Regional Innovation System: Theoretical Approach and Empirical Study of China

Regional innovation system (RIS) is the new research field of modern economic geography in the age of knowledge economy. Based on the researches of regional economic geography, the authors of the paper consider RIS as the integrated and interactive systems with innovation milieu, elements, units, structure and functions. Five aspects of evaluation indicators including innovation input scale and output scale, innovation milieu transition, innovation inner operation, as well as innovation outer impact are worked out for final indicators of RIS scale and quality. According to different RIS situations, three patterns of independent, imitative and cooperative development are put forward for choosing. At the latter part of the paper, we select 12 provincial regions (including three municipalities and one autonomous region) of China for empirical study. The results show that there exists great difference among each region from the aspects of inannovation scale and quality mainly owning to the diversification of RIS social and economic milieu, the major innovative units of enterprises, universities and R&D institutes. Finally, the paper points out the innovation development decisions for each region.