Function Position And Organization Modes Of Public Technological Platforms

A series of Public Technological Platforms (PTPs) has emerged in China over the recent years, and has been regarded as a key institutional reform in public policy of science and technology. Its participants including universities, research institutes, firms and scientific agents take the initiative to contribute their own resources to form the PTPs with funding from governments, its mission is stated as improving the infrastructures of technological innovation for industries, conducting research and development in the domain of the critical and generic technology, and providing the technical services for industries and research organizations. The Chinese central government endorsed to establish PTPs as a key policy for speeding up the innovation process and enhancing the capabilities of innovation in industries and institutions.This paper begins with the research of government-industry-university-research cooperation and foreign R&D consortia sponsored by governments of Japan, US and European countries, as they share some characteristics with PTPs. Then, the paper concentrates on the function of PTPs in Zhejiang through literal and empirical studies, illustrating the fact that PTPs' function includes provision of technical services for firms with relatively low technical capabilities and limited technical resources, as well as cooperative R&D among the involved parties, and finding that different types of PTPs take different specific function. Furthermore, the paper studies on the organization modes of on-going PTPs. It includes entity mode and virtual mode which have certain distinctions in kinds of PTPs, sources of construction funding and income, the stability of personnel, and so on. Drawing on the former analysis, the paper extracts some factors influencing the selection of organization patterns from function perspective, concerning the integration of resources, genetic and key technological R&D, innovation and Services. Based on the factors, it builds up a conception model of choosing organization modes, and details PTPs with case studies(the public S&T service platform in pharmaceutical and in textile).The paper illustrates that industry characteristics and local government play an important role in the selection of modes. Finally, the paper proposes measures to improve the operation of PTPs in Zhejiang.The emergence of PTPs in China is a relatively new phenomenon and has not received much theoretical and empirical examination. This paper would get ready for the further studies on PTPs, also provide suggestions for the development of on-going PTPs.