Has the Internationalization of Universities Improved Regional Innovation Capability

Abstract

In the regional innovation system, government is the main part of institutional innovation, enterprise is the main part of technological innovation, and university is the main part of knowledge innovation. In other words, government is responsible for providing institutional support for effective innovation, enterprise is responsible for adapting to the market and applying R&D to business applications, and university is responsible for the production, spreading and transfer of knowledge. With the rapid economic globalization, international cooperation and cross-border alliances among each innovation entities have an increasing influence on regional innovation capability. Existing literature has done a lot of research on the internationalization of enterprises and innovation. However, university as an important part of social innovation system in the era of knowledge economy, the influence of its degree of internationalization on innovation capability is rarely researched. In theory, the internationalization of university is an international learning-by-alliances”. On the one hand, it increases the international spread of knowledge through international textbooks, scientific research projects, and conference exhibitions. On the other hand, it increases the spread of tacit knowledge by increasing the international exchange of students and teachers. These all provide conditions for the production of new knowledge and the spreading of old knowledge in different groups and regions, which in turn will improve the regional innovation capability. The paper makes a quantitative analysis on the internationalization of university and the regional innovation capability based on the triple-helical innovation model of government-enterprise-university. It is found that the innovation coordination environment for government-enterprise-university is generally regionalized and the level of cooperation is low. Both openness and marketization of the regional scientific research system are not high, and the overall regional innovation coordination is poor. In the close coordination regions, the regional innovation coordination is related well and the degree of university’s internationalization has great influence on the regional innovation capability. Furthermore, in the less close coordination regions, the ability of university’s internationalization has a relatively larger impact on regional innovation capability. On the whole, in the close coordination regions, the internationalization of university in the form of no matter go abroad” bring in” or face to face” all have a significant positive impact on the innovation capability. Affected by variable selection, the impact from codified university’s internationalization is not significant. In the less close coordination regions, the R&D input from university is the main factor affecting regional innovation capability. In addition to this, it is necessary to adopt the internationalization of university in the form of bring in” as well as face to face” to promote local regional innovation capability.