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，这涉及使现有产品和解决方案适应当地市场；其次，也是较不常见的，是开发全球新奇事物或激进创新；第三，注重稳健性以及生产和使用成本低的节俭创新。对于适应性创新，决定性因素是对当地买家偏好的了解，激进创新通常来自快速增长的研究潜力和科学能力，而节约型创新往往两者都需要，因为尽管它们很简单，但它们在技术上不一定是显而易见的。创新可以由外国公司产生，也可以由国内公司产生。此外，在中国的案例中，必须考虑到国家在所有经济活动中的至高无上的重要性。在中国身上，所有的创新活动都表现出显著的空间差异。众所周知，中国S沿海地带的大都市圈拥有最高的创新潜力，并拥有最长的创新过程经验，最著名的是北京和上海。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·S创新活动的空间框架正在发生巨大变化。高科技生产中值得注意的部分已经转移到了内陆，例如笔记本电脑就转移到了重庆。因此，本研究提出了中国、S地区不仅会以不同的速度和动量发展创新能力，而且会根据各自的潜力发展出不同的区域创新格局的假设。因此，它们不仅在创新活动的总体水平方面存在差异，而且在创新活动的主要驱动因素以及由此产生的当地普遍存在的创新类型方面也存在差异。因此，该项目旨在调查中国区域的创新潜力、创新类型和创新政策，并在此基础上确定典型的区域创新概况。通过这样做，将有助于对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的相互关系的一般研究。在方法上，该项目将基于政策分析、专家访谈(层次分析法)以及对中国S沿海边缘、内陆和西南部选定的六个大都市区的商界、科学家和政府代表的访谈。

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.