Are cities greener because of innovation?Independent innovation policy and green economic efficiency

The national independent innovation demonstration zone(NIIDZ)is an independent innovation policy that plays a crucial role in implementing strategies.Given the importance of the NIIDZ,this study uses panel data of 278 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2020 and empirically examines the effect and internal mechanism of the NIIDZ on green economic efficiency(GEE)using the difference-in-difference model(DID).The results show that the NIIDZ effectively enhances the growth of GEE,and the results remain valid through several robustness tests,such as year-by-year propensity score matching.The transmission mechanism suggests that the NIIDZ indirectly drives GEE by accelerating scientific and technological investment,promoting talent concentration,and optimizing the industrial structure.Moreover,heterogeneity analysis reveals that the promotion effect of the NIIDZ on GEE is more prominent in the eastern region and high green development level areas.The study’s findings can serve as a reference for China to further utilize the policy effectiveness of the NIIDZ and accelerate the high-quality development of the green economy in the future.

An Update on the Clinical Pipelines of New Antibacterial Drugs Developed in China

Antibacterial resistance is a global health threat that requires further concrete action on the part of all countries.In this context,one of the biggest concerns is whether enough new antibacterial drugs are being discovered and developed.Although several high-quality reviews on clinical antibacterial drug pipelines from a global perspective were published recently,none provides comprehensive information on original antibacterial drugs at clinical stages in China.In this review,we summarize the latest progress of novel antibacterial drugs approved for marketing and under clinical evaluation in China since 2019.Information was obtained by consulting official websites,searching commercial databases,retrieving literature,asking personnel from institutions or companies,and other means,and a considerable part of the data covered here has not been included in other reviews.As of June 30,2023,a total of 20 antibacterial projects from 17 Chinese pharmaceutical companies or developers were identified and updated.Among them,two new antibacterial drugs that belong to traditional antibiotic classes were approved by the National Medical Products Administration(NMPA)in China in 2019 and 2021,respectively,and 18 antibacterial agents are in clinical development,with one under regulatory evaluation,five in phase-3,six in phase-2,and six in phase-1.Most of the clinical candidates are new analogs or monocomponents of traditional antibacterial pharmacophore types,including two dual-acting hybrid antibiotics and a recombinant antibacterial protein.Overall,despite there being 17 antibacterial clinical candidates,our analysis indicates that there are still relatively few clinically differentiated antibacterial agents in stages of clinical development in China.Hopefully,Chinese pharmaceutical companies and institutions will develop more innovative and clinically differentiated candidates with good market potential in the future research and development(R&D)of original antibacterial drugs.

Examining the Experiences and Challenges of Haze-Fog Governance in China

With the rapid development of industrialisation and urbanisation, China is facing the challenge of severe HF (Haze-Fog) pollution. This essay compares the advantages and disadvantages of China’s HF management and summarizes the important lessons China can teach the rest of the world about applying this tactic. China’s capabilities in the digital economy, National Innovation Demonstration Zones, and urban innovation systems are examined in this article, along with its shortcomings in information mechanisms and pollution sources. This essay also summarizes China’s achievements, particularly regarding local autonomy. The essay goes on to say, however, that China is probably going to be under more pressure to manage HF in the future, both in terms of long-term solutions and the economy.

NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE INNOVATION SYSTEMS: EVOLUTION, DEFINITION AND INDICATORS

The paper examines the three stages of the evolution of national innovation systems: national technology innovation systems, national innovation systems and national knowledge innovation systems. A national knowledge innovation system is a network of institutions and organizations which jointly or individually contributes to the knowledge innovation (including scientific and technical knowledge innovation). The author stresses that knowledge innovation will occur in all processes of the produc-tion, transmission and use of knowledge. There are four subsystems in this system: scientific knowledge innovation, technical knowledge innovation, knowledge trans-mission and knowledge use subsystem. The author also lists some indicators for the System.

Knowledge-intensive Business Services in National Innovation Systems

In order to find the roles of knowledge-intensive business services （KIBS） in the innovation activities, This paper focus on three perspectives. First, we find that KIBS possess good prerequisites to function as vehicles in innovation distribution, the sources of innovation and the facilitators of innovation in their client firms. Second, we further discuss KIBS as the knowledge and innovation infrastructure of society in parallel with the research, educational and other public institutions. Third, we present some research policies and agenda to promote the development of KIBS. It is regarded that much remains to be studied both in the use of KIBS and in their own activities, including integrating and networking the knowledge-intensive services into the client companies, the convergence of various services and closer connection with the client companies＇ strategy, and the national policies to connect the KIBS to the different sectors.

National Conference on Technological Innovation of Standardization Held in Beijing

Organized and hosted by the Standardization Administration of China, theNational Conference on Technological Innovation of Standardization was held in Beijing on March13th. In his speech at the conference, Mr. Li Chuanqing, Party Secretary of the GeneralAdministration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, called for the vigorousimplementation of technological standard- ization strategies to substantially elevate the overalllevel of Chinese standards.

A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF INNOVATION TO BE BUILT FOR WELCOMING THE ERA OF KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Editor’s note: Not long ago, CAS headquarters put forward a proposal entitled "A national innovation system (NIS) to be built up towards the era of knowledge economy (KE)" in a bid to plot a chart for China’s development in the next century. The suggestion was highly valued by the CPC Central Committee and here we publish an extracted translation of its full text.

Contributions of the 18th CPC National Congress to Innovation and Development of Human Rights Theories

The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China （CPC） set ＂respecting and ensuring human rights＂ as an important goal of development and reform in China, thus siniciz ing the latest Marxist human rights theories and reflecting major in novations and developments made by the CPC in the field of human rights theory. I. Human Rights as a Core Idea and Important Goal of Social Development Human rights are integral to the pursuit of the core value of socialism and to the core idea of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The report of the 18th CPC National Congress summarized the new progress and experience of human rights advance ment in recent years in China by setting ＂respecting and ensuring hu man rights＂ as an important goal of China as it completes the building of a moderately prosperous society.

Industrial Ecosystem and the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries

Based on the theories of business ecosystem and national innovation system, this paper proposes a concept of industrial ecosystem. Differ from ecologists and environmentalists who regard industrial ecosystem as the natural ecosystems in which material, energy and information circulates, this paper defines industrial ecosystem as a set of factors that are vital to the development of a certain industry and their interrelationship. The industrial ecosystem consists of three sub-systems that are innovation ecosystem, production ecosystem, and application ecosystem, and subsidiary factors that include factor supply, infrastructure, socio-cultural environment, international environment and policy system. The industrial ecosystem is characterized by interdependencies, complex interactions, self-recovery and co-evolution. The development of an industry is＇ the result of the reaction of the whole industrial ecosystem; therefore, the competition in strategic emerging industries among countries is in essence the competition in industrial ecosystems. Those countries which are able to take the lead in setting up complete industrial ecosystem will occupy advantage in developing strategic emerging industries. Cultivating and developing strategic emerging industries requires promoting the development and coordination of the whole ecosystem.

The New Perspective in the Construction of NIS： Civil-military Integration

The paper firstly introduces the conditions of NIS in America and Japan, then analyzes the condition and problems in NIS of China, and lastly illustrates the strategic meaning of Civil-military Integration NIS.

National Innovation Capacity Index: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis

The national innovation capacity(NIC) has received increasingly more attention from academia and policy makers. This study develops a methodology for measuring NIC with a view to provide the evidence for policy-making concerning national innovation capacity-building, and conducts a crosscountry comparison based on the panel data of 2006-2015.(1) National innovation capacity index(NICI) is established to measure the performance of NIC from two perspectives, namely national innovation strength index(NISI) and national innovation effectiveness index(NIEI).(2) Developed countries usually perform better than developing countries in terms of the NICI if there is no huge gap in economic scale between two kinds of countries.(3) Emerging countries show greater imbalance between the NISI and the NIEI, and have generally higher average annual growth rate of the NISI and the NIEI than that of developed countries.(4) National innovation strength is closely related to national economic scale while national innovation effectiveness is closely related to national development level. Some theoretical considerations in this research may make contributions to innovation development studies.(1) NIC is regarded as the capacity for scientific discovery and technology invention, and for driving economic, social and environmental development, which emphasizes the driving effect and the influence of innovation on development.(2) The concepts such as the NISI and the NIEI are introduced to measure the NIC so as to distinguish the contribution of the size of innovation activities to the NIC and the contribution of the efficiency and efficacy of innovation-driven development to the NIC.(3) The indicator system of the NICI is designed from the perspective of the full spectrum of capacity-building process ranging from input to output by introducing the "innovation condition" as a broad sense "innovation input" and the "innovation outcome" as a broad sense "innovation output".

National Innovation Development Index: A Cross-country Comparison of Innovation Development Performance

Innovation development has received increasingly more attention from academia and policymakers. The policy-making for promoting it heavily relies on evidence provided by measuring national innovation development. This study tries to build a bridge between innovation development measurement and policy-making. The literature shows that there is very limited theoretical and methodological research on measuring national innovation development. This paper proposes a national innovation development index(NIDI) for measuring the performance of national innovation development by integrating the definition of innovation from five perspectives and the definition of development from four perspectives. The NIDI consists of five sub-indexes, science and technology development sub-index, innovation condition development sub-index, industrial innovation development sub-index, social innovation development sub-index, and green & low-carbon development sub-index, which is measured by the composite sub-index approach. This paper uses the NIDI methodology to investigate 40 countries based on the panel data from 2006 to 2015, which helps classify countries into three categories including leading, advanced and catching-up countries. The cross-analysis between sub-indexes of the NIDI brings new insights into the competitive advantage and disadvantage, which helps governments to choose more specific policies to overcome shortcomings resulted in the poor performance of sub-indexes of the NIDI so as to improve their innovation development performance systematically. Besides, the findings in this article indicate that the level of economic development in a country is to a large extent determined by the level of national innovation development.

Firm innovation system: Paths for enhancing corporate indigenous innovation capability

To obtain a sustainable competitive advantage and achieve global innovation leadership,firms in China and other emerging economies must develop strong indigenous innovation capabilities through the coevolution of strategy,organization,resources,and culture.Drawing on current innovation management theories and practices,this study proposes four systematic paths for improving firm innovation systems(FISs),namely,the R&D-based internal collaborative FIS,the strategic vision-driven FIS,the open and user-driven FIS,and the holistic ecosystemdriven FIS.This study contributes to the systematic approach for enhancing corporate indigenous innovation capability based on FISs.Moreover,this study provides theoretical and practical insights for China as well as other developing countries to cultivate world-class enterprises and build an innovative nation.