STF Dialogue | David BASSIR (France): Building a Thriving Research Ecosystem to Attract and Retain International Talent in the Greater Bay Area

Originally published in Science-Technology & Finance Monthly (《科技与金融》), June 2026 issue. WeChat release: 1 July 2026. Interview: Jin Song | Editing: Zhang Mengyue | Proofreading: Wu Zhengxi | Photos courtesy of the interviewee.

From France to China, Professor David BASSIR's career has taken him from aerospace engineer to science and technology consul to university professor. Over more than a decade, he has witnessed first-hand the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area's transformation from a manufacturing stronghold and international trade gateway into a globally recognized hub of scientific and technological innovation. Rooted in the Greater Bay Area for 16 years, he has become deeply integrated here, working with rigor and pragmatism at the frontiers of digital twins, artificial intelligence, and intelligent structural health monitoring. Committed to the region's long-term development, he draws on his unique experience to offer recommendations for building the regional innovation ecosystem and attracting international talent.

Sixteen Years in Guangdong

Q: You have lived in the Greater Bay Area for 16 years. What first brought you here, and what impression did the region leave on you when you arrived?

A: I first came to China in 2007 on the recommendation of Professor Zhang Weihong of Northwestern Polytechnical University. My several months in Xi'an were a very positive experience, and they planted the idea of building a long-term career in China. In 2010, I joined the Consulate General of France in Guangzhou as Science and Technology Consul, coordinating cooperation between France and South China.

Upon arriving in Guangdong, I immediately sensed the region's tremendous development potential; cities such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Zhuhai left a deep impression on me. Two memories stand out. The first is the Zhuhai Airshow of that era, which brought together professionals from across the aerospace industry, including many French aerospace companies actively taking part — some of them deeply involved in the C919 large passenger aircraft program. It was then that I became convinced Guangdong was the ideal place for me to realize my potential, and the Greater Bay Area's rapid development since has confirmed that judgment.

The second is my first visit to the Changan-PSA (Peugeot Citroën) base in Shenzhen: when it was first established, the engineering team numbered barely a dozen people. Over the following decade, the base kept growing, and today the team counts several hundred. Along the way, I have personally witnessed the Greater Bay Area grow into a highly influential center of technological innovation, and I feel truly fortunate to work and grow here.

Q: You have had multiple careers — aerospace engineer, science and technology consul, university professor. Which of these shaped you most deeply?

A: Every chapter has taught me a great deal, but my career as an aerospace engineer influenced me most profoundly. Aerospace places enormous value on innovation: many pioneering concepts are poorly understood when they first emerge, yet go on to shape the industry for the next one or two decades. I took part in the early-stage R&D of several aerospace projects whose long-term value was initially hard to predict; seeing those projects come to full fruition more than a decade later filled me with pride.

Aerospace R&D demands both long-term frontier planning and the delivery of annual milestones, which has kept me constantly striving and challenging myself. Working shoulder to shoulder with my teams reinforced one conviction: science knows no borders, and research results should benefit the public. That experience not only shaped my professional ideals and guiding principles, it continues to guide my university research today.

Q: You enjoy a strong reputation in both the French and Chinese academic communities. If you had to describe yourself in three key words, which would you choose, and why?

A: I would say diligent, open-minded and resilient. These three qualities are essential — whether for achieving personal goals, finding fulfillment in life, or building a career in research. First, there are no shortcuts in research: only diligent effort can crack hard problems and reach research goals. Second, new ideas emerge constantly in science and technology; only an open and inclusive mindset lets you learn from many sources and keep a keen sense for innovation. Finally, research is never won overnight: enthusiasm and short-term effort are far from enough — it demands long-term commitment and tenacity.

Industry–Academia–Research Integration: Practice and Reflections

Q: Your research spans digital twins, artificial intelligence and intelligent structural health monitoring. Please introduce your research and how it will affect everyday life.

A: My core research direction combines digital twin technology with artificial intelligence for intelligent structural health monitoring, mainly to anticipate the safety issues that may arise in large-scale infrastructure. Routine maintenance is paramount to extending infrastructure service life and ensuring operational safety. In Europe and the United States, some bridges and other infrastructure — aging and insufficiently maintained — have suffered collapses causing casualties. China, after more than four decades of large-scale infrastructure construction since reform and opening-up, now sees part of its infrastructure gradually entering an aging phase, making routine safety monitoring and risk prevention especially critical.

Take bridges as an example: by the end of 2024, China's highway bridges exceeded 1.1 million in total, including more than 200,000 large and extra-large bridges. A great number of them fall under key monitoring, and some long-span bridges already operate under round-the-clock real-time monitoring. Traditional manual inspection often requires temporary traffic closures — time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, and inconvenient for the public. The intelligent structural monitoring system we developed can efficiently carry out safety monitoring and hazard screening without disrupting traffic, effectively preventing catastrophic failures such as collapses. Its application scenarios are very broad: beyond bridges, highways, buildings, nuclear facilities and other large infrastructure can all use this system for intelligent monitoring.

This structural optimization technology originated in the aerospace field; we adapted it, upgraded it with digital twin and related technologies, and extended it to civil engineering. Our ambition is to build an advanced technical framework enabling real-time, online monitoring across the full life cycle of infrastructure, using deep learning for intelligent assessment and autonomous decision-making.

Q: Which of your research results have already been deployed? In your view, what is the biggest obstacle in moving research from the laboratory to industrial application?

A: Our technology has so far been deployed at a modest scale, with structural optimization projects in aerospace being particularly representative.

Previously, a major industrial project in the aerospace sector urgently needed composite materials that were both lightweight and highly safe. My team and I applied structural optimization technology and successfully delivered a mature, workable solution. By integrating embedded sensors, we built a digital model enabling real-time monitoring and control.

In my view, trust barriers and weak industry–academia linkages are the greatest obstacles to moving research from the lab to industry. China and France differ markedly in their collaboration models: in China, industry and academia are closely connected — many professionals come from universities and stay in touch with their alma maters and supervisors, forming natural bridges for technology transfer. In France, large companies rarely engage in one-on-one collaboration with researchers, and graduates seldom keep in contact with their supervisors, so the overall linkage is weaker.

As foreign researchers advancing technology transfer in China, we also face limited industry channels and language barriers, making it hard to pursue research breakthroughs and patent promotion at the same time. This calls for a cohort of bilingual professionals familiar with local industry to liaise with companies and promote patented technologies. In France, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) assigns dedicated staff to research teams to handle patent management and business development in a unified way — a mechanism worth learning from. Many Chinese universities have technology transfer offices and similar bodies, but these internal departments still have room to improve in professional service capacity and in the efficiency of working with international researchers.

Q: Given the current state of industry–academia–research collaboration, what similarities and differences do you see between China and France in research philosophy and practical implementation?

A: First, in both countries, enterprises are the main actors of innovation in collaborative projects; the differences lie mainly in application and implementation procedures. For example, the French National Research Agency's (ANR) Collaborative Research Projects with Enterprises (PRCE) strictly require at least one public research institution or university to apply jointly with at least one French company, with the company committing its own R&D funds and both parties sharing tasks, risks and results. On the Chinese side, take the Enterprise Innovation and Development Joint Fund: co-funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and enterprises, it runs open competition around industrial needs and requires joint applications between research institutions and the funding enterprises. The parallel joint fund for private enterprises within the same system encourages, but does not mandate, university–enterprise joint applications.

Second, the two countries have different graduate training models. In France, master's students must complete a one-year company internship after their coursework; nearly forty percent of engineering courses are taught by industry engineers using real-world case studies. Meanwhile, French graduates rarely pursue further study, and universities do not require students to publish high-level papers. In China, not all universities uniformly require internships, and given the strong pressure to publish, students in science and engineering tend to focus on laboratory work.

Beyond that, I would like to share some thoughts on research orientation: university research should not treat short-term industrialization and economic returns as its sole objective. In fundamental disciplines such as mathematics, research value rarely shows in the short term. China currently emphasizes the rapid industrialization of research results — a model close to the American one. France and most European countries generally follow a path of deep fundamental research first, from which original innovation then emerges. In the French sense of the word, the core of "innovation" is the birth of entirely new ideas and approaches; rapid commercialization is not a requirement.

From Attracting Talent to Retaining It

Q: As former Science and Technology Consul at the Consulate General of France in Guangzhou, you worked to promote Sino-French talent exchange. What advantages does the Greater Bay Area have in attracting and retaining talent?

A: I am very optimistic about the Greater Bay Area's development potential: it is both an ideal place for highly skilled professionals to build their careers and fertile ground for future industries such as artificial intelligence and information technology.

In terms of talent concentration, the Greater Bay Area's overall advantages are striking. The climate is pleasant, the communities are friendly, daily life is convenient, and a "3-hour flight circle" covers many neighboring countries, connecting efficiently to global networks of high-end talent. I believe the Greater Bay Area is the most suitable place in China for international talent to land their first project and develop their careers.

Yet in my view, attracting talent only lays the foundation; the real test of a region's talent competitiveness is its ability to retain them. Many foreign experts arrive full of enthusiasm, but over time cultural differences and distance from family take their toll, and thoughts of leaving gradually emerge. Research is by no means a short-term endeavor: building a first-class laboratory and conducting in-depth research requires five to ten years of long-term planning. This demands that local governments not only foster a healthy research ecosystem, but also close the gaps in living support and address the family needs of international talent.

The Greater Bay Area already offers experience worth scaling up. For example, the Shenzhen municipal government supports the Sino-French Science and Technology Association in setting up an office in Shekou, which regularly organizes exchange activities to bring together international talent, while immigration, registration and other procedures are handled with great efficiency. Guangdong University of Technology organizes company visits, museum tours and other activities to enrich foreign experts' lives outside work and help them integrate into Guangzhou. I also plan to rely on the Shekou office to regularly organize exchange activities for foreign experts across the Greater Bay Area, strengthening the connections among international talent.

Q: In terms of research environment, funding support and industrialization, what institutional innovations could the Greater Bay Area pursue to help international talent take root in China and achieve research results?

A: For international talent to truly take root, a contract on paper is not enough; the overall institutional design must be optimized, forming a closed loop from research management to resource support to integration services. Based on my observations, the Greater Bay Area could deepen existing mechanisms in six areas:

First, improve flexible transition-period management for foreign researchers. Newly arrived researchers find it hard to adapt to Chinese administrative procedures. Simplifying approval processes and accommodating international research practices would help foreign experts integrate smoothly into the local research system.

Second, strengthen the support system for international talents' families. Most international talent come to China with their families and have significant needs in daily life. Improving spouse employment matching, international education and bilingual healthcare services would allow experts to focus on research without worrying about family matters.

Third, expand the coverage of dedicated coaching for grant applications. The logic of Western grant applications differs from Chinese review criteria. Regular training sessions serving foreign researchers applying for the first time to the NSFC or to major provincial and municipal programs would help them master the application and review rules.

Fourth, extend supporting benefits across the entire research pipeline. Current policies mostly favor leading talent. Providing office space, talent apartments and living subsidies to postdocs and young researchers as well would stabilize teams — the key to retaining international talent for long-term work.

Fifth, implement an up-front funding disbursement mechanism. Delays in funding approval slow down experiments and dampen research enthusiasm. Simplifying internal university approval processes and ensuring start-up funds are released as soon as researchers take up their posts would allow projects to advance immediately.

Sixth, roll out dedicated liaison services for international talent. Full-time liaison officers assisting foreign experts throughout — connecting them with academic resources, handling administrative procedures and building local networks — would ease the unfamiliarity and isolation of newcomers to China.

The Greater Bay Area is developing at a remarkable pace, bringing new surprises and expectations every year. I hope this region will continue to amplify its strengths, fill in its gaps, and attract more international talent to work and grow here.

Q: In five years, what changes would you like to see in the Greater Bay Area? What is your next goal here?

A: Grounded in my own research career, I have set a five-year development goal. At present, I am fully focused on building a high-level research team, and I hope — relying on the Greater Bay Area's favorable innovation environment — to gradually grow the team to two to three times its current size within five years, continuously attracting professionals of all kinds and consolidating our research pipeline. Going forward, the team will pursue innovation breakthroughs according to this five-year development plan, striving to produce more original results and secure more technology patents, while deepening cooperation with enterprises to translate research results into real-world applications.

I am fully prepared to root my long-term development in the Greater Bay Area, and I firmly believe we can keep making breakthroughs. Research is a race against the clock, a matter of seizing opportunities — efficient and convenient government services and administrative environments matter enormously. Globally, research competition in this field is intensifying. With the Greater Bay Area's comprehensive support system and efficient services, I hope we can maintain our leading edge and achieve breakthroughs at the international research frontier.

(Written by Anicet Barrios)