Major factors affecting biomedical cross-city R&D collaborations based on cooperative patents in China

Zuo-jun Dong, Lan Xu, Jia-hui Cheng and Guo-jun Sun ()
Additional contact information
Zuo-jun Dong: Zhejiang University of Technology
Lan Xu: Zhejiang University of Technology
Jia-hui Cheng: Zhejiang University of Technology
Guo-jun Sun: Zhejiang University of Technology

Scientometrics, 2021, vol. 126, issue 3, No 3, 1923-1943

Abstract: Abstract Due to the fastidiousness of the industry, it has become absolutely necessary for the biomedical industry to seek innovative R&D collaborations in order to maintain high standards in technological advances as well as the array of products from various fields. The biomedical industry is seen to be focused in certain geographical locations; scientific research activities appear to cluster in cities or towns. Modern cities have the potential to play a crucial role in the national or regional innovation systems. Strengthening R&D collaborations between cities can bring about a perfect synergy that integrates various regional innovation systems. The cross-sectional co-patent data of the CNKI Medical and Health Technology Patent Database was taken up as a representation for the R&D collaboration. This paper investigates the spatial patterns of R&D collaborations between 224 Chinese cities and the major factors that influence biomedical cross-city R&D collaborations in China from 1990 to 2019. A spatial interaction model was used to examine how spatial, economic, technological and political factors affect cross-city R&D collaborations. The degree of supremacy shows that cross-city collaborative R&D activities occur mainly in favored regions, advanced municipalities and coastal regions. The mean intensity for interprovincial cross-city collaborations is higher than inter-provincial collaborations spanning over periods nearly six times the duration. The findings revealed that factors like spatial, economic, technological and political-bias definitely exert significant influences on the frequency of biomedical cross-city R&D collaborations. Specifically, the heterodyne dummy variable and the geographical distance variable have a certain degree of overlap, which has a significant impact on the cooperation frequency.

Keywords: Biomedical cross-city; R&D collaboration; Affecting factors; Spatial interaction model; Co-patent China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03828-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03828-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03828-4

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().