明晰如何提升绿色技术创新城市网络地位,对于弥合城市间绿色技术创新发展差距、实现国家“双碳”目标具有重要意义。该研究基于2015—2021年企业级绿色技术专利大数据刻画了中国绿色技术创新城市网络,构建了包含“供求端”营商环境、城市行政级别及经济发展水平三方面条件提升绿色技术创新城市网络地位的理论模型,并运用动态QCA方法进行了实证研究。研究发现:(1)绿色技术创新城市网络具有流动性和稳定性特点并存的“圈层内外交互”结构,但城市节点的网络地位失衡,边缘城市仍面临网络嵌入度不足的困境。(2)“供求端”营商环境、城市行政级别、经济发展水平是提升绿色技术创新城市网络地位的多重并发因素,“行政级别”主导和“经济水平—营商环境”协同是实现高城市网络地位的两种等效逻辑,“供求端”营商环境的“供给拉动”和“供求联动”分别是其边缘和核心条件。(3)针对不同位置的网络主体,以营商环境提升其绿色技术创新城市网络地位的可行路径有所不同,核心城市凭借要素供给端营商环境主导,而边缘城市则依靠供求端营商环境均衡联动或要素供给端营商环境强劲驱动。一方面,该研究在网络型城市空间结构下,为国家构建城际绿色技术创新合作一体化的新发展格局提供了政策参考。另一方面,研究结果为城市提升绿色技术创新网络地位提出了多重可行路径,并为网络边缘城市提供了利用营商环境来缓解其行政级别和经济水平不高而难以改善城市网络地位的经验证据。

It is important to clarify how to improve the urban status of green technology innovation networks to bridge the development gap of green technology innovation between cities and realize the national “double carbon” goal. Based on the big data of firm-level green technology patents from 2015 to 2021, the study depicts China’s green technology innovation urban network, constructs a theoretical model to enhance the urban status of the green technology innovation network from three aspects: “supply and demand side” business environment, urban administrative level, and economic development level, and uses dynamic QCA method to conduct empirical research. The study found that: first, the green technology innovation urban network has the structure of “interaction inside and outside the circle” with the characteristics of mobility and stability, but the network status of city nodes is unbalanced, and the edge cities are still facing the dilemma of insufficient network embeddedness. Second, the “supply and demand side” business environment, urban administrative level, and economic development level are the multiple concurrent factors that enhance the urban status of the green technology innovation network. The “administrative level” dominance and the “economic level - business environment” synergy are the two equivalent logics to achieve high urban network status. The “supply pull” and “supply-demand linkage” of the “supply and demand side” business environment are their marginal and core conditions, respectively. Third, for the network entities in different positions, the feasible paths to improve the urban status of green technology innovation networks with the business environment are different. The core cities are dominated by the “factor supply side” business environment, while the edge cities rely on the balanced linkage of the “supply and demand side” business environment or the strong driving of the “factor supply side” business environment. On the one hand, under the network-based urban spatial structure, the study provides policy references for the country to build a new development pattern of inter-city green technology innovation cooperation and integration. On the other hand, the findings put forward multiple feasible paths for cities to enhance the green technology innovation network status, and provide empirical evidence for network edge cities to utilize the business environment to mitigate their difficulties in improving urban network status due to their low administrative level and economic level.