Regional Innovation Perspective of the Building and Practice of the

Regional Innovation Perspective of the Building and Practice of the
Central Urban Agglomeration of Liaoning
NIE Yanhua1, ZHANG Yuming2
1. Professional Diploma Institute, Bohai University, Jinzhou, P.R.China, 121000
2. School of Business, Bohai University, Jinzhou, P.R. China, 121013
[email protected]
Abstract: The urban cluster construction is one of important forms of the urban innovation, and urban
innovation direct influence to urban cluster economy development and urbanized level enhancement.
From the angle of regional innovation, this study analyses the real-life foundation and issue of the
regional innovation environment concerning the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning, and proposes
the measures. It will promote the rapid development for central urban agglomeration of Liaoning; at the
same time, the theory and practice of innovative region and innovative city are enriched.
Keywords: Regional innovation, Central urban agglomeration of Liaoning, Regional development
1 Introduction
The central urban agglomeration of Liaoning is a significant strategic decision made by Liaoning
provincial committee and the provincial government to enhance regional competitiveness and promote
economic growth of Liaoning. The authors hold the belief that a study on the central urban
agglomeration of Liaoning based on regional innovation will make the central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning become a new economic growth pole of China. It will be guided by regional innovation, based
on the technological, industrial, regional and development opportunity advantages, motivated by system
reform and innovation, and the breakthrough point will be to improve the research and development
capacity and industrialization capacity of key technology of the central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning’s mainstay industry and leading industry, and aimed at strengthening the regional integrated
competitive strength and innovation ability. Eventually the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning will
interactivate many innovation components, and interlock as a whole. And as the new China's economic
growth pole, it will have distinct regional characteristic and competitive advantage.
2 Regional Innovations and Innovative Geography
2.1 Overview of Regional Innovation
In the existing literature, many touch on the regional innovation, but few make an exact definition
of regional innovation, which makes people feel that such a definition is self-evident. As a geography
space, region has high contains and complexes, and is a natural, economic, technological and social
synthesis at the Meso level. From the perspective of broad meaning, regional innovation means all the
innovative activities and achievements that occurred in the region. Regional innovation is the basis and
important component element of national innovation system and it reflects the phase feature of national
innovation system. The principal difference between regional innovation and national innovation lies in
regional innovation has localization, uniqueness and openness, and it can reflect regional particularity
even when it shares similarities with national innovation.
2.2 The Change of Geographic Factors and the Environment of Regional Innovation
Under the circumstances of globalization and knowledge economy, the components and
significance of geographic factors have changed. The role that nominal elements, social capital and
social networks played in regional development and innovation has become more and more salient. The
differences in achievements of regional development are constrained more and more deeply by nominal
and nontrade geographic factors of regional development. They constitute the contents of regional
innovation environment, while the quality and advantage of the regional innovation environment
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determine the basis prerequisite of regional innovation as well as the stickiness of appealing and
retaining all kinds of fluid resources. Geography adjacency and dynamic agglomerated economy are
significant for regional innovation.
2.3 Innovative Geography
In different regions the weighing and mode of action of components differ, consequently the
impact of innovative activities in different regions differs and innovative activities show evident
regional differentiation. For instance Maryann P. Feldman (1994) of University of Toronto in Canada,
David Bruce Audretsch and Feldman (1996) of University of Indiana in USA using a mass of data draw
the outline of the innovative geography of USA, and discover that the innovative activities of certain
industry obviously concentrate in some regions. Taking the innovative activities of computer as an
example, 41.7% of such activities take place in California, 12% in Massachusetts and the innovative
activities of 11 states account for 81% of the total amount of nationwide innovative activities. Hilpert’s
(1992) study on Europe indicates that three-fourths of the scientific research activities, supported by
government and local government distributes over ten innovative islands, including Greater London,
Laisituode / Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Munich etc. Therefore currently some states and local
governments in Europe, even in USA are all questing for how to improve the regional innovation ability.
2.4 The Innovative Geography Condition for the Central Urban Agglomeration of Liaoning
The practice indicates that replacing district economy with regional economy and conducting
spatial planning and arrangement at a larger scale will be favorable for the regional innovation activities
and distribution of innovation over regions. For this reason, to construct the central urban agglomeration
of Liaoning and then to realize regional integration, the concept of district must be broke through. The
concept of “metropolitan area” should be established, characterized by specialization regional economy
and based on central city. A synthesis that has strong internal economy agglutination will be formed, in
which production and circulation link and cooperate closely. The central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning has advantageous innovative geography condition; it has 39 tertiary institutions, among which
there are higher-level research universities such as Northeast University; Shenyang Automation Institute
of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang Metal Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS
Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology attempt to become world-class research institutes; it has basic
technique and key technique research centers concerning the field of equipment manufacture and
petrochemical industry as well as the national research center of such project; the research and
development capacity concerning the field of electronic information, equipment manufacture and
new-style raw material reaches the advanced international standards; the research, development and
design ability of software industry sets the pace domestically. Although having advantageous innovative
geography condition, it is still worth further investigation and reflection concerning how to construct the
central urban agglomeration of Liaoning centering on regional innovation.
3 The Real-Life Foundation and Issue of the Regional Innovation Environment of
the Central Urban Agglomeration of Liaoning
The innovative foundation of regional economy is the current condition and feature; the current
situation of regional development is the basis and fundamental starting point of constructing regional
innovation system. In this respect it is very necessary to analyze systematically the real-life foundation
and issue of the regional innovation environment of the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning,
directing at the current situation of the regional development of the central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning.
3.1 Analysis of the Basis Force that Forms the System of Knowledge Innovation
The central urban agglomeration of Liaoning has evident advantage of education resource, the
foundation for technological progress is solid, and education is flourishing. It has many, many talented
people, strong comprehensive strength, 39 tertiary institutions and has the core force of the system of
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knowledge innovation; it has 973 organizations of various technological activities; it has 45 national and
provincial key laboratories and 47 engineering technology research centers, 20 of which rely on
enterprise. They play an important role in pushing the industry technological progress and improving the
ability of technological innovation as well as the standards of engineering technological achievements.
At present the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning has 36 academicians of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering and 119 thousand personnel of technology activities.
The full-time workload of R&D activities personnel amounts to 57 thousand person per year.
Technological investment is increasing and the internal expense of R&D funds is 8,310 million,
accounting for 1.59% of GDP. These provide comparative favorable talents basis for the formation of
regional innovation and the system of regional innovation. A system of regional innovation has taken
initial shape and it has considerable scale, orientates towards local economy growth and interlocks
fundamental research with the expansion of innovative application.
3.2 Industrial Foundation is Strong and solid; the Innovation System of Enterprise Technology is
taking into Shape
Shenyang is the base of national equipment manufacture and also is the major economy center city
of Northeast; Anshan and Benxi are the significant iron and steel base of Liaoning, even of China;
Fushun and Liaoyang are important petrochemical industry base of the North of China; Yingkou is a
major marine outfall of the central urban agglomeration; Tieling is the important thermal power base
and farm produce base of the central urban agglomeration. Therefore, having strong and solid heavy
manufacturing base, division of labor based on specialization tending to be reasonable, the central urban
agglomeration of Liaoning is the major base of national raw material industry and equipment
manufacture, is the largest petrochemical industry base of northern China, and is the national base of
fine chemical industry and catalyst manufacture; industry complementarity and relevance is strong; at
the beginning of the formation, the frame of heavy chemical industry is made by industry relevance
and has the industry development chain of mine→energy→metallurgy→michanical equipment; the
central urban agglomeration is full of resources, having ample mine, agriculture and water resources.
High technology industry maintains highly increasing momentum. Electronic and communication
equipment manufacturing still predominate in the high technology industry of the central urban
agglomeration of Liaoning. In order to build a platform of science and technology communication and
cooperation in the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning, cooperation between enterprises as well as
the cooperation between enterprises and academies has been launched, the ability of regional automatic
innovation as a whole, of integrated innovation and of introducing, digesting, absorbing and recreating
having been improved. The science and technology department of the seven cities organize
technological enterprises to participate in “Northeast Asia Technology Exposition”. The seven cities
rally to push the formation of the system of regional technological innovation, and the system of
enterprise technological innovation has basically taken shape.
3.3 The Integrated Building of the Regional Soft and Hard Environment; the System of Social
Services Supporting Growing Fast
Innovative infrastructure is the mobile carrier of various regional innovative components.
Innovative infrastructure consists of three criteria, which is telephone mobile communication, quantity
of highroad and volume of goods and passengers flow.
To construct one-hour economic circle, the highroads circling the central urban agglomeration are
to be built. A highroad network of Benxi—Liaoyang—Liaozhong—Xinmin should be built more
quickly; to form the system of economic region rail rapid transit between cities early, the rail transit
between cities from Shenyang to Anshan, Fushun, Benxi, Yingkou, Liaoyang, Tieling should be built.
Within the year of 2006, the seven cities in the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning are to be share
the area code of “024”. The investment website of Northeast China officially starts the channel of the
central urban agglomeration of Liaoning; therefore the work of developing the channel network and
integrating information resources of the seven cities has been fulfilled. Regarding building big open
market and forming regional logistics center, the integrative pattern of regional commodity circulation
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are to be formed jointly; Shenyang bonded logistics park is to be built together. The environment of
regional infrastructure has been improved notably, which provides favorable hard environment for the
development of the regional innovation system. Soft environment such as market, legal and innovation
culture are being improved, which provides nicer development space for the regional innovation system.
The whole social services supporting system are growing fast. However, the circumstance of the
integrated regional innovation culture is not satisfactory, and it still has no distinct regional
characteristics of innovative cultural foundation.
3.4 The Circulation of Innovation Achievements is Sluggish, and the Capacity to Absorb and
Transform is Low
In 2003, among the enterprises that go beyond the level of the central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning the enterprises that have technological activities and organizations account for only 9.3% and
5.6% respectively. According to the results of the statistics, the technological activities of industrial
enterprises are not active and the internal need for technological innovation is not urgent. The
organization that cooperates with domestic independent research institute and academies is few,
accounting for 2.4% and 2.9% respectively. It indicates that the cooperation activities concerning
producing, studying and researching between enterprises and academies as well as science and
technology research institute is not conducted further. It is not realized to construct the technological
innovation system of the enterprises through the cooperation of producing, studying and researching
from the perspective of strategy. Many research institutes that undertake technological development
dissociate from enterprises. The majority of scientists, engineers and R&D activities are out of the
market of the enterprises, which means both industrialization and marketization, are feeble. The
comparative closure of knowledge innovation and enterprise innovation causes the chain of scientific
research development-achievements transforming can not be carried out smoothly. The service
organizations that are favorable for the distribution of innovative achievements such as the agency of
information consultation service, technology market, the centers that promote productive forces have
low correlation with this chain; therefore, the development of cyclical closed loop has not been formed.
In 2003, the expenditure of technology import of the enterprises that go beyond the level of the central
urban agglomeration of Liaoning is 1,780 million, among which the expenditure used for importing
technological data and key equipments accounts for 78.5%, while the expenditure used for digesting and
absorbing only accounts for 1.5%. It is clear that while importing technology, the industrial enterprises
staked most hopes on improving the external environment, lacking innovative initiative. The case of
“valuing hardware while ignoring software” is prominent. Only paying attention to importing the
technological equipment and ignoring the improvement of the ability of digesting and absorbing
technology will be a drawback to improving the ability of technology innovation of the enterprises,
especially large and medium-sized enterprises in the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning.
4 A Proposal Concerning the Construction of the Central Urban Agglomeration
of Liaoning from the Perspective of Regional Innovation
4.1 Forming New Development Space for the Central Urban Agglomeration of Liaoning
Urban agglomeration is the cities of certain quantity, of different qualities, types and scales within
particular regional scope, depending on certain natural environment condition, taking one or two super
or overlarge cities as economic center, facilitating by the accessibility of the modern vehicle and
synthesized transportation network as well as the highly developed information network, and are
developing internal connection between individual city and jointly constitute a comparatively integrated
“agglomeration”. The seven cities of the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning which is composed of
Anshan, Fushun, Benxi, Tieling, Liaoyang, Yingkou and centers round Shenyang are cooperating to
form new development space. In this respect, the regional innovation system should be built; the
regional innovation network should be perfected, the main body of innovative activities should be
reshaped; the construction of agent service system of technological innovation should be strengthened;
the transform of government function should be accelerated and an efficient system of service
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administration should be activated; the integrated development of high technology industry should be
pushed; the two innovation systems of new raw material and equipment manufacture industry should be
made; the development of technology industry of universities should be promoted; demonstration
project that private technology enterprises are strong incubated and enlarged should be implemented.
4.2 Implementing Municipal Innovation Strategy for the Central Urban Agglomeration of
Liaoning
According to the trend of dramatic transfer of international industry and major readjustment of
economic structure, several years later domestic manufacturing industry will enter into unprecedented
developing period and the growth strategy predominated by municipal innovation will be formulated
gradually. Due to the favorable conditions that cities possess such as science and technology force
concentrates, the standard of economy development is high and the specialization of merchandise
production service is advanced, the growth strategy predominated by municipal innovation will show
more characteristics of agglomeration of the advantage of technology resource and related industry, at
the same time the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning will become one of the places of industrial
innovation and agglomeration. On the one hand, it will inherit the national innovation system, on the
other hand based on the platform of the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning, industrial innovation
and development at a larger scale will be realized. With the industry shift of developed countries and
regions as well as the trend of constructing free-trade area, the innovation circle of the central urban
agglomeration of Liaoning will become a lineage platform of the industry shift of regional free-trade
area, of the cooperation based on division of labor and of the industrialization of innovative
achievements, which will play an important role in constructing the central urban agglomeration of
Liaonin and in actualizing great-leap-forward development.
4.3 Vigorously Developing and Nurturing Industrial Clusters of the Central Urban Agglomeration
of Liaoning
Michael Porter believes: “To evaluate the innovation ability of a country or a region doesn’t mean
evaluating the national economic aggregate is a must, rather the attention should be paid to finding out
whether there are special industry or industrial cluster or not in this country or region, that is to say the
innovation ability of a country or region usually dwells in certain extraordinary industrial section, i. e.
the innovation ability of distinct industry.” Industrial cluster has the ability of self-organization and
benefiting innovation and it becomes a new global tendency to coordinate technology and industry and
to develop distinguishing economy. Consequently, to construct the central urban agglomeration of
Liaoning, the local industries and industrial clusters having distinguishing features should be expanded
vigorously, the industrial clusters of economic region should be nurtured and the advantage of
cooperation should be exerted. The industrial cluster of steel manufacture and further processing that is
based on Anshan steel company and Benxi steel company should be developed; the industrial cluster of
petrochemical industry and fine chemical industry led by the petrochemical industry of Fushun and
Liaoyang should be developed; the industrial cluster of green ecological agriculture based on the further
processing of farm products of Tieling and eastern mountain area should be developed; the integrated
operation of the central urban agglomeration of Liaoning can therefore be fulfilled. While integrating
industries, arranging market, sharing resources, building infrastructure and making policy, general
situation should be taken into account by individual city. On the premise of reasonable division of labor,
the integration of market, of industry, of traffic facilities, of information, of system and of ecological
environment will be achieved.
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