产学研合作与中国高校创新

University-industry Research Collaborations and Innovation of Universities

本文利用国家级开发区的设立作为外生冲击,使用2006~2020年1227个大学层面的专利数据和国家级开发区数据,分析了产学研对高校创新的影响。研究发现,国家级开发区能够显著促进高校创新能力的提升。具体地,当一个城市设立了国家级开发区之后,该城市高校的专利总数增长了36.8%。这一基本结论在一系列的稳健性检验后依然成立。异质性分析表明,相比经开区,强调高新技术产业集聚的高新区更有利于提升高校创新产出,同时国家级开发区对理工科高校的创新产出具有更强的促进作用。机制分析显示,当开发区的主导产业与高校优势学科一致时,开发区对高校科技创新的作用越强,并且在开发区设立之后,高校与企业的合作专利数有明显提升。本文的结果强调了学科匹配在产学研合作中的重要性,有利于形成高效的产学研体系、充分发挥高校的创新潜力,实现创新驱动。

Taking the establishment of national special economic zones(NSEZ)as the exogenous shock,we use data on 1227 university-level patents from 2006 to 2020 and the DID method to analyze the impact and mechanism by which university-industry research collaborations affect innovation in universities.We find that national special economic zones significantly promote the improvement of innovation in universities.Specifically,the establishment of the NSEZ has increased the total number of patents from universities by 36.8%,and the number of invention patents,utility model patents and design patents by 33.7%,37%and 15.9%respectively.What’s more,the NSEZ promotes the innovation output of colleges and universities through university-industry research collaborations.We provide evidence from two aspects.First,when the leading industries in a development zone are matched with the advantageous disciplines of local universities,the patent growth of the universities increases faster.Furthermore,compared with liberal arts colleges,science and engineering colleges have more comparative advantages in scientific and technological innovation and are better able to use industry-university-research collaboration to carry out scientific and technological innovation.Therefore,the number of patents in science and engineering colleges grows faster.In addition,aiming to push the development of high-tech industries,the high-tech zones focus on technological innovation and achievement transformation.Therefore,compared with colleges and universities in other cities,colleges and universities with high-tech zones in their cities have higher innovation output.Second,we find that after the establishment of a development zone,the proportion of the scientific research funds for local universities derived from enterprises and institutions increases significantly,and the number of patents jointly developed by universities and enterprises also increases significantly.Through a series of empirical tests,we prove that the development zone policy improves the innovation performance of colleges and universities by strengthening the in-depth integration of industry and universities.We make two contributions to the existing literature.First,as an important part of China’s innovation system,the innovation performance of colleges and universities has been neglected.In theory,promoting the effective combination of universities and industry is an important way to promote a country’s innovation capability,but empirical research on this issue is still very limited.This paper gives a detailed description of the mechanism by which the combination of universities and industry affects the patent output of colleges and universities,and discusses the complementarity of“professional-industry”between“university-enterprise”from the perspective of discipline matching.This provides empirical evidence and a practical basis for promoting the construction of disciplines and majors at colleges and universities to adapt to local industries.At the same time,this result also empirically proves the localization characteristics of tacit knowledge and the flow and transformation between different innovation subjects,making an important contribution to the existing literature.Second,this paper supplements the literature on the performance evaluation of SEZs.This paper finds that SEZs also provide opportunities for cooperation between universities and enterprises,thereby promoting the innovation output of the universities in the cities where they are located;this is an effective supplement to the literature on the innovation effect of SEZs.In addition,this paper further expands our understanding of the spillover effect of SEZs.Most of the existing literature discusses the spillover effects of development zones at the regional level,while we discuss the spillover effects of SEZs on different market players within the city.