"We must unswervingly implement the innovation-driven development strategy and the talent strong enterprise strategy, accelerate the forging of a strong engine for high-quality development, and strive to break through the prototype, revive the momentum, strengthen Baogang, and work together to inject more core driving forces into a dignified and respected enterprise." On September 1, at the 2023 Science and Technology Innovation and Talent work Conference of Baotou Steel, Meng Fanying, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Baotou Steel, made new expectations for the future development of Baotou Steel in his speech.

The picture shows Meng Fanying. (Picture provided by Baotou Steel Group)

"To make rare earth stronger and bigger, to make fine and special steel, to promote other industries to form scale and create benefits, in the final analysis, it depends on scientific and technological innovation and human resources, and Baotou Steel needs innovation and is more eager for talent than any period in history." In Meng Fanying's eyes, standing at the new starting point of the new track, Baotou Steel's future has unlimited possibilities.

We need to speed up breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation and human resources work

"Development cannot be achieved without scientific and technological innovation, and scientific and technological innovation cannot be achieved without talents." Meng Fanying first stressed that it is necessary to fully understand the extreme importance and realistic urgency of scientific and technological innovation and talent work.

 Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, a series of major judgments and important arrangements have been made to accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, and the importance of scientific and technological innovation and talent work has been repeatedly emphasized.  Meng Fanying proposed that Baotou Steel should become the country's regional science and technology innovation center in the western region and ethnic areas.

Second, to do a good job in scientific and technological innovation and human resources is a strategic requirement to grasp the macro trend and respond to risks and challenges. "At present, China's scientific and technological development is in a critical period when it will not be strong, and if it does not advance, it will fall back. Accelerating the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance is not only a matter of development, but also a matter of survival." Meng Fanying said, "We must fully understand the decisive significance of scientific and technological self-reliance and talent leadership and drive, always integrate enterprise development into the strategic overall situation of national and national development, in the process of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese modernization, reflect the role of Baogang and make contributions."

Third, doing a good job in scientific and technological innovation and talent work is a requirement for enterprises to give full play to their strategic advantages and unswervingly move towards first-class development. "At present, we have basically achieved the goal of 'breaking through', and the next important task is to 'make samples'." Meng Fanying further explained that the primary task of "proofing" is to achieve breakthrough in scientific and technological innovation and talent work, we must firmly grasp the scientific and technological innovation and talent work that affects the whole situation, and support Baotou Steel to build a world-class enterprise and enter the world's top 500 with first-class scientific research results and first-class talent team.

Fruitful results have been achieved on the topics of "innovation" and "talent"

In recent years, Baotou Steel has deeply implemented the innovation-driven development strategy and the talent-strong enterprise strategy, and promoted the enterprise's scientific and technological innovation strength and talent work to achieve holistic, breakthrough and transformative progress and transformation.

First, the quality and efficiency of innovation have greatly improved. Meng Fanying introduced that from 2022 to the first half of 2023, Baotou Steel research projects approved 392 projects, a total of 767 authorized patents, R & D investment reached 7.843 billion yuan, investment intensity reached 4.3%; 65 scientific research achievements won the enterprise internal science and technology achievement awards, won 24 provincial and ministerial level or above and industry awards, and strive for various scientific research policy funds of 112.166 million yuan; Rare earth steel output exceeded 1 million tons; Fluorite resource utilization to achieve industrialization; The pilot line of scandium oxide successfully extracted kg scandium oxide with a purity of 99.9%.

At the same time, Baotou Steel has successfully developed and sold a number of important products such as rare earth Zinc-aluminum-magnesium coating products, high-strength weather-resistant earthquake-resistant hot-rolled H-beam steel, high-purity rare earth compounds, rare earth thermal insulation and reflection materials. Major breakthroughs have been made in the industrialization of its own technologies, such as the comprehensive utilization of steel slag by carbonization, the production technology of desulfurized gypsum whisker, the dry separation and recovery technology of useful rock containing iron, the key preparation technology of high-purity rare earth metals, the production process of rare earth PVC heat stabilizer, and the production process of rare earth heat breaker, and some of its products have gained high market recognition. Such as high-purity rare earth ytterbium target market share reached more than 50%; The country's first solid-state hydrogen storage system demonstration device has been built, and a comprehensive application scenario for solid-state hydrogen storage has been built.

Second, major breakthroughs have been made in institutional reform. Meng Fanying listed that Baotou Steel has continuously improved the scientific and technological innovation and talent system, promoted the "unveiling of the list" of scientific research projects, adjusted the management authority of scientific research institutes, gave scientific and technological personnel greater decision-making power and the right to use funds, and gave scientific research units greater personnel autonomy.

At the same time, Baotou Steel has continuously improved the scientific research reward method, increased the incentive, and awarded various scientific research rewards of 10.2 million yuan; The reform of scientific research institutions has been promoted, and scientific reform demonstration actions have been fully promoted in scientific research units within enterprises, and 12 affiliated enterprises have passed the national high-tech recognition or re-evaluation; We will implement a series of support policies such as equity and dividend incentives to fully stimulate the vitality of enterprise innovation and creativity.

Third, important progress has been made in building research platforms. Baotou Steel has completed the reorganization of the Bayan Obo Rare Earth Resources Research and Comprehensive Utilization of the National Key Laboratory, created the rare Earth New materials technology innovation Center and realized substantive operation, introduced and renewed three academician workstations, and made breakthroughs in the construction of open and shared high-end scientific and technological innovation platforms. In addition, Baogang has also established deep strategic cooperative relations with 48 universities and research institutes such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Geoscience and the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and jointly established the Baiyun Obo Rare Earth Joint Research Institute with Zhejiang University to strengthen the enterprise-led deep integration of production, university and research.

Fourth, talent introduction and training to achieve full bloom. Baotou Steel adheres to the working mechanism of "Party committee management and market selection", innovates the implementation of "cadres and talents quality improvement project" and "skills and talents quality improvement project", creates "sailing, sailing, sailing, escort" and "Baiyun Lecture Hall" brand training projects, and strengthens joint training with dozens of colleges and universities to forge a promising talent team. Baotou Steel "enclave talent" work has achieved remarkable results and has been affirmed.

"In terms of scientific and technological innovation achievements, the development of scientific research topics and strategic goals does not match, the original technology research ability is not enough, the innovation achievements formed around new application scenarios and markets are few, and the contribution to enterprises and the support for the industry are not enough." Meng Fanying also admitted that there are still some problems in Baotou Steel's scientific and technological innovation and talent work, "In the innovation system and mechanism, the measures to strengthen mission incentive, contribution incentive, and guarantee dedicated research are not enough, the incentive mechanism for scientific researchers, fault tolerance mechanism and other systems are not fully implemented, and the process constraints are not in place."

"In the construction of innovation platforms, the open collaborative innovation model needs to be continuously improved, and the superior resources of various innovation platforms are not integrated enough, the formation of joint forces is not enough, and the supporting force for industrial development is not strong." In terms of attracting and cultivating talents of all kinds, the overall quality of talents is not high enough, especially the total number of high-end talents and leading scientific researchers is insufficient, and human resource management faces major challenges such as a large number of retirees, a shortage of talents in professional fields, and insufficient effectiveness of talent training and incentive." Meng Fanying said, "These problems still need us to persevere, work for a long time, and make greater efforts to solve them."

We must fight the "three battles" of enterprise scientific and technological innovation and talent work

"At present, Baotou Steel is entering a period of best development opportunities in its history." In Meng Fanying's view, Baotou Steel should seize the opportunity to speed up the formation of a number of outstanding scientific and technological innovation achievements, a number of top leading talents and teams, and strive to create original technology "source" and talent cultivation "new highland".

First, we need to win the battle for key and core technologies. Meng Fanying proposed that Baotou Steel should unswervingly do basic research and application basic research that match the strategic positioning of the enterprise, especially determined to do basic research and application basic research in the field of rare earth new materials and comprehensive utilization of resources.

At the same time, Baotou Steel should unswervingly promote the transformation of engineering, solve the technical problems, and open up the "last mile" of the transformation of economic benefits; It is necessary to improve the precision of scientific research projects, adhere to the integration with major national strategies, adhere to the support of enterprise development strategies, adhere to the problem orientation, adhere to the moderate advance, adhere to the open mind, focusing on the comprehensive utilization of resources, the development of rare earth new materials, and the development of rare earth application fields, and so on, and concentrate on high-level scientific research topics. It is necessary to improve the transformation path of scientific and technological achievements, make use of policies such as insurance compensation for the first batch of applications of new materials, establish a collaborative mechanism for the transformation of output in developed regions and autonomous regions, and build a closed-loop system for research and development, trial production, market development, and industrial transformation.

Meng Fan-ying also said that Baotou Steel should explore a variety of ways to transform the incentive results, adhere to the combination of long-term incentive and prompt incentive, one-time incentive and equity incentive, and encourage the introduction of funds, venture capital and other ways and means to form a multi-participation results incubation transformation model; We will accelerate the industrialization of high-end products. By 2025, the contribution rate of Baotou Steel and Northern rare earth new products will reach 17.5% and 5% respectively, and the output value ratio of rare earth new materials and devices will reach more than 50%.

Second, we need to win the battle for institutional innovation. Meng Fanying proposed that Baotou Steel should improve the leadership mechanism, deploy scientific and technological innovation work from the whole chain at the group level, coordinate major research topics and major scientific research projects, and improve the overall efficiency of the scientific and technological innovation system; Establish and improve the rigid mechanism of R&D investment, the process supervision mechanism, and the result evaluation mechanism. By 2025, the R&D investment intensity of Baotou Steel should reach 3.5%, and the northern rare earth should reach more than 5%.

At the same time, Baotou Steel should innovate the management mechanism, take the upgraded management of the rare Earth Institute as a new starting point, widely gather internal and external innovation resources and forces, give more policy and financial support to scientific research units, and comprehensively decentralize power and enlize; It is necessary to strengthen the construction of platforms, promote the integration of existing innovation platforms, give full play to the role of national key laboratories and other national platforms, accelerate the application of the national rare Earth new materials technology innovation center, and promote the implementation of scientific reform demonstration actions by six scientific research institutes.

Meng Fanying further said that Baotou Steel should strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, enhance the awareness of intellectual property rights, improve the protection mechanism of scientific research results, and serve to ensure the innovation and development of enterprises; It is necessary to establish a more open innovation ecology, give full play to the advantages of the internal market, resources, application scenarios, and actively connect national and local scientific and technological innovation forces and resources, in particular, seize the major opportunity of the construction of "two rare earth bases", and build the rare earth new materials technology innovation center and national key laboratory into an open demonstration innovation platform.

Third, we need to win the battle of talent innovation leading the way. "Baotou Steel should expand the number of top talents, continue to implement a more flexible and open talent recruitment policy, build a strong 'talent enclave', promote consultant guidance, 'migratory bird' recruitment and other personnel selection methods, and give scientific research units greater autonomy in the preparation and use, job evaluation, assessment and evaluation." Meng Fanying said that Baotou Steel should make the base of all kinds of talents bigger, in accordance with the principle of hierarchical classification training, strengthen the growth experience of "good foal, steed and Qianli horse" talents, highlight professional ability training, promote the reform of management positions and technical business sequence, cultivate a group of leading talents, high-end talents and innovation and entrepreneurship teams, especially to improve the whole chain training of young talents. Create a talent team of "wild goose formation"; It is necessary to release the strong signal of "gathering the world's talents and using them", establish the assessment and distribution orientation of "high guarantee and strong incentive, encouraging innovative research" for high-level talents, strengthen honor incentive and commendation promotion, and effectively enhance the sense of gain, honor and pride of talents.

"Scientific research and innovation ultimately depend on talents, and enterprise development ultimately depends on talents." Meng Fanying said that it is hoped that all kinds of talents, especially young talents, should inherit and carry forward the excellent quality of the older generation of Baogang people, speak of feelings, speak of responsibility, speak of the cause, harbor the "country's biggest", sit on the "bench", brave "no man's land", calmly engage in research, do not seek a false name, bury themselves in deep cultivation, and make contributions in major scientific and technological innovation and key core technologies for a long time. The pursuit of their own value into the great cause of Baotou Steel.