Investigation Of Regional Technological Innovation With Constraints Of Resources And Environment

It is a necessity for human society to make social and economic development sustainable, and the regional resources and environment is the basis of regional economic development. The rapid economic growth in more than twenty years since the economic reformation in China was obtained in the high cost of the resources and environment. Because Chinese economic growth was mainly based on an extensive model with high exploitation, high consumption of energy, high eduction of waste, low utilization, the huge demand and large scale exploitation of natural resources have resulted in weakening, deterioration and exhaustion of resource base, some important minerals can hardly meet the developmental demand of national economy, the "bottleneck" of resources becomes increasingly pressing; A sharp contrast with the resources scarcity is that, in many areas, the consumption of resources is in low efficiency and seriously wasteful, many resources are illegally and over exploited in the neglect of long term regional development; Meanwhile, the pollution generated in the production is destroying the ecosystem. If no practical countermeasure is adopted, the pressure of resources shortage and environmental imbalance would be inevitably aggravated, it would not only result in long term economic adulation, but also missing developing chance and thus hindering the fulfilling of the construction of well-off society. On the other hand, technologies in information, biology, new material, new energy and palingenetic energy, advanced manufacture, sea developing as well as environmental protection, provide effective access to technologies for harmonious development between economic society and resource environment. So, the inevitable choice for a sustainable regional economic development is to establish and implement a scientific developmental view, "to further self-innovation ability", "to perfect technological research and developmental system", and to "save the energy and resources", "change the present economic growth pattern which is based on high consumption of energy, high pollution and low production"1, promote regional technological innovation.The above is the background of this paper. The rationale of this paper is the following: "the regional development is constrained by resources → overcoming the resources constraints depends on the construction of practical regional technological innovation system so as to develop, use and spread new technology → breaking through the resource constraints and promote regional development → promoting the social and economic development to be sustainable.To make this investigation have a high starting point, this paper firstly gives a comprehensive investigation and survey for the theory of natural resources and environment, regional technological innovation, regional economic development, and sustainable development of regional economy, and with this basis, further study is done for relevant theories about overcoming the constraints of regional resources and environment with technological innovation, both domestic and international, as well as that promoting economy and society to develop sustainedly. It also gives a definition and discussion for some basic concepts and ideas about resources and sustainable use of the resources; regional innovation and capability; green technology innovation; the understanding of sustainable development and its regional characteristics; the relationship between technological innovation and sustainable development, etc., so as to construct a theoretical basis for the whole investigation. Thereafter, it analyses the constraints of resources and environment faced by regional sustainable development and the role of regional technological innovation for overcoming resources and environment constraints in China. Starting from the worldwide resources scarcity and the current resources and environment situation of Chinese economic development and according to the classification of natural resources as well as to the differentiation of Chinese administrational districts on provincial level, the paper gives a detailed analysis on the situation of resources and environment faced by Chinese sustainable development, it points out the problems of the resources and environment constraint in regional sustainable development of China, especially the resources exhaustion and ecosystem deterioration caused by traditional industrialization. While expounding the roles played by technological innovation in using resources and environment efficiently and synthetically, improving regional ecosystem, decreasing the environmental pollution and promoting resources substitution, as well as in improving industrial structure and realizing sustainable economic development, it discusses how to construct a transmitting mechanism for regional technological innovation to break through the resources and environment constraint, so as to improve the allocation of regional innovation resources and alleviate the constraint factors in the system of regional technological innovation.To open a wide view for the study, this paper selects five countries for comparison, including USA, the world superpower; Japan, a developed country who has high technologies but is short of resources; UK, the first industrialized country; Korea, a new industrialized country; India, one of biggest developing countries. It will pay attention to past experiences, present developing trends, characteristics and practical measures to overcome the regional resources and environment constraints in these countries, so it expects that the analysis could be valuable for different regions, who have different resource and environment conditions and are in different stages in economic and scientific development, in making policies and taking countermeasures.Based on the qualitative analysis on Chinese technological innovation with theconstraints of regional resources and environment, this paper focuses on individual province and attempts to construct evaluation model and evaluation method for provincial technological innovation constrained by resources and environment, by considering "the factor of resources and environment". A comparative analysis about provincial technological innovation constrained by resources and environment will be done with this model, so as to provide a reliable and practical ground for quantitative analysis for improving the provincial technological innovation capacity and overcoming the bottleneck of regional resources in provinces with different resources, environment and technological innovation abilities.The basic aim of this paper is to raise strategic ideas and countermeasures for overcoming resources and environment constraints with regional technological innovation. So it not only discusses the integrating way of self-innovation, imitating innovation and technological importation, it also pays attention to the roles played by regional enterprises, government, colleges, institutes and intermediate organizations in technological innovation for overcoming resources and environment constraints, as well as the responsibilities undertook by these innovative factors in the system of regional technological innovation for overcoming the constraints of resources and environment; meanwhile, it also discusses key areas in which natural resources can be sustainedly used with technological innovation as well as the question of improving the environmental protection with technological innovation, especially promoting the regional environmental protection changes from end control to production control in whole process and preventing regional environmental pollution in early stages; it investigates the key role and mechanism of technological innovation in transforming regional economic growth pattern, discusses relevant strategic ideas about enhancing the regional capacity to change the economic growth from extensive to intensive pattern with technological innovation. It points out the multi-level and multi-directional policies and countermeasures, including the comprehensive policy making, administrative and coordinating mechanism for regional technological innovation, the system and circumstance of regional innovation, the technological system of ecological garden and clear production, the system construction of investment and capital collection for regional innovation as well as regional introduction, appliance and spreading of technology, enhances the education and introduction of personnel who are good at technological innovation, in the purpose of strengthening the capacity of overcoming resources and environment constraints.To achieve the effect of "integrating individual case with general situation and promoting general development with individual case development" and providing some detailed and practical countermeasures to the government, this paper, with case study in Shandong Province and based on the analysis of resources distribution and regional characteristics, bearing capacity of resources etc., approaches some problems in regional technological innovation with constraints of resources and environment, and makes suggestion about some strategic measures such as guiding principle, developing objective and the area of key technology research and development,provides examples and lessons for the future regional development and spreading technological projects which is sustainable in development.In short, this paper attempts to integrate, enrich and develop the existing theories, with the constraints of resources and environment, it discusses and clarifies the way that how regional innovation to save, substitute, circulate and improve resources and overcome the resources and environment constraints to make the social and economic development to be sustainable. This study tries to urge governments at different levels to give up the traditional growth pattern with high inputs, low outputs and high energy consumption and low efficiency, and to adopt advanced technologies as a substitution and maximize regional technological innovation to develop a clear, circulating, resource substituting and ecological economy; it tries to provide suggestions for regional technological innovations on medium level to start from regional reality, to locate policy correctly, to utilize advantages and avoid disadvantages, to fulfill strides in regional technologies and productivity, to lay emphasis on regional technological innovation, by which the regional industrial structure can be improved and the economic growth can be changed from traditional extensive pattern to modern intensive pattern, so as to alleviate the pressure on environment and fulfill a sustainable development.For some reasons, this paper may have some shortages. While its modeling in evaluating the provincial technological innovation is surely a progress relative to former studies, it may not be perfect as the difficulties in collecting data. Further studies are needed.