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

• Published in: Scientometrics 2021-03, Vol.126 (3), p.1923-1943
• Main Authors: Dong, Zuo-jun, Xu, Lan, Cheng, Jia-hui, Sun, Guo-jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomedical research; Cities; Coastal zone; Collaboration; Computer Science; Economic models; Economics; Geographical locations; Information Storage and Retrieval; Innovations; Interaction models; Library Science; Municipalities; Political factors; R&D; Research & development
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03828-4

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.