The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee emphasized that "reform and innovation should serve as the fundamental driving force" for economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. For Jiangsu to maintain its leading position in high-quality development, it must leverage reform as a key instrument, with "integration" being the core link in deepening reforms and unleashing growth potential. This involves dismantling institutional barriers, removing policy implementation bottlenecks, and facilitating the flow of key factors such as talent, technology, capital, and data. By consolidating scattered resources into synergistic forces, transforming individual breakthroughs into comprehensive advantages, and converting latent strengths into new productive forces, Jiangsu can establish a robust foundation for sustained high-quality development.

**Integrating Technology, Education, and Talent to Strengthen the Core Engine** The plenary session highlighted the need to "promote deep integration of technological and industrial innovation while advancing the coordinated development of education, science, and talent." During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangsu—with its abundant educational and scientific resources, comprehensive industrial system, and outstanding talent pool—must address existing coordination barriers through institutional reforms. This will foster a virtuous cycle among technology, education, and talent, effectively transforming these resources into innovation-driven capabilities that support industrial upgrading and future development.

- **Task-Oriented Collaboration**: Align talent cultivation with technological innovation by empowering young scientists to lead major projects at platforms like Suzhou Laboratory and Purple Mountain Laboratory. Implement a merit-based "unveiling and commandeering" mechanism to allow top talent to take on critical roles. Promote a "mentor-team-industry" collaborative training model, reforming postgraduate education with a dual-mentor system involving academic advisors and industry leaders. Encourage doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers to engage in applied research at leading enterprises, ensuring their work addresses real industrial needs.

- **Practical Skill Development**: Establish a two-way integration mechanism for industry professors and technology executives. Recruit tech entrepreneurs and industry experts as professors to participate in curriculum design and student guidance, while enabling academics to contribute to corporate R&D and strategic decisions. Future-focused institutions, co-founded by enterprises, universities, and research centers, should adopt comprehensive governance and curriculum reforms.

- **Contribution-Based Evaluation**: Develop a talent assessment system prioritizing innovation value, capability, and impact. For basic research, emphasize peer review and global influence; for applied research, focus on commercialization and market value.

- **Incentivizing Leadership**: Implement flexible funding models, granting project leads greater autonomy in resource allocation. Introduce annual salaries, performance-based pay, and equity incentives for top performers. Support researchers in commercializing their findings through entrepreneurship.

**Regional Synergy to Unlock Agglomeration Potential** The plenary session called for "building a complementary and high-quality regional economic layout." Jiangsu, situated in the Yangtze River Delta and overlapping with multiple national strategies, must enhance intra-provincial cooperation while leveraging its economic influence for broader integration.

- **Balancing Internal Development**: Address regional disparities through the "1+3" functional zone strategy, which optimizes resource allocation via market-driven trading platforms for land, energy, and emissions. Strengthen coordination between provincial industrial funds and cross-regional fiscal mechanisms to support strategic industries.

- **Industrial Collaboration**: Refine the "enclave economy" model by reforming GDP accounting and tax-sharing methods. Establish shared R&D benefits and ecological compensation mechanisms to incentivize inter-regional cooperation. Localize pilot production bases to complement regional strengths.

- **Expanding External Integration**: Accelerate Yangtze River Delta connectivity through "rail-based urbanization" and smart waterway networks. Standardize port data systems and streamline customs procedures across jurisdictions. Replicate talent recognition policies from the demonstration zone (Qingpu, Wujiang, Jiashan) province-wide.

- **Ecological Governance**: Shift from water-centric approaches to integrated management of water resources, ecosystems, and environments, incorporating forests and farmlands. Encourage private investment in eco-development projects (EOD) to align conservation with market returns.

**Market System Reforms to Strengthen the Business Environment** To "resolutely eliminate obstacles to a unified national market," Jiangsu must bridge supply-demand gaps through institutional innovation.

- **Value Chain Upgrading**: Help industries break the "middle-income trap" by moving toward high-value segments. Establish risk-sharing funds for first-of-its-kind equipment adoption and create feedback loops for product iteration.

- **Demand-Driven Innovation**: Use public procurement to spur technological advancements in urban governance, healthcare, and green mobility. Introduce risk-pooling mechanisms for pilot applications of new solutions.

- **Domestic Demand Activation**: Link consumer subsidies to sustainable behaviors (e.g., carbon footprint) and expand incentives to circular economy models. Leverage big data to dynamically allocate subsidies.

- **Equitable Income Distribution**: Translate knowledge, technology, and data into household income via upfront equity awards for innovators and skill-based wage benchmarks. Broaden collective bargaining to include profit-sharing and long-term incentives.

**Platform Integration to Amplify Factor Multipliers** "Accelerating market-based factor allocation" requires platform-driven reforms that enhance the flow and synergy of technology, data, and governance.

- **Technology-Enabled Convergence**: Standardize cross-platform data protocols in industrial IoT and public data sectors. Lower barriers for SMEs to access advanced R&D resources.

- **Data Hub Development**: Pilot "three-rights separation" (public, corporate, personal data) in southern Jiangsu, with blockchain-based profit-sharing models to quantify stakeholder contributions.

- **Governance Coordination**: Replace GDP-centric evaluations with "factor integration" metrics, tying resource allocation to outcomes in technology spillovers, data sharing, and industrial collaboration.