The Study On The Characteristics、Network And Formation Mechanism Of International R&D City

With the rapid development of science and technology and economic globalization in recent years, human beings have experienced an evolution from an industrial society to a knowledge society. The development of urban and regional economy has entered a phase where innovation is taking the place of tradition as the major driving force. Against this background, research and development (R&D), the practical approach and the significant source of knowledge creation and technology innovation, is becoming increasingly important in developing the urban and regional economy. In the meantime, the economic globalization is marked by a transition from industrial expansion to R&D expansion in the global scale, in which multinational corporations (MNCs) play an important role in the trans-national flow of knowledge. The global expansion and localization of MNCs’R&D network has brought the whole world with spatial transference and reintegration. MNCs focus their sustaining R&D investments on certain cities, and integrate more and more closely with local R&D resources, which lead to the formation and development of international R&D cities as a new spatial type and urban function. As an innovative research subject, little research has been done on international R&D cities either at home or abroad. Besides, research in this filed is still on its initial stage, for it has been limited to general discussions of concepts and case studies without a global perspective. All this results the fact that relevant theoretical studies have lagged far behind the actual development and practical demands for the construction of international R&D cities. Therefore, by adopting a global viewpoint, this dissertation attempts to establish a comprehensive and scientific system of academic concept system and based on which, to build an analytical theoretical framework of the formation and development mechanism of international R&D cities. The details of the research contents are as follows.Firstly, the research progresses of some relevant theories at home and abroad are reviewed. From a theoretical perspective of the combination of innovative cities and world cities, the current research starts from a clarification of basic concepts of international R&D cities by specifying a number of fundamental issues which are regarded as the research foundation and logical starting point of this paper, including the core features of the essential connotation and the spatial scale of those cities. Then, cities that can be termed as international R&D cities are redefined. The author holds that MNCs have served as the driving force of R&D activities globally and thus have successfully built up the infrastructure of an international R&D network. With reference to the research methodology for world cities, the current research starts from the spatial organization of MNCs’ R&D globalization, by examining the distribution and conglomeration of the advanced R&D institutes with more than170MNCs, draws a geographic map with cities as its spatial dimensions and it further marks the nodes within the international R&D network which are then used to identify and define the core features of international R&D cities.After that, the current features and types of the international R&D cities are analyzed and categorized by employing international patent statistics which represent the R&D output ratio of those cities. It should be noted that internationally data for R&D investment, intensity and workload of full-time researchers are mostly taken at the provincial or regional level, therefore, data on urban dimensions is extremely scarce. To make the quantitative analyses results feasible and generalized, the current research is based on the international patent database provided by World Intellectual Property Organization in order to truly reflect the present situation in an objective and quantitative way. Analysis on the features and types of the international R&D cities are made with reference to the six indexes of international patent applications including the total number, per capita, average annual growth rate, dependence on foreign investment and distributions of applicants.The problem of relationship between cities is the "second nature of the city". International R&D city should be researched in the perspective of connection, so that the structure of network associate between international R&D cities and its evolution trend can be further analyzed. Therefore, taking some related theories of city system and network as the basis and starting with the perspective of R&D cooperation, the author adopts the data of the application number for international patent cooperation as the representation of R&D cooperation; describes the network connection between international R&D cities and its evolution track by the use of social network analysis; and discusses on the structure and major characteristic of network connection. Regional research based on individual case is a traditional research method in economical geography. Cases analysis is mainly used as follows. Silicon Valley in the USA and Bangalore in India and Singapore, two characteristic international R&D cities, are selected to be analyzed comprehensively..On the one hand, the development process and evolutionary traces in the two cases are reviewed in the historical view to explore at depth the successful factors for the development of their R&D and innovation, meanwhile, to give deep insight to the driving forces for the rise of international R&D cities, and based on that, the theoretical framework for the rise and development of the international R&D cities is constructed under the combination of some theories and analysis tools including New Economic Growth Theory, R&D globalization, global value chain, regional innovation system and so forth. On the other hand, the unique growth path for each international R&D city is expected to be drawn through the two case studies in the hope of providing beneficial insights into the construction of R&D cities in our country.In the end, this dissertation shifts its focus to China and proposes a developmental strategy for China to transform from a World Factory to International R&D Cities. Suggestions are made for building Chinese international R&D cities on the basis of the international experience and a comprehensive evaluation on the feasibility of transforming major cities of the country into international R&D cities.