The Policy Transfer Situation among Chinese National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zones

Abstract

Chinese national independent innovation demonstration zones are a major organizational mode of Chinese scientific and technological innovation, and a paragon of first movers of technological policies. Since foundation of these demonstration zones, transfer and mutual learning of policies among them have accompanied their growth. Currently, in demonstration zones, policy transfer has become a common phenomenon or even a major source of policy formation. However, due to lack of a systematic knowledge, policy transfer is still largely blind and random, thus seriously restricting the policy innovation ability of demonstration zones and making research into the policy transfer of demonstration zones imperative. This paper adopts the technological policies issued by some national independent innovation demonstration zones from 2006 to 2015 as samples. Through a comprehensive review, these policies are classified into five types, namely technological talents, technological industries, technological enterprises, technological finance and others. Based on the transfer-in and transfer-out of different policies, the development trend of policy transfer in demonstration zones is studied. Meanwhile, combining the importance degree of policy transfer-out, the competitiveness of different types of policies in demonstration zones is analyzed, and characteristics of policy transfer among Chinese demonstration zones are examined. It is hoped that this research can fill the gap of empirical research into transfer of technological policies in China.

Keywords: Independent innovation, Demonstration zone, Policy transfer, Policy competitiveness