Doctrine Political Work

Voice of Military Strengthening | In Innovation, Never Turn Pale at the Mention of "Error"

强军之声丨创新切莫谈“错”色变

PLA Daily (解放军报) 21 May 2026

Summary

A Naval University of Engineering author, writing in PLA political media, argues that military scientific research personnel are inhibited by institutional risk-aversion and calls on commanders at all levels to establish formal error-tolerance mechanisms—including explicit liability exemptions, post-performance assessments decoupled from single-failure accountability, and expanded researcher autonomy over topics, methods, and funds. The article documents a recognized institutional friction inside PLA defense research: the gap between stated innovation mandates and the career incentives that punish failure, a problem the PLA has named repeatedly but not resolved. It fits a pattern of political-work commentary using Xi's basic-research symposium as a policy hook to push institutional reform downward, and its specific value is as a record of how the Naval University of Engineering frames the problem of risk culture to its own officer-researcher population.

Translation

In Innovation, Never Turn Pale at the Mention of "Error"

■ Ren Pengyin

Author: Zhang Xueshi

"Innovation has always been a matter of nine deaths and one survival." Recently, Chairman Xi, at a symposium on strengthening basic research, emphasized the need to foster an innovation environment that is open, inclusive, and tolerant of failure. Every act of tolerance toward "exploratory failure" (探索性失败) may be nurturing the success of the next innovation. In this sense, innovation requires not only courage and boldness, but an environment capable of tolerating and testing errors is equally important.

Innovation is also the forging of new paths. As the saying goes, "The world's wondrous, magnificent, strange, and extraordinary sights are often found in perilous and remote places." Innovation travels roads no one has traveled before and does what predecessors have never done. Forging new paths means there are risks, and risks mean there may be failure. Comrade Qian Xuesen once said: "Without a great many errors as stepping stones, one cannot ascend to the high seat of the final correct result." Lin Junde endured countless setbacks in order to understand the propagation laws of stress waves from nuclear explosions; Nobel Prize laureate Tu Youyou experienced more than a hundred failures in extracting artemisinin. In the scientific domain, innovation produces far more "habitual losers" than "habitual winners," and failure in relation to innovation is not an outcome but a process, not an endpoint but a starting point, not a retreat but a transcendence.

At present, a new round of the military science and technology revolution is surging forward—the situation compels action, challenges compel action, and the mission compels action. Should certain basic research and key technologies achieve a breakthrough, the impact will be disruptive, and may even fundamentally alter the form of warfare (战争形态) and methods of combat. The military domain, as the field most acutely sensitive to the frontiers of science and technology, carries greater risk coefficients and higher probabilities of failure. Yet in reality, the phenomenon of encouraging innovation being easy while tolerating failure being difficult has not been eradicated. "Innovation carries risk; proceed with caution" has become a "tightening headband" (紧箍咒) over the heads of some military scientific research personnel. Consider: if researchers turn pale at the mention of "error" and can only press forward under pressure while burdened with baggage, where is there any vitality or motivation to speak of?

Value the worth of trial and error; resolve the problem of "fear of error." At every level, one must adhere to the combination of strict management and generous care, with equal weight given to incentives and constraints. One must dare to grant scientific research personnel greater autonomy in selecting research topics, greater authority to determine technical approaches and use of funds, implement post-performance assessments in accordance with relevant policies, establish incentive systems closely linking post responsibilities to work performance, fully mobilize initiative, proactivity, and creativity, and ensure that every desire to boldly explore and challenge the unknown is encouraged, every action is supported, and every result is respected.

Establish the orientation of tolerating errors; improve the mechanisms for "correcting errors" (纠错). At every level, one must explore reasonable methods for "footing the bill for failure," make specific provisions on issues such as the identification of conditions for error tolerance and procedures for exemption from liability, establish complementary error-correction systems, correct errors in a timely and effective manner, improve the innovation environment, and avoid inflated safety standards, generalized accountability and blame assignment, and excessive use of "one-vote vetoes" (一票否决). One must clearly and unequivocally back and encourage those talents who dare to innovate, work diligently, and do not seek personal gain; eliminate the lingering concerns of innovators; and help transform the "no-man's land" (无人区) of science and technology innovation into a "high-yield field" (丰产田) of key core technologies.

(Author's unit: Naval University of Engineering)

Original Chinese

创新切莫谈“错”色变 ■任鹏寅作者：张学士 “创新从来都是九死一生”。近日，习主席在加强基础研究座谈会上强调，营造开放包容、宽容失败的创新环境。对“探索性失败”的每一次宽容，都可能孕育着下一次创新的成功。从这个意义上说，创新不仅需要勇气和胆识，能容错试错的环境也很重要。创新，亦是闯新。正所谓，“世之奇伟、瑰怪、非常之观，常在于险远”，创新走的是别人没有走过的路，做的是前人没有做过的事，闯新路意味着有风险，有风险就可能有失败。钱学森同志曾说过：“没有大量错误作台阶，也就登不上最后正确结果的高座。”林俊德为摸清核爆炸应力波的传播规律，历经无数次的挫折；诺贝尔奖获得者屠呦呦为提取青蒿素，经历了上百次失败。在科学领域，创新的“常败将军”要远远多于“常胜将军”，而失败之于创新，不是结果而是过程，不是终点而是起点，不是退缩而是超越。当前，新一轮军事科技革命风起云涌，形势逼人、挑战逼人、使命逼人，有些基础研究和关键技术一旦取得突破，其影响将是颠覆性的，甚至可能从根本上改变战争形态和作战方式。军事领域作为对科技前沿感知最敏感的领域，风险系数更大，失败概率更高。然而，现实中，鼓励创新易、容忍失败难的现象并未根除，“创新有风险，上手需谨慎”成为一些军事科研人员头上的“紧箍咒”。试想，如果科研人员谈“错”色变，只能顶着压力前行、背着包袱闯关，哪还有活力动力可言？重视试错的价值，解决“怕错”的问题。各级要坚持严管与厚爱相结合、激励和约束并重，敢于赋予科研人员更大科研选题自主权，更多技术路线决定权和经费使用权，按照相关政策推行岗位绩效考核，建立岗位职责、工作绩效紧密关联的激励制度，充分调动积极性、主动性、创造性，使一切大胆探索、挑战未知的愿望得到鼓励、行动得到支持、成果得到尊重。树立容错的导向，完善“纠错”的机制。各级要探索“为失败埋单”的合理办法，对容错条件认定、免责处理程序等问题作出具体规定，配套完善纠错制度，及时有效纠错，改善创新环境，避免拔高的安全标准、泛化的追责问责、过多的“一票否决”，旗帜鲜明地为那些敢于创新、踏实干事、不谋私利的人才撑腰鼓劲，消除创新者的后顾之忧，助力科技创新的“无人区”变成关键核心技术的“丰产田”。（作者单位：海军工程大学）