Shulin Gu

China's Innovation System and the Move towards Harmonious Growth and Endogenous Innovation

Observers around the world are impressed by the rapid growth of China’s economy. While outside observers tend to focus on the success story of unprecedented growth policy documents and recent domestic debates in China have pointed to the need for a shift in the growth trajectory with stronger emphasis on ‘endogenous innovation’ and ‘harmonious development’. This paper attempts to capture the current characteristics of China’s production and innovation system; how they were shaped by history and what major challenges they raise for the future. On the basis of the analysis the authors propose that it is possible to link together the two key concepts ‘endogenous innovation’ and ‘harmonious development’ by focusing innovation and development efforts in China on domestic needs, including social needs, rather than a one-sided focus on export-promotion and commodity production.

China's System and Vision of Innovation: An Analysis in Relation to the Strategic Adjustment and the Medium- to Long-Term S&T Development Plan (2006-20)

Chinas System and Vision of Innovation: An Analysis in Relation to the Strategic Adjustment and the Mediumto LongTerm S&T Development Plan (2006–20) Shulin Gu a b , Bengt-Ake Lundvall c , Ju Liu d , Franco Malerba e & Sylvia Schwaag Serger f g a Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing, China b Zhejiang University , Hangzhou, China c Aalborg University , Aalborg, Denmark d University of Electronic Science and Technology of China , Chengdu, China e Bocconi University , Milan, Italy f University of Lund , Lund, Sweden g Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) , Stockholm, Sweden Published online: 20 Oct 2009.

Policy Learning as a Key Process in the Transformation of the Chinese Innovation Systems

The success of Asian economies (first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and, more recently, China and India) has made it tempting to look for ‘an Asian model of development’. However, the strength of Asian development lies less in strategies that reproduce successful national systems of innovation and more in the capacity for institutional change to open up new development trajectories with greater emphasis on knowledge and learning. The select group of contributors demonstrate that although there are important differences among Asian countries in terms of institutional set-ups supporting innovation, government policies and industrial structures, they share common transitional processes to cope with the globalizing learning economy.

China’s innovation system: ten years on

In their 2006 article on innovation in China in this journal, Gu and Lundvall pointed to some weaknesses and challenges for China’s growth and they also outlined ideas for policy action to overcome those. In this short note, written in collaboration with Sylvia Schwaag Serger, they go back and assess Chinas social and economic development in the 10 years that followed in the light of their original analysis of challenges and ideas for policy action.

The Emergence and Development of the Vegetable Sector in China

This paper surveys the development of the vegetable sector in China over the past 20 years. It is part of the ongoing Catch-up Project which embraces several sectoral systems of innovation in a number of developing countries under a “learning capability/knowledge-base interactions” framework for analysis and comparison. The work traces the evolutionary process of the sector development and analyzes the driving forces and source of opportunity. The paper then goes on to analyze the development of market institutions that backed up the emergence, expansion and deepening of the sector, the transformation of technological and knowledge regimes and capability building, and sorts out the roles that the government played in the development of the sector. The paper ends with major findings from the case study.

’Patent pool’ initiatives in manufacturing clusters in Zhejiang

Summary Based on a case study of the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) pool in the lock industry, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, this paper examines the formation and operation in which producers collectively take action in regularization and management of innovative knowledge in small firmdominated manufacturing clusters there. The study compares this emerging collective IPR management with patent pools in advanced economies, especially the United States, and explores the characteristics of the IPR Pool in Zheijiang manufacturing clusters. First, the essential rationale for collective action lies with the need for the survival and further development of the emerging rudimentary industry, as compared to mature or well-developed industries. Second, innovative knowledge regulated to protect the IPR pool is substitutive rather than complementary, and informal rather than formally granted by the IP administration as in advanced economy counterparts. Third, the local producers association plays a major role in institutional development for IPR regulation, while patent pools in the United States are alliances of members with no geographical proximity ties. The Zhejiang IPR pools example provides the necessary steps for latecomer manufacturing clusters to learn about intellectual assets and fair competition.