Shandong continues to foster a quality workforce in the new era. [Photo/VCG]

Shandong has been beefing up efforts to foster a quality workforce in the new era and to accelerate building the province into a major global innovation hub of professional talents.

Over the past five years, Shandong has launched a series of policies and measures to attract and cultivate talents, promote institutional reform related to talent development, as well as create a favorable environment for talents.

By the end of 2021, the province's total talent resources exceeded 15 million, an increase of nearly 30 percent compared with the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15).

During the 2022 Shandong provincial work mobilization conference held on Feb 7, top Shandong authorities stressed efforts to foster people with talent through its own efforts and to sharpen its competitive edge in human resources.

Recently, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao Agricultural University, Chinese home appliances giant Hisense, and other universities and industry leading enterprises signed contracts in Qingdao West Coast New Area to jointly build 24 university-enterprise talent training bases.

Shandong is home to a large number of universities and colleges, which will play a leading role in fostering talents in basic research as well as contributing to the university-enterprise cooperation, according to local officials.

This year, the province will continue to increased its total R&D spending, and recruit more scientists and technologists in strategically important and core technological fields to fuel regional high-quality development.