Lujiazui, the financial center of Shanghai. [Wang Gang/For China Daily]

Thirty-two awards were given out at Shanghai's first postdoctoral innovation and entrepreneurship competition held on Aug 28.

Hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and organized by Shanghai's Fudan University, the competition was divided into two categories: innovation and entrepreneurship.

The competition was related to eight fields, including next-generation information technology (including integrated circuits), high-end equipment manufacturing (including artificial intelligence), new materials, new energy (including new energy vehicles), biomedicine and health, modern agriculture and food, energy conservation and environmental protection.

More than 150 postdoctoral researchers from the city's 38 units with postdoctoral workstations registered for the event. Following an internal selection and qualification examination, the preliminary contest (online expert evaluation) and the quarter-final (online roadshow), 32 winners - 24 in innovation and eight in entrepreneurship – were announced.

The winners who meet the requirements of the 2021 Shanghai Super Postdoctoral Incentive Program will be directly selected for the program and receive a grant of at least 600,000 yuan ($92,882) for two years.

Outstanding participants will be recommended to participate in the final of the 2021 Shanghai Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and the final of the first national postdoctoral innovation and entrepreneurship competition held by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. They will also have the opportunity to obtain policy support, financial support and venture capital.

Shanghai currently has the highest number of postdoctoral workstations and the largest scale of postdoctoral recruitment in the country. Postdoctoral groups have become a main force of scientific and technological innovation in the city, leading the exploration of cutting-edge technology in various fields.

The city has established 239 postdoctoral research mobile stations in 37 universities and research institutes, covering all disciplines except military science. It has also set up postdoctoral workstations in 158 enterprises and institutions and science parks, as well as postdoctoral innovation practice bases in 11 districts.

Since the establishment of the postdoctoral system in 1985, more than 20,000 postdoctoral research fellows have been trained in the Shanghai, with the current number of postdoctoral researchers at workstations in the city standing at about 6,500, of whom 24 percent are from overseas and 72 percent are researchers in science, engineering and medicine.

According to incomplete statistics, nine postdoctoral researchers from workstations in Shanghai were elected as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, while more than 200 were selected for national talent programs.