Regional innovation synergy practices with various characteristics have been carried out in many regions of China in recent years, including co-building innovation platforms, sharing large scientific instruments, establishing industry and entrepreneur alliances, creating demonstration bases for the transfer and transformation of sci-tech advances, launching cross-regional collaboration of industrial chains, precisely matchmaking innovation factors, and offering joint credit granting across regions. These practices have produced notable results.

In order to prepare for future global competition in science, technology and industry and improve the overall performance of the national innovation system, it is crucial to strengthen regional innovation synergy. In order to promote the “field effect” of sci-tech innovation, regional innovation synergy promotes the sharing of talents, technologies, capital, facilities, equipment, space, information, markets and other factors through the coordination of advantageous resources, and also encourages the complementarity of innovative capabilities through the meeting of minds, mutual learning of concepts as well as exchange about knowledge production and institutional supply, rather than merely connecting space or superimposing size. Concerted actions should be taken on the levels of facilities, systems and ecologies.

Firstly, the facilities should be planned in a well-coordinated way. Strengthening overall planning becomes especially crucial given how many regions are currently passionate about constructing large scientific facilities and functional platforms. To concentrate on regional needs and prevent repeated construction, collaboration and consultation should be prioritized in planning and layout. To enhance the service quality and operational efficiency after completion of the aforementioned facilities and platforms, demand-side engagement should be improved. Since the scientific research paradigms and the paths to technology breakthroughs are swiftly and iteratively evolving, the development of new regional infrastructure should be sped up in order to build an enhanced enabling network with such features as data ingestion, algorithm training, computing power allocation and secure transmission, realize higher-level physical connectivity and establish a strong facility foundation for regional collaborative innovation.

Secondly, the systems should be linked. The Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposes, “We must regard science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource, and innovation as our primary driver of growth.” To increase the availability of the “primary productive force”, it’s important to explore more profound cooperation models and mechanisms to jointly advance frontier and basic research in specific fields. Additionally, with a focus on national strategies and the needs of building world-class innovation-driven industrial clusters, superior forces should be concentrated to undertake regional collaborative R&D projects linked to core technologies in crucial domains and disruptive innovations. To strengthen support from the “primary resource”, it’s important to act faster to develop world-class universities and world-class disciplines in the regions, and to investigate the regional coordination and inter-university linkage of talent supply for meeting the diverse needs for talents. Moreover, it’s important to tear down the “walls” of disciplines and laboratories, and deepen integration between industry and education and between science and education, helping talents to develop in the real world. To improve the transformation efficiency of the “primary driver of growth”, policy guidance and market development can help accelerate the gathering of resources related to business incubation, proof of concept, technological intermediary services, achievement transformation, transaction assessments, intellectual property services and sci-tech finance, and build an integrated sci-tech service system in the regions.

Thirdly, ecosystems should be consistent. The development of an innovation ecosystem that crosses administrative boundaries is necessary for regional innovation synergy. The World Bank’s 17-year “Doing Business” (DB) assessment will be replaced by the new “Business Enabling Environment” (BEE) assessment in 2023. In terms of indicator design, BEE places more emphasis on enabling enterprises’ development throughout their lifecycle and aims to avoid fragmented governance and a race to the bottom due to an overemphasis on investment promotion. To achieve the consistency of ecosystems, more enterprise-related government services in the regions should be made available online, the integrated transformation of related government processes should be accelerated, and more opportunities for innovative enterprises should be provided through capital, service, platform, data and scenario enabling, with a focus on the coordination and interaction of innovation chains, industry chains, capital chains and service chains.

Regional innovation synergy develops gradually, based on from common emotions and consensus to collaboration, participation and shared benefits. To improve the overall performance of the national innovation system in the process, it’s important to continue to identify the “greatest common divisor” of regional innovation synergy, and build an “objective function” which meets the country’s major strategic needs.