PROJECT SUMMARY

I propose a small, freely accessible bilingual evidence resource for people checking claims about Chinese patent incentives. It will connect selected policy provisions to official Chinese sources, concise English explanations, dates, and clearly marked interpretation limits. The intended readers are researchers, journalists and others without easy access to Chinese-language policy material. This is a proposed pilot: the dataset and tool have not yet been built, and no partner or user uptake is claimed.

GOALS AND METHOD

At the USD 1,000 target, I plan to document 15–20 provisions relevant to patent-application incentives and their withdrawal, beginning with the 2021 policy change that is part of my doctoral research design. I will record the issuing body, jurisdiction, publication and effective dates where available, official URL, relevant section, policy mechanism, and uncertainties. A provision is a distinct coded passage, not necessarily a separate document.

The output will be a downloadable CSV, a short codebook, a bilingual reading guide and a verification checklist. It will distinguish policy text from my interpretation, distinguish publication from effective dates, and avoid treating a policy change as proof of its economic effects. I will use original sources, brief quotations only where needed, and link to source documents rather than republish full texts. My original materials will be released openly with attribution; third-party texts retain their own rights.

I plan to finish within four weeks of an agreed start after funding and administrative arrangements are confirmed, at up to ten hours per week. Week 1 covers scope and sources; weeks 2–3 extraction and checking; week 4 the public release and a short completion report. No travel, commercial database or software build is required.

HOW I WILL KNOW IT WORKED

The pilot succeeds if readers can trace each included interpretation to its source, reuse the CSV with the codebook, and identify missing or ambiguous information without treating it as established fact. I will re-check every row against its cited passage, flag unresolved translation questions and report exclusions. I will invite reader feedback after release, but have no confirmed testers and do not claim independent expert validation. Usefulness and demand remain hypotheses to test.

BUDGET AND MINIMUM SCOPE

The USD 1,000 request is proposed support for 40 hours of my project research time at USD 25 per hour: 12 hours for scoping and source discovery, 14 for extraction and bilingual notes, 8 for source cross-checking, and 6 for documentation and release. This is a transparent planning basis, not an existing salary, invoice or reimbursement claim. No equipment, tuition, travel or paid hosting is included.

At the USD 500 minimum, I would use 20 hours to release approximately 10 provisions with a shorter guide and the same source-checking standard. Before accepting funds, I would confirm that personal research-time support is an eligible grant use and that the payment and participation arrangements are appropriate. If that cannot be established, I would not accept funds on an incompatible basis.

APPLICANT AND TRACK RECORD

I am Tianhao Cao, a PhD researcher in Accounting and Finance at Heriot-Watt University, studying how Chinese patent-policy incentives and enforcement conditions relate to firms' innovation decisions. I hold an MSc in International Accounting and Finance with Merit from the University of Strathclyde. I am a native Mandarin speaker and use Excel to organise evidence. My coursework includes an analysis of NVIDIA's financial reporting, governance and policy context. My doctoral empirical analysis is still in development. This is an individual proposal, without university sponsorship, a project team or an existing public dataset.

FAILURE RISKS

Official pages may move, source dates may conflict, translations may be uncertain, or the result may attract little use. I will narrow coverage when necessary, keep a record of missing and conflicting evidence, and publish limitations alongside the completed work. The pilot will not provide legal advice, causal estimates, comprehensive coverage of China, or a promise of ongoing maintenance. If the work proves infeasible, I will report that promptly and agree the treatment of unused funds with the funder.

FUNDING AND OVERLAP

No funding has been secured for this proposed pilot. Related applications for the wider research programme and overlapping public-data work are pending elsewhere; they are requests, not awards. This proposal is an alternative funding route for a small pilot, not a claim that identical work requires payment several times. Before accepting any award, I will disclose relevant decisions and agree a non-overlapping scope or decline overlapping support. I will not charge the same hours or outputs to two funders.

AI ASSISTANCE

This proposal was prepared with substantial OpenAI Codex assistance from my existing research plans and background. AI may assist later with organisation and drafting, but source citations and substantive translations will require manual checking. No completed project results are represented here.