College students in Wuhan can now postpone their studies to start businesses with the time spent translated into credits toward graduation.

It is part of a 10-point plan by the city government to commercialize research and boost innovation at the State-level Donghu innovative intellectual property rights pilot area, said Mayor Tang Liangzhi. He called the policies "10 golden rules".

Wuhan was long known as "the land of fish and rice", a vivid description showing its advantages in agriculture.

But as the country's coastal regions and Yangtze River Delta area rose and developed rapidly in the past 30 years, the economic advantages of China's third-biggest city seemed to evaporate.

Yet the capital of Hubei province has plentiful talent as a result of its high concentration of universities.

Several of the "10 golden rules" have been borrowed from the success of Silicon Valley and Stanford University in the United States, the mayor said.

For example, each year the Donghu pilot area will select 100 "gazelle enterprises", a term first used in the Silicon Valley for small and medium-sized emerging enterprises that are growing as much as 100 percent a year. The selected energetic businesses enjoy various favorable financing and other policies.

Researchers are encouraged to enter the private sector and develop businesses with their innovations, with their posts in academia held open for their return for three to eight years.

The policies also encourage universities, colleges and scientific research institutes to develop innovative commercial research operations by offering up to 200 billion yuan ($31.6 billion) in support in the first two years and up to 100 billion yuan in the following three to five years.

The Donghu pilot area was approved by the State Intellectual Property Office in 2010 as China's first State-level pilot park for intellectual property rights. It is still the only one of its kind in the country.

"The Donghu pilot area should use its strengths to make innovations in intellectual property rights administration, stimulus, services and the shaping of IP culture," Mayor Tang said.

"It will incorporate the world's most advantaged experience and the country's most favorable policies to build it into a leader in innovation moves in intellectual property rights," he added.

(Source: China Daily)