New Pilot Microelectronics Institutes Announced

On July 29, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced a plan to support the establishment of Pilot Microelectronics Institutes in an effort to advance the IC industry Promotion Guidelines. The program, which was jointly released with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and numerous other government bureaus, strongly emphasizes the promotion of industry-academic partnerships and collaboration. While "pre-competitive research" is not explicitly mentioned, the announcement calls for the creation of numerous new mechanisms to help universities and the Pilot Microelectronics Institutes work more closely with leading IC companies. 

An attachment (which has since been removed from the announcement) lists the 26 institutes, 9 of which have already been approved. The 9 existing Pilot Microelectronics Institutes are: Peking University, Tsinghua University, China Academy of Science University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Southeastern University, Zhejiang University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Xidian University.