Public-Private Collaboration in China´s Innovative Rise: Effects and Mechanisms

我们申请将我们正在进行的研究项目延长一年。这个正在进行的项目旨在通过研究最重要的公私合作形式——公共科学系统与工业之间的联系——的影响和潜在机制，更好地了解中国创新崛起的来源。我们发现我们的假设得到了全部或部分的支持，特别是关于科学与产业联系对创新的有益影响，以及三种潜在机制（信息交换、资源协调和自我监控）作为创新产出增加的先决条件的作用。我们的（初步）发现也帮助我们完善了我们的假设：我们发现创新结果趋向于增量，而自我监督机制被外部市场监督所取代。此外，我们还发现，中国大学在与“追赶型”企业建立联系方面发挥了令人惊讶的积极进取的企业家作用。这与2000年代形成了鲜明对比，当时中国大学的知识供给与企业的需求之间存在着相当大的不匹配。在我们的项目扩展中，我们努力更详细地研究大学的这种新的创业角色。特别地，我们旨在分析大学技术转移的效果和机制。首先，我们通过统计分析评估了大学技术转移管理对衍生产品（基于衍生产品数量）和联合研究（基于共同专利）等成果的影响。其次，通过对广东省两类具有代表性的高校进行深入的案例研究，揭示了形成技术转移管理的主要机制。同样，我们的研究脱离了对产业政策和创新系统文献中合作的潜在有益影响的理论见解。同样，我们采用混合方法设计。通过与联合国教科文组织广州中山大学科技政策讲席的密切合作，获得了非同寻常的实地访问机会。这也使我们能够从定量分析中解释和理解数据。总的来说，我们期望新的实证见解能够补充我们正在进行的研究中关于科学与工业联系的发现。从理论上讲，我们将有助于对技术转让管理为何以及如何增强新兴国家创新能力的精细化理解，从而丰富产业政策和创新系统文献。此外，我们的研究结果将使我们能够为其他新兴国家的创新政策设计得出更普遍的结论。

We apply for a one-year extension of our ongoing research project. This ongoing project aims at a better understanding of the sources of China’s innovative rise by studying the effects and underlying mechanisms of the most important form of public-private collaboration: linkages between the public science system and industry. We found full or partial support for our hypotheses, especially regarding beneficial effects of science–industry linkages on innovation, and the role of three underlying mechanisms (information exchange, resource co-ordination, and self-monitoring) as a precondition for a rise in innovation output. Our (preliminary) findings helped us also to refine our hypotheses: we found that the innovation outcome tends to be incremental, and that the mechanism of self-monitoring rather is substituted by external market monitoring. In addition, we identified a surprisingly proactive, entrepreneurial role of Chinese universities in creating linkages mostly to “catch-up” firms. This contrasts with the 2000s, when a considerable mismatch existed between the supply of knowledge from China’s universities and the demand of firms.In our project extension, we strive to study this new entrepreneurial role of universities in more detail. In particular, we aim to analyse the effects and mechanisms of university technology transfer. First, we evaluate the effects of universities’ technology transfer administrations on outcomes such as spin-offs (based upon number of spin-offs) and joint research (based upon co-patenting) by a statistical analysis. Second, we unpack the main mechanisms that shape technology transfer administrations through selected in-depth case studies of two representative types of universities in Guangdong province. Again, our research departs from theoretical insights into the potentially beneficial effects of collaboration in the industrial policy and the innovation systems literature. Again, we employ a mixed-method design. Extraordinary field access is gained through close co-operation with the UNESCO Chair in Science and Technology Policies at Sun Yat-sen University Guangzhou. This also allows us to interpret and contextualise the data from the quantitative analysis. Overall, we expect new empirical insights that will complement findings on science-industry linkages from our ongoing research. Theoretically, we will contribute to a refined understanding of why, and, if so, how, technology transfer administrations enhance innovation capacities in emerging countries, thereby enriching the industrial policy and the innovation systems literature. Moreover, our findings will enable us to draw more general conclusions for innovation policy design in other emerging countries.