Professor Yiming Zhao from our School has been approved as principal scientist for the Young Scientists Project of the National Key R&D Program titled Industrial Software Value Chain and Digital Ecological Resource System, marking the first time our school has led such a national-level youth research initiative.

This project, based on the theoretical frameworks and methodologies of information resource management, addresses emerging trends including software-defined manufacturing, industrial product development, and hybrid open-source/closed-source industrial software applications. It will investigate theories for industrial software value chains and trusted supply chains that support product lifecycle management and enterprise-wide industrial chain collaborative innovation, explore manufacturing big data systems and digital ecological resource architectures, establish cross-disciplinary and cross-platform collaborative innovation ecosystems, and develop key technologies encompassing IoT sensing and correlation fusion, multi-source heterogeneous data integration and processing, industrial software bill-of-materials generation, static application security testing, and software composition analysis. The initiative will ultimately create an open-architecture prototype for industrial chain digital ecosystem resource platforms supporting hybrid open/closed-source models, with technical validation conducted in the high-end laser equipment industry.

In recent years, our School has actively supported faculty members in conducting scientific research aligned with national strategic priorities across broader application scenarios. In November 2024, at the 9th Higher Education Outstanding Research Achievement Awards ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Education, Yiming Zhao delivered a keynote speech titled Better Serving National Strategy through Digital Intelligence-Driven Transformation as the sole youth achievement award recipient. His recent approval for the Young Scientists Project under the National Key R&D Program's "Industrial Software" key special project further demonstrates our School's effectiveness in advancing faculty contributions to national strategies and expanding disciplinary research frontiers.

The National Key R&D Program of China has been formed by integrating several major national science and technology programs, including the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) and the National High-Tech R&D Program of China (863 Program). The program focuses on funding major social public welfare research projects crucial to national economic and social development, as well as strategic, fundamental, and forward-looking scientific issues that are vital to industrial core competitiveness, overall independent innovation capabilities, and national security. It also supports the development of key generic technologies, major product innovations, and significant international scientific and technological cooperation. Among these initiatives, the Young Scientists Program aims to cultivate a group of young researchers with the potential to become leading scientists. By addressing critical scientific questions and technical challenges in line with national strategic needs, the program seeks to accelerate the development of young leading talents with significant influence in cutting-edge international fields.