Local States, Institutional Changes and Innovation Systems: Beijing and Shanghai compared

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to look into the transformation of local innovation systems in the high-tech parks of Shanghai and Beijing and their technological learning and upgrading. The areas that we have chosen to investigate are Beijing`s Zhongguancun and Shanghai`s Yangpu District. The main reason that we selected these two areas for study is because they are home to most of the top universities and R&D institutes in these two cities. Our main focus will be on how institutions—the local state, inter-firm relations and the relationship between R&D institutions and firms—are co-evolving to shape and constrain a local system of innovation. Our research finds that the capacities and autonomy of the Zhongguancun of Beijing`s Haidian District and Yangpu District of Shanghai differ in various aspects, but both regions are struggling to upgrade innovation and enhance economic development. The ‘high-tech cluster’ provides a useful instrument or label to achieve goals other than innovation and R&D. Elite universities are regarded as engines for network formation, but visible and invisible walls of Chinese universities discount efforts to foster a university-centered innovation hub which especially shows in the Yangpu case.