At the meeting, Huai Jinpeng answered a reporter's question on "How to further enhance the scientific and technological innovation capabilities of universities, improve the quality of independent talent training, and more effectively serve the major strategic needs of the country through deepening reforms.

Huai Jinpeng stated that universities are the centralized intersection of education, technology, and talent, the main force of basic research, and the source of major technological breakthroughs. Universities are the most valuable resource of the country. In recent years, universities have played an important role in the national innovation system. For example, in the fields of quantum technology, life sciences, material sciences, space sciences, etc., a number of significant original achievements have been made. Next, the Ministry of Education will optimize the layout of higher education, focus on strengthening targeted and organized talent cultivation, technological innovation, and social services in universities, strengthen the "dual wheel drive" of institutional innovation and technological innovation, and provide strong support for accelerating the construction of a world important talent center and innovation highland.

One is to promote the reform of universities through classification. The demand for schools and talents in economic and social development is actually diverse. In universities, there is a need for both "all-around players" and "individual champions". We will clarify the development positioning of various types of universities, establish a classification management and evaluation mechanism, guide different types of universities to shape and leverage their advantages in different fields and tracks, pursue excellence, and create distinctive features. Accelerate the construction of universities with Chinese characteristics and world-class disciplines, implement the action of cultivating and optimizing first-class disciplines, focus on breakthroughs in advantages, create a number of first-class discipline benchmarks, and enhance discipline construction capabilities in the completion of major tasks.

The second is to focus on strengthening the cultivation of innovation capabilities. Innovation education cultivates creative talents, and creative talents cultivate innovative countries. We will focus on the major strategic needs and technological development trends of the country, dynamically adjust the discipline settings of universities, optimize talent training models, and make extraordinary arrangements for urgently needed disciplines and majors. Deepen the implementation of the national strategy for cultivating top-notch talents in basic disciplines, deepen the construction of new engineering, new medicine, new agriculture, and new humanities, create first-class core courses, textbooks, practical projects, and faculty teams, strengthen the coordination between science and technology education and humanities education, promote the improvement of science and technology innovation thinking through the enhancement of students' humanistic background, and build a high-quality independent training system for top-notch innovative talents.

The third is to improve the mechanism of scientific and technological innovation in universities. We will implement a plan for breakthroughs in basic and interdisciplinary fields, enhance the organization of basic research, use major tasks as the "engine" for the integration of science and education, lead interdisciplinary integration, and promote the production of more original and disruptive technological innovation achievements. Especially, we will strengthen the cultivation of young scientific and technological talents, guide and support a group of young university teachers with patriotism and outstanding innovation ability through long-term stable support and long-term evaluation, carry out high-level free exploration, and challenge the "no man's land" of science. We will improve the efficiency of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in universities, establish regional technology transfer and transformation centers in universities, accelerate the layout and construction of higher research institutes, promote the "two-way rush" of universities and enterprises, promote the high-level creation and efficient transformation of scientific research achievements in universities, and continuously assist in the development of new quality production capacity.