An analysis of the regulation effect of government R&D funding on university innovation spillover

Abstract

Abstract: In order to test the spillover effect of university innovation and the effectiveness of government R&D funding, the paper analyzed the spillover mechanism of university innovation performance with the theoretical perspective by constructing the correlation model between university innovation and regional innovation development. It also introduced government R&D funding as exogenous intervention variable, and proposed that government R&D funding might have complex dynamic influence on university innovation spillover. Based on panel data of 30 provinces from 2006 to 2017 in China, this paper empirically studied the spillover effect of university innovation on regional innovation development, and also test the moderating effect of government R&D funding with fixed effect model and threshold estimation model. The main conclusions and enlightenment are as follows:
Firstly, from the linear judgment, university innovation activities have significant positive spillover effect on regional innovation development, which is accord with empirical expectations. However, from the perspective of nonlinear spillover trial, the spillover effect of university innovation is not invariable, with optimal spillover space of (0.2753 0.5603]. The corresponding enlightenment is that, it is necessary to implement different strategies to strengthen university innovation, and the provinces that have already crossed the optimal spillover threshold should pay attention to the innovation transformation of "industry-university-research cooperation"; while most provinces in the optimal spillover range should pay attention to the basic role of university innovation in "industry-university-research cooperation", make effort in basic research and development of university, which provide strong driving force for the development of independent innovation.
Secondly, it is found that government R&D funding could accelerate the development of regional innovation. Although trade frictions lead to the criticism on China′s government R&D funding by the United States, criticizing that external intervention has damaged technological competition and market equity, but empirical studies have confirmed that China, as a developing country, is in weak position of technological competition, R&D funding could effectively dilute the risk of innovation input, optimize the innovation output performance and break through the bottleneck of "goose model". What is worth learning is that, western developed countries are also strengthening the incentive effect of government R&D funding, especially in some emerging science and technology fields. Through government R&D funding, universities, scientific research institutes and innovative enterprises, it could promote diversified innovation integration and technology transformation, and realize national innovation competitive advantages.
Finally, government R&D funding has more complex nonlinear regulatory effect on university innovation spillover. Low intensity funding could not release the spillover effect of university innovation effectively. Only when the funding intensity is higher than the threshold of 0.0853, it could leverage the innovation spillover of universities. While the R&D funding intensity is strengthening, this positive spillover has marginal increasing effect. It can be seen that the "crowding in effect" and "crowding out effect" of government R&D funding are not contradictory. The more reasonable explanation is that R&D funding has certain spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics in different influence interfaces, "crowding in effect" has threshold constraints, and the innovation spillover dividend of "industry-university-research cooperation" needs effective leverage of high-intensity funding. Therefore, active fiscal and tax policies should change "all-round" funding strategy in the past, reduce subsidies for traditional industries, increase the intensity of funding for universities, scientific research institutes and scientific and technological innovation industries, shorten the ripple cycle of supply side reform, and accelerate the endogenous drive and innovation development transformation.

Key words: government R&D funding, university innovation, industry-university-research cooperation, innovation spillover

Guo Hui, Liu Hang. An analysis of the regulation effect of government R&D funding on university innovation spillover[J]. Science Research Management, 2021, 42(9): 184-192.

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