Abstract
The formation, evolution, and dynamics of Industry–University–Research Institute (IUR) scientific collaborations in China have not been uncovered fully in extant literature. This study seeks to fill this research gap based on a novel sample of the China Academy of Sciences (CAS) from an ego-network perspective and especially reveals the guiding role of government policies. By taking the inter-organizational scientific collaboration systems of the CAS with enterprises and universities as a proxy for IUR collaborations in China, we explore the dynamic evolution and characteristics of the IUR collaboration networks in China during the period from 1978 to 2015. Our study reveals a simultaneous trend in accordance with the effects of the government’s science and technology (S&T) policies on shaping the linkages among public research institutes, enterprises and universities during the last several decades. In particular, we find that S&T policies issued by the government may affect the dynamic evolution of the small-world structure in the scientific collaboration networks of public research institutes with enterprises and universities over time. This study enriches the empirical research on IUR collaborations in the context of China by examining the patterns of bilateral or trilateral collaborations between and among CAS with industries and universities around this country, which not only contributes to understanding the dynamic evolution of China’s IUR collaborations in the context of a series of government S&T policies but also helps deepen our understanding of the characteristics of China’s national innovation system.





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Notes
Note that public research institutes are not included in the category of universities in this study because these organizations may differ in their roles and functions in the national innovation system (De Fuentes and Dutrenit 2012).
“Project 985” was launched by the Chinese government in May 1998 to build several world-class universities in the twentyfirst century. “Project 985” currently includes the top 39 domestic universities in China.
Launched by the Chinese government in 1995, “Project 211” aims to build “high-level universities and key disciplinary fields” by enhancing their research capabilities. “Project 211” currently includes 112 key universities.
See the CAS website (http://www.cas.cn) for further details.
As noted above, our study considers CAS as a research institute rather than as a university or government. Thus, our search strategies are different from those used by Ye et al. (2013).
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos. 71103173; 71233003; 71471170), the China Youth Innovation Promotion Association (Project No. 2015131), the National Soft Science Research Program of China (Project No. 2013GXS4B087), the Key Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province in China (Project No. S2013020012767) and the Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of Education of China (Project No. 12JZD042). The authors are very grateful for the insightful comments and suggestions of two anonymous reviewers and the Editors, which significantly improved this article.
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Appendix: Definition of search queries for SCI-E papers with at least one CAS address
Appendix: Definition of search queries for SCI-E papers with at least one CAS address
Built on the search strategies of previous research (Fan et al. 2015; Park and Leydesdorff 2010; Ye et al. 2013; Zitt et al. 2000) and “Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)” released by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as well as the valuable advice provided by the reviewers, our search strategiesFootnote 5 in this paper are presented in Table 8. We collect publication information indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) databases during 1978–2015. Meanwhile, we adopt the strategy of data cleaning that has been developed and used by Hu et al. (2012). In this way, we try to retrieve and build a valid dataset on the CAS’s scientific collaborations with industries or/and universities.
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Zhang, Y., Chen, K., Zhu, G. et al. Inter-organizational scientific collaborations and policy effects: an ego-network evolutionary perspective of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Scientometrics 108, 1383–1415 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2022-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2022-2