Structure and development of urban innovation capability in Heilongjiang Province during 2001-2010

Under the background of globalization and information economy,innovation has become the key factor for economic development of countries,regions and cities.Innovation is becoming a primary strategic choice for development of all countries.Because city is the main site where innovation takes place,urban innovation becomes a new research focus.Heilongjiang Province,as an old industrial base of the country,has abundant technology stocks.But due to the impact of the planned economy,its regional innovation environment is not very favorable and technological advantage cannot be used adequately.This paper analyzes the structure and development of urban innovation capability in Heilongjiang Province.It first built an urban innovation capability evaluation index system with four indicators(knowledge innovation capacity,technology innovation capacity,government support and service capacity,and innovation environment) and 24 variables and normalized the raw data and determined the weight of each variable and indicator.Using the weighted sum method,it calculated innovation capacity of each city,and analyzed the structure of innovation capacity.Then the paper analyzed the process of innovation capacity development in recent 10 years and the differences of innovation capability among 12 cities in Heilongjiang Province.The main results are as follows.(1) Innovation capacity of Harbin is much higher than other cities.The cities are divided into three categories according to the level of innovation capacity with the method of integrated cluster analysis.Harbin is in the first group;Daqing,Qiqihar and Mudanjiang are in the second group;and the others are in the third group.High values of innovation capacity occur in the Hadaqi(Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar) industrial corridor.(2) Absolute differences among the cities of Heilongjiang Province are very large.By calculating the correlation coefficient of the 24 variables and urban innovation capability,an explanatory variable under each indicator,which has the highest correlation with urban innovation capability,is selected to represent the evaluation criterion for absolute differences among cities.The absolute differences among 12 cities as reflected by the four evaluation criteria are very large.Harbin's number of research and development staff is 155 times of Heihe's.(3) The pattern of urban innovation capability in Heilongjiang Province was stable over recent 10 years.The innovation capability of coal mining cities,Jixi,Qitaihe and Shuangyashan is declining.The main reason for this trend is its industrial structure that relies heavily on resource exploitation and lacks diversification of local economy and alternative industries.The regional differences and spatial polarization of urban innovation capability tend to increase.Especially since the state implemented the Strategy of Revitalizing Northeast China and Other Old Industrial Bases in 2003,such spatial differentiation accelerated.The government should not only pay attention to increasing the innovation capability but also coordinate the development within the region.Finally,this paper analyzed the problems in improving urban innovation capability of the major cities in Heilongjiang Province and put forward some policy recommendations.In the process of upgrading the cities' innovation capacity,the old industrial cities should build rational industrial innovation strategy according to the cities' own development characteristics;emphasize the importance of enterprises in the process of innovation and encourage them to improve technological innovation capability;strengthen the awareness for innovation;break barriers in the traditional planning system;and attract high quality human resources.