China's national innovation system in transition

This paper proposes a generic framework for analyzing a national innovation systems. Rather than simply describing changes in actors, the analysis is anchored around five fundamental activities-education, R&D, implementation, end-use, linkage-that will be common to any system. Therefore, it shifts the focus from changes in individual actors (characterizing most NIS analyses) to changes in system structure and dynamics-how the set of activities is organized and the incentive structures affecting the behavior of the actors. The analysis of China's NIS shows that there have been major changes in the set of organizational actors and institutions, even though the same fundamental activities are being undertaken. The fundamental changes have been 1) the change in the government from primary to secondary actor and 2) its increasing use of policy to reform or create new institutions to support the innovative capacity of its domestic system.