Regional Innovation Profiles in China: Innovation Conditions and Types of Innovation

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More and more innovations are being generated in emerging economies. First and foremost, this concerns the adaptation of existing products and solutions to local markets, secondly and less commonly, the development of global novelties or radical innovations, thirdly, frugal innovations focusing on robustness as well as low cost in production and use. For adaptive innovations, the decisive factor is knowledge about local buyer preferences, radical innovations typically emerge from fast growing potentials in research and scientific capability whereas frugal innovations tend to need both as, despite their simplicity, they are not necessarily technologically obvious. Innovations can be generated by both foreign and domestic firms. In the case of China, moreover, the paramount importance of the state in all economic activity has to be taken into account. In China, all innovative activity displays notable spatial disparities. As commonly accepted, the large metropolitan areas of China s coastal rim harbor the highest innovative potential and have longest experience with innovation processes, most notable Beijing and Shanghai. Innovations from less developed areas, to the contrary, typically receive far less attention even though, in these regions, substantial efforts are underway to improve regional economic capacities. Against this background, the spatial framework of China s innovative activities is changing dramatically. Already, notable parts of the high-tech production have moved inland, e.g. to Chongqing in the case of Laptops. Hence, the proposed research project puts forward the hypothesis that China s regions will not only develop innovative capabilities with different speed and momentum but also develop distinct regional innovation profiles in line with their respective potentials. Thus, they will differ not only with regard to the overall level of innovative activity but also with regard to the main drivers of innovative activities and, deriving from that, the locally prevalent type of innovation. Thus, the project aims to investigate the innovation potential, innovation types and innovation policy of Chinese regions and, on that basis, define typical regional innovation profiles. In doing so, it will make a contribution to general research on the spatial differentiation of innovation processes in emerging economies as well as the mutual relations of economically leading and lagging regions. Methodologically, the project will be based on policy analysis, on expert interviews (analytical hierarchy process) and interviews with representatives of the business sector, scientists and administrations in six selected metropolitan areas on China s coastal rim, interior and southwest.