In August this year, the National Natural Science Foundation of China announced its review results. Jiangxi University of Science and Technology (JXUST) won 90 grants, ranking second among universities in Jiangxi Province. Its 37 Young Scientists Fund grants represented a year-on-year increase of 111.8%.
How has a local university rooted in Jiangxi’s nonferrous metals and rare-earth industries achieved such striking growth in national basic research? And how can it bridge the gap between real industrial pain points and national-level basic research? The answer lies not only in laboratories but also in mines and on factory floors.
Real problems from the field
For JXUST, the industrial frontline is the first source of research topics. “A good project does not come from a laboratory conclusion; it comes from a challenge on the production line,” said Liao Ningning, a young teacher at the School of Mining Engineering who has long worked between mines and enterprises to solve grinding problems.
Ore grinding is the “first hurdle” in nonferrous metal beneficiation. Traditional steel-ball grinding is energy-intensive, consumes large amounts of grinding media, tends to over-grind ore and causes iron contamination. Ordinary ceramic balls avoid iron contamination but are not strong enough and break easily.
Liao Ningning joined Professor Wu Caibin’s team to develop a complete set of high-strength, high-hardness and low-wear nano-ceramic grinding media technology. Rather than shutting themselves in a laboratory, the team moved its test site directly to the mines of Jiangxi Copper, Jiangxi Tungsten, China Minmetals and China Baowu. “The field is always more complex than the laboratory,” Liao said. Laboratory-designed media grading schemes often have to be adjusted once they meet real ore conditions and production requirements. Since 2012, the team has worked side by side with technicians at Hunan Shizhuyuan Company, helping expand production capacity from 1,000 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes and launching more than ten research projects.
Such fieldwork has allowed Liao to accumulate practical problems from enterprises and distill theoretical research questions from them. The technology won the first prize of the Jiangxi Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award in 2024. Industrial data show that grinding power consumption and media consumption costs fell by as much as 50%. At mines under Jiangxi Copper, copper, gold and silver recovery rates rose by 1.68, 1.19 and 5.34 percentage points, respectively; at mines under Jiangxi Tungsten, tantalum-niobium recovery increased by 2.38 percentage points. Over the past three years, the project has generated more than 1.1 billion yuan in additional economic benefits for partner enterprises and has been exported to South America, Australia and other regions. The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association appraised the technology as reaching an internationally leading level as a whole.
This case reflects JXUST’s research logic: find real problems on the industrial frontline; some directly become industry-funded contract projects that help enterprises solve difficulties, while others are distilled into basic science questions for government-funded projects; research results then flow back to industry. Wu Caibin, dean of the university’s Institute of Science and Technology, summed it up as: “Industry sets the question, research solves it, and outcomes are tested in industry.”
Institutional support for young talent
The industrial frontline is the source, but turning “field problems” into research projects depends on institutional support. Huang Shuchang, a young teacher in the Future City Division, was awarded a National Natural Science Foundation Young Scientists Fund project (Category C) this year. His topic grew out of a rare-earth tailwater treatment problem his team encountered while working on pollution prevention and control in ion-adsorption rare-earth mining areas.
Huang said that young PhDs can lead national-level projects relatively quickly thanks to mentorship within larger teams and the university’s systematic polishing of grant applications. Li Dong, vice dean of the School of Materials Science and Engineering, noted that many topics are prepared for National Natural Science Foundation applications even before young scholars formally join the university, and team guidance gives them a step up. The university has built a closed-loop mechanism: young teachers are assigned to enterprises, conduct regular in-depth industrial surveys and distill technical needs from the frontline. Zhao Kui, director of the office of the Key Mineral Excellence Innovation Center, calls this “rolling cooperation”: solving one old problem, identifying new needs and launching new collaborative projects.
Incentives are concrete. Xiao Yanfei, vice dean of the Rare Earth and Manufacturing Division, said the university takes only 6% overhead from industry-funded contract projects, leaving the rest to faculty. Income from such contracts can also be recognized in promotion reviews at a standard comparable to national-level projects. Each year during grant application season, the university organizes multiple rounds of review, invites outside experts to critique proposals and guides newcomers from participating in team writing and field work toward independent leadership. Huang said: “As long as you are willing to work, the university and the team will support you and help young teachers gradually stand on their own feet.” The university also broadens career paths for young faculty, removing title restrictions so that qualified young teachers can apply to supervise doctoral students.
A two-way loop back to production
What comes from enterprises must ultimately return to them. In 2026, the university recorded a historic breakthrough in a single industry-funded contract: a team led by Academician Zhang Wenhui took on a contract worth tens of millions of yuan from Taiyuan Iron & Steel (TISCO) to pursue a disruptive metallurgical technology, now at the pilot-testing stage. To clear the “key bottleneck” between laboratory and industrialization, the university has laid out 16 pilot production lines based on national-level research platforms, covering rare-earth permanent magnets, rare-earth optical fibers, oxygen-free copper conductors and other directions, ensuring that many results can complete process validation on campus.
For commercialization, JXUST has built a “seven-one” full-chain model covering a management body, a reform plan, a professional team, an incubation park, a transformation platform, a special fund and a service platform. Under this system, a batch of results has moved faster toward the market, and实体化产业研究院 have been established. The Yichun JXUST Lithium Battery New Energy Industry Research Institute supports the construction of “Asia’s Lithium Capital” and has produced a group of high-quality patents that combine technological innovation with market applicability. In 2025, its patent for “a method for comprehensively recovering tantalum, niobium and lithium from lithium-bearing beneficiation waste residue” was transferred to Yifeng Jiuyu Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. for 3 million yuan, helping solve a bottleneck and promoting high-quality development of Yichun’s lithium battery industry. The institute also operates a two-way flow mechanism for “chief technology officers” and “industry professors,” having solved 35 enterprise technical needs and promoted the industrialization of 22 research results.
This “two-way loop” continues to show in research awards. JXUST has won first prizes of the Jiangxi Provincial Science and Technology Award for 11 consecutive years, ranking second among universities in the province in terms of first prizes led by the university; Professor Luo Xianping’s team won a second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. Over the past five years, the university has commercialized more than 250 research results worth 330 million yuan in total, and in 2023 its commercialization scale ranked first among provincial universities in Jiangxi.
A distinctive path for a local university
Why insist on this path? The answer lies in the university’s orientation. Rooted in Jiangxi, JXUST focuses on key mineral sectors such as rare earth, copper, tungsten and lithium. It does not seek to cover all disciplines but instead seeks advantages through distinctive strengths and support through contributions, concentrating research on areas urgently needed for national strategy and Jiangxi’s pillar industries.
In 2026, the university proposed five breakthrough goals for research: breaking outdated institutional barriers and promoting substantive operation of research platforms; pushing National Natural Science Foundation applications in rare earth and critical minerals; striving to create a national university science park; seeking national science and technology awards and high-level papers; and reducing the administrative flavor of research management while strengthening service support for frontline researchers. In basic research, JXUST has established a cross-disciplinary innovation fund for rare earth and critical minerals to support original and disruptive research, while carrying out a “science and technology source breakthrough” action. President Ge Shirong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stressed that basic research is “both the wellspring of technological upgrading and the underlying support for first-class disciplines to serve industrial development.” The university is also exploring categorized evaluation reform and building a science and technology evaluation system oriented toward innovation value, capability and contribution, so that researchers who dare to experiment have no worries.
High-quality development for local universities requires a clear sense of their distinctive mission, with service to regional development at the core, and a shift from “adapting and serving” to “supporting and leading.” For an industry-focused provincial university, research strength should not be judged by whether it covers every discipline, but by whether it can consistently complete the full loop — field problem, basic research, industrial application — in the national critical-minerals arena, forging a distinctive character and competitiveness by being both cutting-edge and grounded.
