Research On Academia-Industry Collaboration And Regional Innovation Convergence

In the era of knowledge economy,innovation is not only the core competitiveness of a country or region,but also the foundation of social and economic development.As an important participant in the national innovation system,the collaboration between industry,university and research institute is important to improve of national innovation level,at the same time,it is also the key to promote the sustainable development of regional economy.The National Medium-and Long-Term Science and Technology Development Plan(2006-2020)proposes that the technological innovation system of Industry-University-Research Institute collaboration(IUR collaboration)should be the breakthrough point in the construction of the national innovation system.This policy has upgraded the IUR collaboration to the national strategic level However,at present,there are great differences in the intensity of IUR collaboration among different regions of China.Regional innovation convergence focuses on the balanced development of regional innovation,and polarization will eventually lead to development stagnation.Developed regions get scientific knowledge and technology vigorously to achieve rapid development,so they have greater competitive advantages.However,knowledge is fluid that can flows from the source of innovation to underdeveloped regions.Because of the low cost and high speed of imitation,it may contribute to the development and catch-up of underdeveloped regions.In this case,regional innovation is characterized by convergence.The knowledge and achievements of IUR collaboration will spillover,as well as generating knowledge filtering in the process of knowledge flow.The impact of IUR collaboration on regional innovation is far-reaching,but the empirical research on the convergence of IUR collaboration on regional innovation is relatively rare.This paper examines the impact of IUR collaboration on regional innovation convergence.Universities and research institutions are important participants in regional innovation systems,and IUR collaboration is a direct way for them to participate in economic development.IUR collaboration generate a large number of practical patents that help to enhance regional innovation capabilities.Due to the difference in organizational structure and operation mode,there may be some differences in the innovation performance of industry-university cooperation(IU collaboration)and industry-research institution cooperation(IR collaboration).This paper makes a comparative analysis of this problem,and draws corresponding policy implications from a macro view to provide some reference for regional innovation and development.In the empirical analysis part,we use convergence method to study the mechanism of how IUR collaboration affects the regional innovation gap,taking provincial regions of China as the research sample.Finally,we propose corresponding policy recommendations based on the empirical analysis conclusions.The main conclusions of the paper include:First,the regional innovation of 30 provinces(due to lack of data,eliminating Tibet)in China is uneven,and the level of regional innovation has gradually decreased from west to east,the problem of unbalanced development is still serious.In terms of regional innovation convergence,? convergence reflects the difference in convergence between different regions.Within the whole country and in the eastern,central and western regions,the level of innovation shows a trend of divergence.The a convergence measures the change of regional innovation convergence in different time.According to different time periods,the ? convergence curve of regional innovation from 2005 to 2015 is characterized by increasing first and then decreasing,which indicates that the region Innovation is in a diverging trend,and there is a convergence between 2010 and 2015.Second,the IUR collaboration has effect on regional innovation convergence.The analysis of the factors influencing regional innovation shows that even if the ?convergence of different regions shows significant divergence,the IUR collaboration can help narrow the gap in regional innovation growth rate,which is conducive to promoting the balanced development of regional innovation.At the same time,the level of regional economic development is important for the improvement of regional innovation.The knowledge stock can't be a guarantee for a sustained high growth rate in the later period.The FDI have complementary effect with the IUR collaboration.Third,the IUR collaboration in the eastern,central and western regions have different effects on the convergence of innovation.The results of sub-sample research show that the level of economic development,the absorption and utilization of FDI,and the inflow of talents can promote the improvement of innovation level in the eastern region.In addition,there is a large number of universities and research institutions with high R&D intensity in eastern region that will attract more innovative elements to gather in this region further.The talent inflow significantly promotes the convergence of innovation in the central and western regions,and the central and western regions should pay more attention to the talents.Fourth,IR collaboration and IU collaboration have different effect on the convergence of regional innovation.We find that the impact of IU collaboration on regional innovation convergence is more significant.During the observation period,the national sample shows a trend of divergence of regional innovation.Even if the IU collaboration can weaken the divergence trend,the intensity is still not enough to promote regional innovation convergence.