The innovation plan for college students is elementary and can be used by both excellent undergraduates and graduate students. It mainly takes projects as the carrier, arouses students' initiative, enthusiasm and creativity, and pays attention to "research process" rather than "research results".

The National Natural Science Foundation is divided into "Youth Fund", "General Program", "Major Program" and "Outstanding Youth Fund", among which the General Program is the most beneficial research fund, which is relatively fair. Applicants need to have certain research qualifications and research foundation, mainly to fund basic research projects and solve a specific scientific problem.

863 is a major national applied research project, and both applicants and members are senior experts. A project will be decomposed into several subprojects, and a series of relatively independent and interrelated projects will be used to solve the major technical problems of an industry.

There is also a 973, which is similar to 863 in organizational form, but mainly solves major problems in basic research or pre-application research.