Recently, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the "Global Innovation Index 2026" Top 100 Global Innovation Clusters list, with China hosting 25 innovation clusters. Among them, the Changchun innovation cluster ranked 69th, up 3 places from 2025.

It is reported that the ranking of the World's Top 100 Innovation Clusters is an important component of WIPO's Global Innovation Index, which objectively measures innovation clusters worldwide through three indicators: Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) international patent applications, scientific publications, and new venture capital deals.

There is no shortcut to gaining a firm foothold and moving forward globally; it takes long-term planning and sustained efforts. Changchun has adopted a "dual-drive" approach, promoting the construction of intellectual property (IP) to advance urban development and building an IP protection hub. It focuses on establishing a high-value patent cultivation mechanism led by enterprises, universities and research institutes, and oriented toward market demand, steadily nurturing a fertile environment for IP development.

Data speak for themselves: by the end of August 2026, Changchun's cumulative number of valid invention patents reached 45,100. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), its cumulative amount of IP pledge financing reached 14 billion yuan. In 2025, the city filed 366 PCT international patent applications. Behind the wealth of remarkable data lie the continuous growth of innovation entities and the accelerated concentration of innovation factors, which accumulate solid momentum for Changchun's high-quality development.

"As a crucial scientific research force in China's optoelectronic sector, the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has adhered to an approach driven by technological innovation that integrates industry, university, and research, building a full-chain innovation system ranging from basic theories, core components, to system integration. Featuring high-quality creation, high-value application, and high-efficiency management, its IP innovation model has been selected as a typical case for building a strong nation on IP, and its patent transformation work has been selected as an excellent case for patent transformation and application by the China National Intellectual Property Administration. This year, another of its invention patents has won the China Patent Silver Award." A relevant official from the Department of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer at CIOMP said that, to move sci-tech achievements from "bookshelf" to "marketplace," the institute has successively incubated more than 50 "Changguang" enterprises, effectively expanding the optoelectronic industrial cluster. Concurrently, through such approaches as hosting international optical journals, organizing optoelectronic expos, and proactively deploying PCT international patents, it continuously enhances the international influence of regional innovation, fueling the city's leap in innovation.

Leading enterprises are also a key force supporting the development of the Changchun innovation cluster. According to an official from the Technological Innovation Management Department of the R&D General Institute of China FAW Group Co., Ltd., FAW Group, as an important innovation entity in Changchun and a major PCT international patent applicant, has always treated independent innovation and high-quality patent creation as its core competitiveness, embedding IP work into the entire R&D and innovation chain, and tackling challenges in core technology fields such as new energy and intelligent connected vehicles. By the end of 2025, FAW Group held 14,650 valid patents, including 7,397 invention patents, with valid invention patents accounting for 50 percent of the total. It had cumulatively filed 1,165 overseas patent applications, with PCT international patent applications ranking among the top in the industry, strongly supporting the relevant evaluation indicators of the Top 100 Innovation Clusters and contributing industrial strength to Changchun's global innovation competitiveness.

The enhancement of a city's innovation capacity is inseparable from systematic service support. According to a relevant official from the Changchun Municipal Bureau of Market Regulation (the Provincial Intellectual Property Office), the city continues to optimize its IP innovation ecosystem, giving full play to the role of its full-chain IP protection, application and service system, and building an integrated, rapid collaborative IP protection system for the Changchun Modern Metropolitan Area. This effectively advances the quality improvement and efficiency enhancement of the city's advantageous industries such as automobiles, optoelectronic information, biomedicine, advanced equipment manufacturing and new materials, empowering new quality productive forces through IP.

Going forward, Changchun will continue to unleash the combined advantages of its scientific and educational resources and industrial foundation, deepen coordinated interaction among industry, university and research, promote the local commercialization of more sci-tech achievements, accelerate the establishment of a modern industrial system featuring "transformation of 3 traditional robust industries, advancement of 4 strategic emerging industries, and deployment of 7 future industries," and strive to write an innovative chapter for Changchun in the new era.

Source: Changchun Daily Convergence Media  Editor: Liu Jiadi