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

新兴经济体正在产生越来越多的创新。首先，这涉及到现有产品和解决方案对当地市场的适应，其次，不太常见的是，全球新奇或激进创新的发展，第三，专注于稳健性和低成本生产和使用的节俭创新。对于适应性创新，决定性因素是对当地买家偏好的了解，激进创新通常来自研究和科学能力快速增长的潜力，而节俭创新往往需要两者，因为尽管它们很简单，但它们在技术上并不明显。创新可以由外国和国内公司共同产生。此外，就中国而言，必须考虑到国家在所有经济活动中的至高无上的重要性。在中国，所有创新活动都表现出显著的空间差异。人们普遍认为，中国沿海地区的大都市区拥有最大的创新潜力，创新过程的经验也最长，其中以北京和上海最为突出。相反，来自欠发达地区的创新通常受到的关注要少得多，尽管在这些地区，正在为提高区域经济能力作出重大努力。在此背景下，中国创新活动的空间框架正在发生巨大变化。高科技生产的重要部分已经转移到了内陆，比如笔记本电脑的生产转移到了重庆。因此，本研究提出了中国区域创新能力发展速度和动力不同的假设，并根据各自的潜力发展出不同的区域创新特征。因此，它们不仅在创新活动的总体水平方面有所不同，而且在创新活动的主要驱动因素以及由此产生的当地流行的创新类型方面也有所不同。因此，本项目旨在研究中国区域创新潜力、创新类型和创新政策，并在此基础上界定典型的区域创新特征。这将有助于研究新兴经济体创新过程的空间差异以及经济领先和落后地区之间的相互关系。在方法上，该项目将以政策分析、专家访谈（层次分析法）、对中国沿海地区、内陆地区和西南地区选定的6个城市的经济界、科学家和行政代表的访谈为基础。

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.