Universities/Research Institutes and Regional Innovation Systems: the Cases of Beijing and Shenzheni
World Development Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 1056–1074, 2007 Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved 0305-750X/$ - see front matter www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2006.05.013 Universities/Research Institutes and Regional Innovation Systems: The Cases of Beijing and ShenzhenI KUN CHEN University of California, Berkeley, USA and MARTIN KENNEY * University of California, Davis, USA Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, USA Summary. — This paper explores the role of universities and research institutes (URIs) in the devel- opment of the Chinese economy through a comparison of the development of the Beijing and Shenzhen technology clusters. The two locations, while embedded in the same national innovation system, have exhibited completely different evolutionary trajectories. In the case of Beijing, the URIs have played an extremely important role in the development of largest high technology clus- ter in China. In contrast, in Shenzhen, which is now the third most important cluster in China, has in the last twenty years policy makers have consciously worked to establish and attract institutions of higher education. We suggest that the Chinese experience, though not without problems, pro- vides an interesting model for other nations with strong URIs. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words — China, Beijing, Shenzhen, universities, clusters, research and development 1. INTRODUCTION firms (Kenney, 1986; Shane, 2004; Zucker, Dar- by, & Brewer, 1998). 2 It is now widely accepted that universities The discussions of high-technology regions and public research institutes (URIs) played a have focused on developed countries. 3 In the substantial role in the development of many cases of Taiwan (Saxenian, 2004) and India high-technology regions in the United States (Arora, Gambardella, & Torrisi, 2004), univer- and abroad (Bresnahan & Gambardella, sity research does not appear to have been a 2004).
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