"Yichun was born of, thrived on, and transformed through its forests, and we will blaze a new trail of forest-led innovation in the next decade," said Gao Jian, deputy mayor of Yichun, Heilongjiang province in northeast China, speaking at a recent local industry-academia-research matchmaking event. His remarks highlighted the forestry city's determination to pursue innovation-driven transformation.

Matchmaking breaks tech hurdles

"Enterprises are the nails, universities are the hammers — this tech matchmaking event will help us seal a definitive deal and deliver great results," Du Bolin, chairman of Heilongjiang Beihuolang Forest Food Co., Ltd., said at the event.

A veteran in the black fungus industry for over a decade, the company has for years focused on traditional cultivation and pre-packaged products, and are now restrained by weak deep processing and aging strains. Brokered by Yichun's related departments, the enterprise partnered with Northeast Agricultural University in 2022 to develop a black fungus peptide compound drink, and in cooperation with China Agricultural University technologies, in 2025 it increased per-bag fungus yield from 60g to 90g, lifting farmers' incomes significantly.

The event marked a big leap for Yichun to promote local commercialization of sci-tech achievements.

Yichun has made this local commercialization their core driver of industrial upgrading, building a full-chain commercialization system led by the government, driven by enterprises and supported by academic institutions.

The city has cemented long-term cooperation with top domestic universities and research institutes, set up a regular results-driven matchmaking mechanism, and rolled out annual special events to align research outputs with corporate needs. It has also fully implemented supportive policies to cut enterprises' innovation costs, including R&D subsidies and innovation platform funding.

Yichun has further launched an innovation and industrial chain upgrading project, with a strong focus on the birch sap industry. It has initiated targeted sci-tech research programs, raised product added value, built a full industrial chain standard system, and accelerated standardized and brand-focused development, creating a new growth engine for its home-grown industries.

Tech directors boost tech commercialization

A smart forest health and wellness project upgrade, led by a chief technology specialist, is making progress at Yichun's Jiufeng Mountain Yangxin Valley, a forest scenic area of more than 5,000 hectares, with the imminent launch of an all-age, smart and immersive forest wellness model.

Matched by related departments, Ding Chenyang, an associate professor from Northeast Agricultural University specializing in forest health and wellness, has served as the project's chief technology specialist, designing a tailored all-age smart forest wellness program for the site.

"In the future, visitors wearing smart devices for aerobic exercise in the red pine forests will get real-time health monitoring and customized wellness plans," an official said. The scenic area's basic hardware is now in place, with age-friendly upgrades and local standard formulation in progress.

Heilongjiang's industry-academia-research integration has seen the launch of the chief technology director's program as a big success, bringing academic and industry experts to enterprise frontlines to solve technical challenges and support tech achievement commercialization. These directors don't just hide behind their titles, but roll up their sleeves to work on-site delivering tailored solutions for enterprises, and ensure innovation services reach every link of the industrial chain.

A local official said that Yichun will focus on its core competitive sectors from forest food to ecological wellness, build a tighter government-industry-academia-research-application innovation ecosystem, and help more tech achievements take root locally.