Dr. Fangzhu Zhang was funded by British Academy with the project ‘Innovation and Governance in China’s High-tech Parks’ (SG113182). The project lasted from 2012 to 2014. The project investigated the mode of governance over innovation in China. The project generated a series of research outputs and laid the foundation of a strand of research focusing on innovation governance in China. Some selected publications are as follows.
- Zhang, F., & Wu, F. (2012). “Fostering Indigenous Innovation Capacities”: The Development of Biotechnology in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park. Urban Geography.
The Chinese government has recently formulated a long-term strategy to “foster indigenous innovation capacities” across technology sectors. The government provides incentives to attract global R&D investment and strives to upgrade its economic structure to develop China into “an innovation nation.” This paper examines the exact meaning of this policy in the context of biotechnology development in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park (ZJHP). We suggest that the role of the municipal state has been critical in the initial stage of biotech concentration in the park, and in the later stage biotech developments in ZJHP have been encouraged to become embedded in the global knowledge flow. The development of ZJHP reveals a hybrid approach to the governance of innovation in China, which combines the developmental state and entrepreneurialism at the scale of the science park as an urban project.
- Zhang, F. (2015). Building biotech in Shanghai: A perspective of regional innovation system. European Planning Studies.
This paper examines the development of biotech in Shanghai using the perspective of regional innovation system (RIS). Three important components of RIS, namely land, human capital and the regional system, are investigated. The development of these components has to be understood in the specific Chinese context. For the land, the role of Zhangjiang High-Tech Park Development Corporation is discussed with reference to the land development mechanism after the establishment of Chinese land markets. For human capital, the policy of the central and local governments in talent concentration is analysed. For the regional system, the spatial distribution of biotech in Shanghai is introduced to create interconnected innovation spaces in the metropolitan region. The paper enriches our understanding of RIS in the context of biotech development in Shanghai.
- Zhang, F., & Wu, F. (2019). Rethinking the city and innovation: A political economic view from China’s biotech. Cities.
The city is arguably where innovations concentrate. Agglomeration and diversity are two major explanations for why innovations concentrate in the city. Existing studies tend to focus on knowledge dynamics, in particular interfirm networks, while paying insufficient attention to the process of urban development in which knowledge dynamics are materialized. We concur that the city itself does not possess such a power for innovation (Shearmur, 2012). Rather, it is an arena where various actors exert impacts on knowledge dynamics. In a view from China, we reveal why bio-tech innovations concentrate in particular places and what political economic processes contribute to such concentration. We highlight the need for a political economic analysis in economic geographical studies of innovation.
The development of science parks has been studied extensively. Understanding these innovation spaces requires us to investigate the development context beyond local knowledge dynamics. This paper examines the Zhangjiang Science City in Shanghai, the first science city endorsed by the central government in China. We find three salient features. First, the Zhangjiang Science City represents China’s latest state innovation strategy to build Shanghai into a National Comprehensive Innovation Centre. Second, the science city is no longer a mono-functional park. It is integrated into Shanghai’s overall urban development. Third, the state’s role is visible, and state actors are involved in implementing this innovation strategy. This study reveals that the science city is a state strategic innovation space.
- Zhu, K., Zhang, F., Wu, F., & Feng, Y. (2024). Governing innovation-driven development under state entrepreneurialism in China. Cities.
While global production networks stress the role of lead firms, state entrepreneurialism highlights the role of the state in governing innovation-driven development. However, there is a gap in understanding how the state institution configures and operates to achieve its strategic development goals. This paper fills this gap by examining market means of park management. It shows that Zhangjiang Science City in Shanghai reinvented its development agency – a park development corporation to mobilize finance and govern development. Jiangbei in Nanjing focused on coupling with a multinational lead firm – the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Rather than thinking of innovation governance as state-commanded, we reveal they are market-based operations. At the same time, they extend the state capacities into industrial governance.
