Spatial Evolution Of Technology Transfer In China City System

Along with the knowledgeability and globalization,the global hierarchy system under global production networks is constantly disintegrating and is being re-established by the global innovation network interwoven with multinational-led global R&D networks and university-led global knowledge cooperation networks.In the global innovation network,the asymmetric interdependence between countries formed during the economic and trade era is more clearly depicted in the process of global knowledge cooperation and technology transfer.The spatial scale dependence of knowledge spillover and the scale effect of industrial economy make the global innovation network deeply embedded in the local innovation system,and the cities become the carrier of the global science and technology competition.The technological competition among countries has been transformed into the competition among global science and technology innovation centers as the basic spatial unit.Within this period which some refer to as ?the new normal‘,China‘s economy is facing downward pressure on growth and requires a new and powerful source of stimulation to face the challenge of transformation and upgrading.Among the policy options to foster this new engine of growth are the need to speed up innovative technology transfer on a largescale and to implement an innovation-driven development strategy.Promoting technology transfer has thus become an important focus not only for policymakers but also among academics in areas such as management and economics.At present,China‘s city innovation system is gradually taking shape.As the core component of innovation resources,innovative technology represented by patents has become the focus of competition among all cities.Its gathering and diffusion channels urgently need to build a compatible city technology transfer system.The construction of a national technology transfer system in line with the law of science and technology innovation,the law of technology transfer and the law of industrial development is an inevitable choice for serving the strategy of innovation development.However,most researches on technology transfer pay more attention to the micro-technology transfer of technology innovation subjects,while there are few researches on the spatial issues of technology transfer from the perspective of geography.Based on these,by abstracting the technology transfer from the micro-level to the spatial level,we analyzed the status quo,network structure,evolution process,market system and spatial effects of technology transfer in China‘s city system,and concluded as follows:(1)city technology transfer is an open and complex giant system,which is the core foundation of constructing urban innovation network and also the spatial representation of global innovation network.First of all,the city technology transfer network is a functional space complex system consisting of city-related systems,technological innovation systems and space-potential poor systems,which has the characteristics of structural complexity and diversity of dimensions.Second,the city technology transfer achieves the macroscopic emergence through the micro-self-interest mechanism,so as to serve the city‘s economic growth.(2)Technology transfer activities in China‘s city system highly follow the rules of spatial agglomeration on the macro level and geographical proximity effect on the micro level.First of all,the technology transfer activities in China are highly concentrated in space.The Yangtze River Delta Area,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area and Pearl River Delta Area were the most active and frequent regions in China for technology transfer.Second,China‘s technology transfer centers were highly concentrated in space.Through constructing a comprehensive evaluation system of urban technology transfer capability,it was found that the top ten cities with the most technology transfer capacity in China show a concentrated situation in the spatial distribution,indicating that technology transfer will not create a space collapse effect in a region scale.Third,geographical proximity was the spatial mechanism for the differences in technology transfer structures and network connectivity in China city system.(3)Technology gap was the driving force and topological connection mechanism for the evolution of China‘s city technology transfer network,and was also the intrinsic reason for the formation of China‘s unified technology transfer system and technology exchange market.First,the evolution of the global technology innovation system led by big powers and the evolution of China‘s city technological innovation system led and promoted by big cities made the evolution of technology transfer in China‘s city system to dominate by a few big cities.Secondly,technology transfer in China‘s city system did not form the same preference of adjacency as social networks,but showed a jumping state and a cross-level pattern.Thirdly,topology connection mechanism based on technology gap made the Chinese technology transfer network gradually form a unified national market system.(4)The spatial effects system(Speed-Agglomeration-Openness)of city technology transfer illustrated how urban technology transfer plays an important role in urban economic growth,and also confirmed that speed was not the ultimate important dimension in technology transfer.First of all,there may be a threshold for speed of city technology transfer.The study found that it took 2 years for technology transfer to be most appropriate.Second,the agglomeration effects of city technology transfer did not work through all the dimensions but only show outstanding performance on agglomeration area and diffusion scale.Third,the openness effects of city technology transfer also did not work through all dimensions,but only manifests itself in terms of the scale of non-basic technology transfer and the depth basic technology transfer.