In the current international situation, the competition between countries has evolved into a contest between the level of science and technology and innovation ability. Therefore, the key entry point to improve the national scientific and technological level and innovation ability is to vigorously promote the construction of national laboratories and the construction of national key laboratory system. Looking back on history, since the construction of national key laboratories in 1984, China has built 522 national key laboratories by the end of 2020, which seems to be a large number, but the strength is relatively weak, the discipline is single, and fewer really have global influence and popularity. So, how to build a high-level national laboratory? The lesson of the past is that the National Laboratory, as the head research institution of knowledge production, is still difficult to curb the inertial development path of breaking away from the main battlefield of knowledge production, crossing the border to the waist of knowledge production in the scientific and technological community and plundering scientific and technological resources in the way of dimensionality reduction and harvesting, which really deviates from the original intention of the establishment of the National Laboratory. We believe that the construction of national laboratories should follow four principles at the operational level.

Government led principle. As a heavy weapon of a big country, the nature of the National Laboratory determines that the main purpose of the national laboratory must be to meet the urgent needs of the state and society, which is a matter of principle and direction. Therefore, the design, investment, construction and evaluation of national laboratories must be led by relevant national departments. For the international top national laboratories, many researchers have cognitive misunderstandings. They believe that the government owned and entrusted operation mode (hereinafter referred to as GOCO) is the mainstream mode and is more common. In fact, this is not the case. Most of the operation modes of national laboratories that truly reflect the national will are government owned and government operation mode (hereinafter referred to as gogo). Taking the National Laboratory of the United States as an example, the national laboratories of the Department of Homeland Security and NASA are all directly subordinate to relevant ministries and commissions and their subordinate departments. Although only one laboratory of the Department of energy adopts the gogo mode, the units subordinate to other laboratories are either universities and societies or large companies closely related to relevant national departments, It seems to be escrow, but in fact, these universities, societies and companies have an extremely close relationship with the government. In fact, the newly established laboratories, especially those related to key national fields, are directly subordinate to relevant government departments, such as the five laboratories under the Ministry of homeland security that have been established for about 10 years, and the 10 national laboratories under NASA that are related to national security.

Collaborative innovation principle. Over the past 30 years, the exploration of building national key laboratories has not completely built a national laboratory system with good collaborative innovation ability in China. Even there are some overlaps and repetitions in the research directions and fields of many laboratories. Due to the management system and evaluation system, the laboratories have fierce competition and even fight their own battles, and the collaborative innovation ability is weak. To build a national laboratory, it is necessary to realize the collaborative innovation among national laboratories rather than the homogeneous internal competition in the past. Therefore, the government department in charge of the national laboratory needs to plan the laboratories under its own department as a whole, and strengthen the cooperation with other government departments at the same time. In order to build a national laboratory in China, the Ministry of science and technology must focus on strengthening the relationship between various government departments, and form a clear positioning for the functions and tasks of subordinate national laboratories. In this way, a complete system of knowledge production and division of labor and cooperation can be formed between the National Laboratory under construction and the existing 522 national key laboratories through classification and alliance, so as to revitalize the existing national key laboratory resources.

Focus on the principle. As the source of cutting-edge knowledge production, national laboratories must have sophisticated equipment and sufficient human and financial resources, which can support the position of national laboratories at the head of the science and technology chain. Therefore, we must focus on the construction of relevant core facilities and highlight research highlights. Although the financial allocation for national key laboratory system and National Laboratory Construction in China has increased year by year, there is still a big gap in the investment scale compared with the national laboratories in developed countries such as the United States; In addition, the number and scale of national laboratories and state key laboratories previously built in China have ranked among the top in the world, but the scale of laboratory personnel is generally small (the average scale of laboratory personnel in foreign countries is more than 10 times that of ours), so it is difficult to form conditions for interdisciplinary and collaborative cooperation within the laboratory, and some even become close to colleges (departments) "One team, two brands" Next, foreign top laboratories generally have their own unique scientific research facilities and research highlights. Whether single project or multi-functional laboratories, most of them have reached the international top level in their fields, attracting a large number of top scientists and visiting scholars at home and abroad. The large-scale and interdisciplinary scientific research team is well staffed, which promotes the collaborative innovation of the laboratory. Therefore, the collaborative innovation of the laboratory is promoted To build a national laboratory, we must give prominence to two aspects: first, we must give prominence to resources, especially advanced large-scale scientific research facilities and scientific research devices, and strive to build a laboratory with international top level, with appropriate scale and interdisciplinary disciplines; second, we must give prominence to key points, accurately locate the functions of the National Laboratory, form unique research characteristics, and reach the international leading level in the field of scientific research Strengthen international exchanges and cooperation.

Principle of long-term evaluation. As the reservoir and ballast of China's basic and frontier research, the national laboratory must be given sufficient freedom and time to go deep into the frontier fields of science for exploratory and lasting research. At present, the scientific researchers of the National Key Laboratory almost adopt the same standards as their subordinate units in terms of recruitment, evaluation, selection and management, and the evaluation system is different The flexible and monotonous short-term performance model and the dislocation of deep incentive mechanism lead to the prevalence of four only / five only (hat only, paper only, project only, professional title only and even awards only) , this set of rigid mismatching evaluation system has led to the failure of the functions of national laboratories. What's more, its operation deviation has caused great pressure on the survival and development of laboratory researchers, especially young people. China should gradually adopt the principle of long-term evaluation in the construction of national laboratories. Laboratories are responsible for undertaking large projects, and researchers are mainly responsible for undertaking sub projects Scientific research tasks and scientific research evaluation attach importance to the theoretical significance and practical value of scientific research achievements, give up the frequent and excessive short-term evaluation of drinking poison to quench thirst, and give more freedom, time and development opportunities to scientific researchers in the national laboratory from the perspective of evaluation mechanism.

The construction of the national laboratory is an active attempt to promote the paradigm transformation of China's science and technology system in the new era, hoping to build the basic pattern of national strategic science and technology strength. In order to achieve this grand strategic goal, it is imperative to summarize the past experience and lessons and clarify the key principles. Because the ecological chain of the laboratory is relatively simple and independent, the reform is easy to control environmental variables, If successful, it will play an important exemplary role in the follow-up reform of the science and technology system. Therefore, the rules based on historical experience can ensure the stability and long-term development of the reform.