Chapter 1 General Provisions
Article 1 The DBN Science & Technology Awards are science and technology awards for global agriculture industry being established and approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Beijing Da Bei Nong Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Da Bei Nong Group for short), in order to reward agriculture and the society, invested to set up these awards in 1999 according to the corporate concept of “Serving the country, revitalizing agriculture, striving to be No.1 and joint development”.
Article 2 Pursuant to the Regulation on National Science and Technology Awards and the Management Rules on the Setting up of Science and Technology Awards by Social Forces, these measures are formulated in according to the actual situations of agriculture so as to reward individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions to applied agricultural researches, sufficiently stimulate the activity and creativity of those who work in the field of agricultural science and technology, build an environment that encourages independent innovation, promote the transformation of scientific and technological outcomes into practical productivity and boost the implementation of the strategies of “serving the country and revitalizing agriculture” and sustainable development.
Article 3 These measures are applied to various activities in relation to the application, review and granting of DBN Science & Technology Awards.
Article 4 The application, review and granting of DBN Science & Technology Awards follow the principle of openness, equity and justness as well as the scientific review system and shall be free from any illegal intervention from any organization or individual.
Chapter 2 Organizational Structure
Article 5 The DBN Science & Technology Awards Committee (hereinafter referred to as “Awards Committee”), as the supreme decision-making body of the awards, consists of one chairman and several committee members. The chairman is the President of the Da Bei Nong Group and the committee members include authoritative academicians and experts in agriculture-related fields, well-known scholars and executives of the Da Bei Nong Group. Members of the Awards Committee, adopting the appointment system, are mainly responsible for:
(I) macro management and instruction of the awards;
(II) retaining related experts to form the Review Board of the DBN Science & Technology Awards (hereinafter referred to as “the Review Board”) for research and formulation of scientific and rational review indicator system;
(III) judging and approving the results of the Review Board and make assessment and resolution for the winning results;
(IV) supervising the application, review and objection solving of the awards as well as other related tasks;
(V) providing policy-oriented opinions and suggestions to consummate related systems;
(VI) studying and solving major problems detected during award-related work.
Article 6 The Review Board, which reviews awards, consists of a chairman, several vice chairmen and several board members. The Review Board, also adopting the appointment system, is mainly responsible for:
(I) reviewing the awards;
(II) presenting review results on the projects and reporting to the Awards Committee;
(III) solving related problems detected during the review;
(IV) providing opinions and suggestions to consummate related systems.
Article 7 As required for the review, the Review Board has set up several professional review teams. Each professional review team consists of one team leader, who should be the vice chairman of the Review Board and several board members. And each team is mainly responsible for:
(I) reviewing projects under the review of the team;
(II) presenting review opinions on projects under the review of the team and reporting to the Awards Committee;
(III) proposing handling suggestions for problems detected during the review.
Article 8 The DBN Science & Technology Awards Office (hereinafter referred to as “Awards Office”), as the routine operation unit of the Awards Committee, is responsible for publicity, project collection, review organizing, objection handling, results application and publication as well as other routine tasks.
Article 9 The Awards Committee, the Review Board and related personnel shall keep the content of reviewed projects and the conditions of review in strict confidence.
Chapter 3 Scope, Levels and Requirements of Awards
Article 10 The DBN Science & Technology Awards are mainly granted to scientific research outcomes that have great contribution, significant influence and major social and economic benefits to the promotion of scientific and technological progress in such fields of global agriculture as crops, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, plant protection, gardening, utilization of agricultural resources, aquatic products and agricultural engineering.
Article 11 Levels and Quantity of DBN Science & Technology Awards:
DBN Science & Technology Awards offer first awards, second awards, third awards and promotion awards and, where applicable, premier awards (for those having especially outstanding contributions, economic and social benefits to the innovation of agricultural science and technology as well as major effect and influence on the promotion of the progress in science and technology). The quota system is recommended to winners of different levels of awards, with no more than 20 individual and 5 organizations as implementers of premier awards; no more than 15 individual and 5 organizations as implementers of first awards; no more than 10 individual and 5 organizations as implementers of second awards; no more than 5 individual and 2 organizations as implementers of third awards; and no more than 2 individual and 1 organization as implementers of promotion awards.
Article 12 Award levels shall be evaluated on a comprehensive-basis according to the levels of main implementers and projects following the criteria below:
Premier Awards: are granted to those who have long been dedicated to promoting scientific and technologic progress of their industry, made major breakthroughs in science and technology, reached globally leading class in research technologies and outcomes, and made outstanding contributions and achieved great international influence; those who have been studying, developing or inventing scientific and technological outcomes that have major social and economic benefits (potential) during the industrialized development of their research fields; those whose major research outcomes or technologies have obtained relevant certificates of intellectual properties; those who have published relevant theses or treatise; and the major research outcomes of those mentioned above have not yet been granted national awards for science and technology.
First Awards: are granted to those who have long been dedicated to promoting scientific and technologic progress of their industry, made major breakthroughs in science and technology, reached globally advanced class in research technologies and outcomes, and made outstanding contributions and achieved important international influence; those who have been studying, developing or inventing scientific and technological outcomes that have major social and economic benefits (potential) during the industrialized development of their research fields; those whose major research outcomes or technologies have obtained relevant certificates of intellectual properties; those who have published relevant theses or treatises; and the major research outcomes of those mentioned above have not yet been granted national awards for science and technology.
Second Awards: are granted to those who have made great technological innovation in their projects, whose overall technological level have been domestically leading and approached internationally advanced level and whose outcomes have high value of transformation, creating major economic and social benefits (potential) as well as major effect on promoting the scientific and technological progress of the industry; those whose major research outcomes or technologies have obtained relevant certificates of intellectual properties; those who have published relevant theses or treatise; and the major research outcomes of those mentioned above have not yet been granted national awards for science and technology.
Third Awards: are granted to those who have made relatively great technological innovation in their projects, whose overall technological level have been domestically leading and whose outcomes have relatively high value of transformation, creating relatively high economic and social benefits (potential) as well as relatively high effect on promoting the scientific and technological progress of the industry; and the major research outcomes of those mentioned above have not yet been granted awards for science and technology above provincial (ministerial) level.
Promotion Awards: are granted to those who have made certain technological innovation in their projects, whose overall technological level have been domestically advanced and whose outcomes have relatively high value of transformation, creating certain economic and social benefits (potential) as well as relatively certain effect on promoting the scientific and technological progress of the industry; and the major research outcomes of those mentioned above have not yet been granted awards for science and technology above provincial (ministerial) level.
Article 13 In order to encourage young scientific and technological workers (grass-roots workers) to show their talents and to cultivate successors of the industry, projects led by scientific and technological workers (grass-roots workers) younger than 45 years old shall be considered with emphasis.
Chapter 4 Requirements and Procedure of Application
Article 14 Outcomes with the following conditions cannot apply for the DBN Science & Technology Awards:
(I) Involving confidential projects of national defense and national security;
(II) Beyond the scope of the awards;
(III) With disputes relating to intellectual properties and such aspects as implementing organizations or implementers;
(IV) With main technical content that has won any DBN Science & Technology Award;
(V) Already been granted awards for science and technology above provincial (ministerial) level (excluding premier awards and first awards);
(VI) Already been granted awards for science and technology as for national premier awards and first awards.
Article 15 The DBN Science & Technology Awards adopt the application mode that combines nomination, recommendation and personal application.
(I) Nomination: The Awards Committee shall approve setting up the Nomination Committee consisting of experts of the industry with original opinions, with each expert capable of nominating 1 project. The Awards Committee shall send the Invitation for Nomination and the DBN Science & Technology Awards Nomination Form to the experts, who shall nominate projects according to the requirements of the awards and sign their names on the Nomination Form after completing the same.
(II) Recommendation by experts: famous experts accredited by the Awards Committee, academic authorities, responsible leaders and discipline leaders of agriculture-related disciplines shall be the experts entitled to recommendation, who shall include members of the Awards Committee, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chief scientists of major national science and technology programs, previous winners of premier awards of the DBN Science & Technology Awards and well-known authoritative domestic and foreign experts, etc. Each expert may recommend 1 project. The Awards Committee shall send the Invitation for Recommendation and the DBN Science & Technology Awards Recommendation Form to the experts, who shall nominate projects according to the requirements of the awards and sign their names on the Recommendation Form after completing the same.
(III) Recommendation by employers: national level-1 societies accredited by the Awards Committee, awards offices of different provinces (municipalities) of the country, as well as agriculture-related high education institutions or academies of agricultural sciences of or above provincial level may recommend projects without quota. The Awards Committee shall send the Invitation for Recommendation and the DBN Science & Technology Awards Recommendation Form to the organizations, who shall nominate projects according to the requirements of the awards and affix their common seals on the Recommendation Form after completing the same.
(IV) Personal application: all scientific and technological workers of agriculture from all around the world may apply for the awards freely, with the main implementers having the responsibility to seek for consent from other main implementers and implementing organizations before application.
Article 16 The Application Form for DBN Science & Technology Awards, is the main basis for the review, and implementers may access the comprehensive information management system of DBN Science & Technology Awards for online application and providing necessary proofs and evaluation materials. The application form and related materials shall be complete, genuine and reliable.
Article 17 Any implementer may request certain experts to evade from the review and produce written reasons and related supporting materials should he or she consider that such experts may impact the fairness of the review. No more than 2 experts may be subject to evasion from the review for each project.
Chapter 5 Review
Article 18 The DBN Science & Technology Awards are reviewed every two years.
Article 19 The DBN Science & Technology Awards adopt formal review, online preliminary review, meeting review and final review.
Article 20 The Awards Office shall organize formal review on the projects and ask main implementers to correct application materials failed in the formal review within 7 days, and the applications will not be submitted should such implementers fail to make remedy within required period or the corrected materials fail to be qualified. Projects passing the formal review will be submitted to the Review Board for preliminary review.
Article 21 The preliminary review will be carried out on line. The Review Board will set up several professional review teams, who will, pursuant to the review criteria and evaluating indicators, grade and give recommended levels to the projects and propose results of the preliminary review.
Article 22 Results of the preliminary review will be announced by the Awards Office through designated media to the society for seeking for objections for an announcement period of 10 days.
Article 23 Projects receiving no objections or projects with objections which have been solved within specified period will be submitted by the Awards Office to the Review Board for meeting review.
Article 24 The meeting review will review results of the preliminary review in the form of meeting. The Review Board will set up several professional review teams, who will review the projects of their teams and propose review results. Results of each professional review team will be submitted to the Review Board for comprehensive review, which adopts secret ballot to get the results of the meeting review.
Article 25 Results of the meeting review will be submitted to the Awards Committee for final review, in which decisions of award winners and levels of awards will be made and announced to the society by the Awards Office through designated media, and the results will then be reported to the National Office for Science and Technology Awards for registration if no objections are received after the announcement.
Article 26 The first implementer shall report in writing to the Awards Report should any main implementer or recommending employer request to quit the review during the review stage.
Chapter 6 Objections and Disposal
Article 27 An objection shall mean any point of disagreement on the innovation, progressiveness or practicality of key technologies of any project or the authenticity of the content of the application form or any objection to the main implementing organizations or main implementers.
Article 28 Any organization or individual shall submit any written objection to the announced results along with necessary supporting materials to the Awards Office during the announcement period. If submitted in the name of the employer, the written objection shall bear name of an employer, contact, contact phone number and detailed address as well as the common seal of the employer; If submitted in the name of an individual, the written objection shall bear true name, employer, contact phone number, detail address and signature of the individual.
Article 29 The Awards Office shall be responsible for accepting objections, organizing investigation and verifying the facts, and shall propose handling suggestions to the Awards Committee for decision within 10 days as from the date of acceptance, and notify the party with objection and the main implementers or recommending organization of the decision in time.
Article 30 Opinions of the project implementers and implementing organizations about the results of review and levels of awards shall not belong to objections.
Chapter 7 Award Granting
Article 31 The certificates will be granted by Da Bei Nong Group and the amount of the prize money shall be in accordance with the decision of DBN Science & Technology Awards of the same year. The prize money will be paid to the first implementer as the award for all implementers of the project in principle.
Article 32 Deception or plagiarism with the purpose of gaining the awards by cheating will be subject to such penalties as cancellation of the awards, retrieval of the certificates and prize money, which will be announced to the public, once proven.
Article 33 Main implementers shall be obliged to cooperate and participate in promotion events in relation to the awards.
Chapter 8 Supplementary Provisions
Article 34 These measures shall take effect once issued, when the Encouragement Measures for DBN Science & Technology Awards dated Jun 18, 2010 shall be abolished at the same time.
Article 35 Beijing Da Bei Nong Technology Group Co., Ltd. reserves the right of final interpretation for these measures.