Public-Private Collaboration in China´s Innovative Rise: Effects and Mechanisms
Final Report Abstract
As important forms of public-private collaboration, innovation intermediaries and university-industry linkages may enhance innovation. Indeed, their impact on innovation has been documented for many OECD countries. Our project, first, supported this finding for an important emerging economy, the People’s Republic of China. However, we find that collaboration here mainly leads to incremental types of innovation, especially if it is between universities and smaller firms. Hence, we identify new-to-firm innovations as the main effect of collaboration between public universities and private firms. Second, we find that linkages to universities can be found in manifold, partly complementary, partly duplicative organisational forms. New R&D Institutes and University Satellite Institutes are among these new and noteworthy forms of innovation intermediaries in China which prior research had not identified. We found that these have developed a number of mechanisms to build up firm-level innovation capacities and to bridge gaps between science and business. Among these mechanisms are applied R&D, aimed at creating advanced technology, including through joint research in strategic emerging industries; human resource development to attract top-notch S&T talent; and non-R&D services. We also highlight a non-local knowledge anchoring mechanism employed by University Satellite Institutes to embed external knowledge in a regional context characterized by a weak knowledge infrastructure. Our project hereby contributes to the burgeoning literature on innovation intermediaries and their contribution to innovation capacity building in emerging economies.
Publications
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(2021). Innovation in emerging economies: How do university-industry linkages and public procurement matter for small businesses? Asia Pacific Journal of Management (2021)
Storz, C., ten Brink, T., & Zou, N.
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(2021). Technology Transfer Models for Knowledge-Based Regional Development: New R&D Institutes in Guangdong, China. Science and Public Policy, 48:1, 132-144
Conlé, M., Zhao, W. & ten Brink, T.
