Chen Saijuan, dean of the National Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, said she was inspired by President Xi's pledge for a better administrative and budgetary management system to serve Chinese scientists.

"That will bring about greater benefit to the public as well," she said.

Jiang Haomin, chief researcher of Baosteel Group Corp, welcomed President Xi's promise that scientists may own shares, stock options and dividends.

This is the way to enable science and the economy to work more closely with each other, Jiang said.

Chen Baoming, director of the Institute of Comprehensive Development of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology, said all nine fields of research listed in the Outline of the National Strategy of Innovation-Driven Development, released on May 23 by the Ministry of Science and Technology, are the areas likely to yield new achievements and breakthroughs.

For example, he said, without the right technology, China would have difficulty maintaining security in food supplies and ecological balance.

Without the next-generation information technologies, China would not have been able to tap the full potential of its enormous domestic market, he added.

In renewable energies, China has already made an impressive start. But only with more key innovations can it develop a solid market advantage, Chen said.

The three top-level conferences are the national conference on science and technology, the biennial conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the national congress of the China Association for Science and Technology, a nongovernmental organization of scientists. The conference of the two academies will last until Friday.