Original innovation does not begin with a predetermined technical path. More often, it begins with a question that has not yet been adequately formulated. It requires researchers to recognise problems within complex experience, develop concepts where inherited frameworks fail, and sustain judgment and inquiry before results are visible. Innovation therefore concerns more than outcomes; it also concerns the conceptual structures, habits of thought, and inner conditions that make those outcomes possible.
Grounded in scientific and educational practice in China, this theme returns to the enduring questions posed by the Needham Question and Qian Xuesen’s Question: How does scientific thinking develop? How are important questions recognised? How does new thought enter into practice? Emerging research approaches such as AI for Science are changing the ways in which discoveries are made and give these questions renewed urgency. Through the Fangtang-Qingquan dialogue series and research on the power of concepts, the study of questions, and human spiritual dynamics, Fangtang seeks to draw from concrete practice the intellectual resources that can support original breakthroughs.
