Abstract:Empowering Scientists to retain ownership or long-term access rights of government-funded research & development outputs (R&D outputs), is a key exploration and reform for China's central government to promote the market mechanism's decisive role in allocating innovation resources. As a result of the public ownership-based economic and social system, how to properly coordinate the relationship between the state, the collectives and the individuals will inevitably become the core issue in China's reform on the ownership rights of R&D outputs. By reviewing the institutional changes and reform process on the ownership policy of government-funded R&D outputs in China, this paper clarifies the institutional implications of public ownership, institutional ownership and intellectual property rights of R&D outputs, tries to explore the reform experience and institutional rules of the ownership policy of government-funded R&D outputs, and calls for a conceptual consensus to promote the future ownership policy reform on governmentfunded R&D outputs.