Eight Fields Selected for China's "Knowledge Innovation Projects" 　　To push forward China's science and technological research to the most advanced level in the world, "Knowledge Innovation Projects" in China have chosen eight fields as the breach for the country's overall development. These refer to such fields as agriculture hi-tech, population and health, information and automation, energy, new materials, resources environment, space science and technology, basic and major cross sciences. 　　By agriculture hi-tech, the research focus will be on modern biology, especially a merger of biological technology with traditional agriculture science, mainly with a study on growth habits of flora, fauna and microbe. A new agriculture revolution is to be brought about by a merger of these. Intelligent and digital agriculture technology will also be a direction of agriculture hi-tech research. 　　In the area of population and health, China has selected innovative drugs and neurology as its research direction. It is hoped that in five years 1-2 innovative drugs with autonomous intellectual property right and a comparatively large market share will be developed. 　　Three directions are decided for information science and technology, namely a merger of computer, communication and household electric appliances technology, information security and high-performance computer in use. 　　In energy research, the emphasis is for an innovation of controllable nuclear fusion, nuclear power of high-efficiency, security and cleanness, clean firing of coal and its conversion, renewable sources of energy etc. 　　In new materials, superconducting material, nanometre material, light metal material with super-high strength, ceramic composite of high-performance and super-high strength construction plastics are to be produced. 　　In resources environment field the emphasis is on global shift and environment evolution, ecological change and restoration, sustainable use of soil and water, pollution control mechanism, lithosphere process and mineralization. 　　Basic and cross sciences are also listed as one of the 8 key fields. HomeNews 1999-07-14 Page5 Full Story in Chinese