Abstract
The growing imbalance in regional innovation development has become an urgent issue in China’s strategy to build an innovative country. To enrich the regional innovation capacity evaluation system, scientifically assess regional innovation capacity, and explore available pathways to improve regional innovation capacity, this paper introduces a multiattribute decision-making method for evaluating regional innovation capacity. First, a random forest model and the DEMATEL-based analytic network process (DANP) method are applied to calculate the weights of the evaluation attributes. Second, the multiobjective optimization by the ratio analysis method based on the maximum and minimum (MOORA-min-max method) is used to calculate the evaluation attribute gap ratios and regional innovation capacity of each region. Finally, the limitations of regional innovation development are identified based on the evaluation attribute gap ratios and the critical influence strength roadmap (CISR) to explore the regional innovation capacity improvement pathways. The results show that “output capacity of R&D personnel in universities and research institutes” is the most fundamental evaluation attribute in the regional innovation capacity evaluation, while “output efficiency of R&D funds in universities and research institutes” is the most influential evaluation attribute. Research in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia reveals that regions need to identify critical constraints in four aspects: knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, enterprise innovation, and innovation environment, to improve regional innovation capacity.
Highlights
Persistent imbalance in the development of regional innovation capacity constitutes a substantial bottleneck constraining the effort to upgrade countries’ integrated innovation capacity
To better promote the role of regional innovation in high-quality economic development, Chinese policymakers have placed innovation at the centre of overall national development. e 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that “innovation is the first impetus for leading development” and issued a strategic plan to accelerate the construction of an innovation-oriented country
Regional innovation capacity is an essential indicator of an innovation-oriented country, and many scholars have focused on regional innovation capacity in recent years
Summary
Persistent imbalance in the development of regional innovation capacity constitutes a substantial bottleneck constraining the effort to upgrade countries’ integrated innovation capacity. Scholars have thoroughly studied the conceptual definition of regional innovation capacity, including its differences, indicators, influencing factors, and formation mechanisms [6,7,8,9,10]. This paper selects evaluation indicators from four aspects, namely, knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, enterprise innovation, and innovation environment and applies the multiattribute decisionmaking method to evaluate the innovation capacity of all 31 provinces in China and to explore pathways for improving regional innovation capacity. (2) e multiobjective optimization by ratio analysis (MOORA) method and the critical influence strength roadmap (CISR) are introduced into the field of innovation research to provide a new approach to scientifically identify the factors limiting regional innovation capacity This paper selects evaluation indicators from four aspects, namely, knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, enterprise innovation, and innovation environment and applies the multiattribute decisionmaking method to evaluate the innovation capacity of all 31 provinces in China and to explore pathways for improving regional innovation capacity. e main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) e random forest model and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory- (DEMATEL-) based analytic network process (DANP) method are introduced to innovation capacity evaluation research, thereby enriching the method for calculating objective weights; a multiattribute decision-making evaluation model of regional innovation capacity provides a new method to evaluate regional innovation objectively. (2) e multiobjective optimization by ratio analysis (MOORA) method and the critical influence strength roadmap (CISR) are introduced into the field of innovation research to provide a new approach to scientifically identify the factors limiting regional innovation capacity
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