and raised the development guideline in 1987, namely "to maintain a small in number but highly trained research team for basic research; at the same time, CAS should join in the main battlefield of national economic construction and make their contributions to the economic development," in response to central government’s instructions such as "economic construction should base on the S&T, while S&T should orient towards economic construction". By active and effective communication with decision makers and the public, CAS gradually improved its public image and strengthened its influence on society.

Since 1997 CAS has made great effort in communicating with decision-makers by conducting national development strategy studies and gradually formed its strategic development targets, namely to be the ‘Base of S&T Research’, ‘Base for Talents Training’, ‘Base for Hi-tech Development’, ‘Especially Strategic Hi-tech’, ‘S&T Think Tank’, ‘Talent Bank’, ‘Knowledge Bank’, etc.

Based on studies on the knowledge based economy and the national innovation system, CAS handed the outline of ‘Developing National Innovation System in Preparation for the Era of the Knowledge-based Economy’ to Central government in 1997, which received serious concerns from decision-makers including president Jiang Zemin in Feb. 1998 and eventually resulted in the national Knowledge Innovation Program (KIP) that was launched by the Chinese government with a view of establishing national innovation system and promoting science and technology (S&T) progress. The implementation of KIP shows that China’s political leadership is placing high priority on innovation as a key element in its transformation into a market driven economy. However, effective communication between CAS and Central government was an important factor in the decision making process.

Since June 1998 CAS has carried out the pilot project of the KIP. During the initial phase of the pilot scheme (from 1998 to 2000) of KIP, CAS had made great efforts to adjust its disciplinary layout, restructure its organization and carried out reforms on its operational mechanism. Since 2001 CAS began to implement the second phase of the pilot scheme (from 2001 to 2005) of KIP. The goal of the reform in CAS is to establish about 80 national research institutes with powerful S&T innovation capability and sustainable potential, 30 of which should become distinguished research institutes in the world and five of which should become the first class research institutes in the world.

In order to adapt itself to the new social-political and scientific & technological environment, CAS renews its development guideline for the next decade as following: ‘Catering to the national strategic demands and aiming at the world science frontiers, strengthening the original innovation in scientific research and the innovation and integration of key technologies, so as to scale the heights of world science and technology, make fundamental, strategic and forward looking contributions to China’s economic reconstruction, national security and sustainable development.’

The guideline embodies new connotation with regard to the strategic position, innovative targets and priorities of CAS. For instance,

1. To give top priority to the national strategic needs and link such needs to research in the frontier areas of the world science in an organised manner;

2. To emphasize original innovation and scaling the peak of world science, as well as the innovation and integration of key technologies so as to meet the challenges arising in the era of knowledge based economy;

3. To strengthen research efforts in resources, environment and ecology so as to make great contributions to decision-makings concerning national security and strategy for sustainable development;

4. To turn KIP results into productive forces, to incubate and develop hi-tech industries, so as to contribute directly to economic reconstruction, to ensure a rapid, sustained growth of national economy.

In July 2001 CAS decided to implement the Strategic Action Plan for Scientific and Technological Innovations (SAPI) including,

1. The Action Plan for the Strategic Readjustment to draw a pattern for the Distribution of Scientific Research & Technological Development Projects;

2. The Action Plan for the Building of Research Forces and the Development of Education;

3. The Action Plan for Renovating the Managerial System of State Research Institutions.

The main objectives of the SAPI are :

1. To form anew pattern for distribution of scientific research and technological development in CAS so as to meet the requirements of the third phase of national development strategy and of the actual scientific and technological development in frontier areas and is expected to remain relatively stable for at least the next two decades

2. To make innovative changes to the managerial system and operational mechanisms with regard to a selected number of important research orientations

3. To develop an innovation oriented culture

4. To enhance the capability for strategic analysis and planning at the academy level and the capability of system integration, organisation and management, with a view to develop an organization and command system, a system for coordinating the management of resources and also a system for assessing innovations. These systems should commensurate with innovation capabilities of the CAS.

CAS is becoming very active in communicating with the public and decision makers by publishing newspaper annual reports, providing special consulting reports for decision makers and holding ‘CAS Innovation Strategy Forum’, making special TV programs jointly with media, etc. For example, CAS holds the CAS Innovation Strategy Forum by inviting famous scientists to give speeches the every other month, which mainly deal with strategy and policy issues as well as critical science & technology issues.

Meanwhile, the CAS Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Social and Natural Sciences holds Academic Forum with a view of diffusing science and technology to the public and sharing new knowledge among researchers with different background. Besides, CAS is also very active in making TV programs to spread out science knowledge and to communicate with the public and decision makers, for example, to introduce new breakthroughs in science or to give one’s suggestions from the point of view of scientists, for solving increasingly important problems concerning public health and national security.

This article introduces ahead the annual reports on ‘Science & Society’ published by CAS, including: the ‘Science Development Report’, the ‘Report on China Sustainable Development Strategy’ and the ‘Hi-tech Development Report’. There are three task forces to be responsible for research and editing concerned. The CAS publishes these three reports every February and are sent as annual meeting documents to the representatives of the National People’s Congress and the People’s Political Consultative Conference for references. After that they are published for the general public.

The Science Development Report was first published in 1997 and usually consists of seven chapters namely :

Sciences in the Past and Future;

Frontier in Science;

Achievements of Chinese Scientists;

Hot Topics in Science;

Science & Technology Policy;

Annual Review of China Science Development;

Scientists’ suggestions.

Changing world needs better communication than before. Science community needs the understanding of the public and decision-makers, while the public and decision makers need more knowledge about science & technology so as to ease the communication.

Scientific organisations should make their strategy for communication with the public and decision-makers so as to communicate science to the public effectively, and providing necessary support for decision-making process.

Media plays important role in communication between scientific community and the public and decision makers, in harmonizing the relation between scientific institutions and the public and in monitoring the behaviour of all participants in communication. Meanwhile, media should keep learning new progresses in science and technology and be active and objective in reporting them.

Each participant in the communication should be active and positive in solving problems emerging in the process of communication.

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