Chinese language Physicist Donates Prize Cash to Launch Infrared Tech Fund in Shanghai
Famend infrared physicist and Chinese language Academy of Sciences academician Chu Junhao has donated his total 3 million yuan ($420,000) science award prize to determine a specialised innovation fund in Shanghai, anchoring a broader regional effort to speed up the commercialization of deep-tech analysis.
The donation, sourced from Chu’s 2025 Shanghai Science and Expertise Award, will fund the “Chu Junhao Infrared Optoelectronics Expertise Innovation Particular Fund” below the Shanghai Science and Expertise Growth Basis. Introduced Saturday through the opening of a nationwide postdoctoral educational trade in Shanghai’s Hongkou District, the fund will present “Explorer” and “Scholar” grants to graduate college students and early-career researchers engaged on core technical bottlenecks in infrared physics and optical sensing.
The fund’s launch coincided with the rollout of the “Einstein Probe Expertise Particular Mission,” an initiative led by the Chinese language Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics (SITP). Main educational and aerospace organizations, together with Fudan College, Shanghai Jiao Tong College, Tongji College, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Expertise, and the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, have joined as founding companions to construct a expertise pipeline spanning basic analysis, element manufacturing, and system integration.
Headquartered in Hongkou District, SITP serves as an anchor for the municipality’s push to bridge educational analysis with industrial deployment. Native municipal authorities are positioning the district as a testing floor for rising applied sciences, leveraging analysis institutes to incubate industrial ventures similar to Shanghai Guoke Hangxing Quantum Expertise Co. and Shanghai Guohongxin Expertise Co.
Demonstrating the district’s research-to-enterprise pipeline, Hongkou’s postdoctoral innovation platform launched 30 industrial analysis initiatives throughout inexperienced know-how, synthetic intelligence, new supplies, and data know-how. Throughout Saturday’s occasion, SITP postdoctoral researcher Niu Jiaqi formally took on a challenge sponsored by Shanghai Guohongxin Expertise specializing in polarization superlattice infrared focal planes primarily based on synthetic micro-nano constructions.
Municipal officers famous that the district will host 32 expertise and industrial integration occasions by the top of the yr, together with challenge roadshows and coverage exchanges, to help younger researchers and strengthen regional know-how clusters.

