1. Supporting the theoretical basis of the comprehensive innovation basic system
1.1 Institutional system and institutional change
1.1.1 Systems, institutional systems and basic systems
How to define the system is the starting point of the study of the basic system, and it is also a difficult problem. The term system has a fairly broad meaning, and different schools of thought have very different views. Institutions in a broad sense refer to a complex of values, norms, beliefs, meanings, symbols, customs, and expected and acceptable behaviors that are socially learned and shared. From the perspective of the way the system is generated, it can be divided into a stable system and a gradual system; From the perspective of the existence of the system, it can be divided into formal system, informal system and system implementation. From the perspective of system operation, it can be divided into the system itself and the organization. The controversy between different schools of thought is, first, what the system includes, and second, how the system came about.
Effective institutions are characterized by universality, including universality, abstraction, certainty, openness, and compatibility. In an institutional system, different systems may support or reinforce each other, or they may conflict with each other. The political economy of innovation is complex. When rules proliferate, the entire rule system becomes dysfunctional. Complex skill barriers in the system are intensive, technological, inconsistent and uncertain. It is not easy to maintain the internal consistency of a complex institutional system, that is, to maintain the order of rules. In this context, simplifying and refining low-level rules and developing new universal systems is the best way to make the institutional system effective again, so that it can play a better role in guiding the behavior of the subject.
Figure 1 Hierarchy of the system
North and Thomas divide institutional arrangements into basic and sub-institutional arrangements according to the level to which they belong. The "basic system" is the organic composition of the system that plays the basic function in the institutional system that has been formed, which is the foundation for the effective operation of the country's economy and society, and has stronger universal applicability. In the event of a contradiction, these basic regimes take precedence over specific regimes, which make the whole situation predictable when specific regimes have to be adjusted to adapt to the new environment.
1.1.2 Institutional change
Institutional systems are open and constantly evolving. From the perspective of economic history, the process of human economic development is the process of various economic systems from scratch, from weak to strong, from incomplete to complete. "The contribution of the establishment of the new system to the economic development of the West is unquestionable and sometimes fundamental." The creation and evolution of various economic institutions are an integral part of the rise of the innovation economy, and in some cases these factors are referred to as "framework conditions". The key function of a systematic rule hierarchy is to support the evolution of the rule system. The interaction between institutions and organizations determines the direction of institutional change. What kind of organizations emerge and how they evolve are both fundamentally influenced by the institutional framework. In turn, they influence the evolution of institutional frameworks. Institutions are formed and evolved because of changes in the external environment, especially the relative prices of factors. From the perspective of institutional evolution, scholars believe that the competitiveness of the national system comes from the cumulative institutional advantages of improving the comprehensive contribution rate of the system and reducing the cost of the system in the process of system design, implementation and optimization, and the imbalance of institutional evolution will affect the effectiveness of intellectual property rights, the level of openness to the outside world, and the degree of benefit of emerging market enterprises from R&D institutions.
From the perspective of institutional theory, it can be seen that emphasizing the "basic system" is an emphasis on the institutional system and institutional evolution. The formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation means a high level of innovation governance capacity and governance. Therefore, it is necessary to aim at the requirements of the new situation and the outstanding problems existing in the mainland's innovation system, move from the past innovation policy combination to an innovation policy system, and complete the systematization and structuring of innovation policy tools. The basic system of innovation is a process of continuous construction and improvement, and the focus of research should include what aspects of the basic system of comprehensive innovation are included, and how to accelerate the formation of methods to support the basic system of comprehensive innovation.
1.2 Institutional Perspective of Comprehensive Innovation
1.2.1 Institutional innovation and comprehensive innovation
Many economic historians and scholars of the innovation school believe that the technological and institutional changes that drive economic development are at the core of the process of transcendence and catch-up, and that innovation is the key variable to explain economic development. After Schumpeter proposed that innovation plays a central role in economic development, the two schools of thought, represented by the new economic growth theory and the new institutional economic theory, respectively emphasized the decisive role of technological innovation and institutional innovation. Institutional innovation, like technological innovation, is an important factor driving development, technological innovation is the change of productive forces, and institutional innovation is the change of production relations. The results show that the complementary effect between scientific and technological innovation and institutional innovation is more significant in developed countries, which indicates that developed countries are more mature and effective than developing countries in terms of innovation-driven mechanisms for high-quality economic development.
In Marx's theory of political economy, the productive forces and the relations of production are two inseparable aspects of social production, and the opposition of the two forms the mode of production. The new quality of productivity needs to be promoted and guaranteed by institutional innovation. Institutional innovation is the replacement of old and inefficient institutional rules (or organizations) by new and more efficient institutional rules (or organizations) in a society, including the change of various major rules such as property rights system, competition rules, science and technology policy, political system, etc., and the emergence of new types of organizations. Scholars compare the relationship between innovation in different countries and their respective institutional systems, analyze the differential impact of different aspects of institutions on innovation, and classify the main contents of institutional innovation into market system, science and technology system, financial system and innovation policy. Xu Qingrui, a mainland scholar, put forward comprehensive innovation management from the perspective of micro innovation management, focusing on solving the problem of continuous innovation of enterprises, focusing on the strategic innovation of the development concept, strengthening the interaction between innovation and strategy, and focusing on cultivating and improving the core competence of enterprises, forming a comprehensive arrangement of innovation activities at the enterprise level, such as all elements, all employees, and all time and space.
1.2.2 National innovation systems
Traditionally, innovation research has focused on technological innovation, but since Freeman proposed the theory of national innovation system in 1987 when he studied Japan's national institutional system that supports technological innovation, scholars have shifted from focusing on specific technological innovations to the institutional environment that promotes technological innovation. After the first and second generations of innovation policies based on the theoretical assumptions of "market failure" and "system failure", in order to cope with the current "transformation failure", scholars and policymakers from various countries have been actively exploring a new generation of innovation policies in recent years. Research institutions such as the Centre for Science Policy Research at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom have put forward the framework of "Innovation Policy 3.0", which pays more attention to system change and transformation, is more forward-looking, and the innovation subjects are more diverse. At present, the innovation policy of the mainland is also in the process of transformation from a linear paradigm and an innovation system to an innovation ecosystem, and the innovation policy system in the new era has shown significant changes in the focus, formulation, coordination and implementation of policies. In view of the crisis-driven system transformation, some scholars have cited and borrowed from Geshenkron's "challenge and response" framework to construct a theoretical framework of national innovation system for developing countries, emphasizing that the systemic challenges faced by the country are crucial for the overall cognitive transformation of society and ultimately taking action, and the state is one of the most important actors of the national innovation system as an important player in institutional construction and resource allocation.
In summary, it can be found that institutional innovation and technological innovation are important perspectives for comprehensive innovation and an important factor driving innovation and development, and it is more urgent for China to promote institutional innovation that is conducive to scientific and technological innovation. At present, comprehensive innovation should reflect the mobilization of the innovation system in response to the crisis, emphasizing the mobilization of all forces, especially the market and social forces, to engage in innovation. The dimension of comprehensive innovation deconstructed from the perspective of micro innovation management can also be used as a reference from the macro institutional level, including the dimensions of elements, organizations, and subjects. The most important thing is to solve the problems faced by institutional innovation in the current implementation of innovation-driven development strategy, clarify the research boundary from the perspective of comprehensive innovation system based on the problems, and provide support for improving the institutional system of comprehensive innovation.
2. Support the reform practice of comprehensively innovating the basic system
In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it was proposed to "form a basic system to support comprehensive innovation", in which "formation" refers to the fact that the mainland's institutional system for supporting innovation has not been or has not been systematized before, and is scattered and fragmented. In view of how to "form," the mainland has established a practical methodology for supporting the basic system of comprehensive innovation in the course of successive reforms of the S&T system and subsequent comprehensive innovation reforms.
2.1 The evolution of the expression of the basic system of comprehensive innovation
General Secretary Xi Jinping's exposition of basic systems is often related to governance and function, which is mostly used in the capital market, market economy, land and other fields, and has also been used in social governance, data and other fields. The document expression around the "basic system of innovation" has undergone an evolution from focusing on improving the basic system of scientific and technological innovation to accelerating the formation of a basic system of comprehensive innovation. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the "Three Sessions of Science and Technology" in 2014 that "efforts should be made to improve the basic system of scientific and technological innovation", and at the "Three Sessions of Science and Technology" in 2021, it was clear that "a basic system to support comprehensive innovation should be formed". It can be seen that the "basic system of scientific and technological innovation" was already in the stage of improvement at that time, but the "basic system to support comprehensive innovation" is still in the stage of construction. With the evolution of the general secretary's speech at the "three sessions of science and technology", it can be seen that the general secretary's requirements for the basic system in the field of innovation have changed.
In terms of the basic system of scientific and technological innovation, the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, making it clear that "scientific and technological innovation is a strategic support for improving social productivity and comprehensive national strength, and must be placed at the core of the overall national development". In May 2014, the "Three Sessions of Science and Technology" pointed out that "efforts should be made to improve the basic system of scientific and technological innovation", which was the first time that the basic system of innovation was proposed. In 2021, the newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on Scientific and Technological Progress (hereinafter referred to as the "Law on Scientific and Technological Progress") was passed, as the basic system in the field of science and technology in the mainland, and the revised "Law on Scientific and Technological Progress" adjusted the construction of the national innovation system to the main line of the system, and reflected the strategic deployment of scientific and technological innovation of the Party and the state and the good experience and good practices obtained in the reform of the mainland's scientific and technological system in the form of law. At a new historical starting point, the governance structure of national scientific and technological innovation has been improved, which provides an institutional guarantee for the implementation of major scientific and technological innovation tasks, the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and the strategic goal of building a world scientific and technological power.
In terms of comprehensive innovation basic system, General Secretary Xi Jinping made it clear at the seventh meeting of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs on August 18, 2014 that the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy proposed by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is to promote comprehensive innovation with scientific and technological innovation as the core. This is the first time that a comprehensive innovation has been proposed. On December 9, 2014, the speech at the Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that "innovation must be real, that is, to promote comprehensive innovation, and rely more on industrialized innovation to cultivate and form new growth points". In 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the System and Mechanism and Accelerating the Implementation of the Innovation-Driven Development Strategy" for the first time in the document to elaborate on comprehensive innovation, the overall idea of "adhere to comprehensive innovation", and put forward four overall planning, that is, to promote the reform of the scientific and technological system and the reform of the economic and social fields, to promote the innovation of science and technology, management, brand, organization and business model, to promote the integration of military and civilian innovation, to promote the introduction and go out of cooperation and innovation, to achieve scientific and technological innovation, institutional innovation, the organic unity and coordinated development of open innovation; Among the key tasks is to "promote comprehensive innovation and reform experiments", specifically in intellectual property, scientific research institutes, higher education, talent flow, international cooperation and other aspects of reform. In October 2015, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed that "to adhere to innovation and development, we must put innovation at the core of the overall national development, and continuously promote innovation in theory, system, science and technology, culture and other aspects", further clarifying the main components of comprehensive innovation. In May 2016, the "Outline of the National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy" was promulgated, which proposed to "take scientific and technological innovation as the core to drive comprehensive innovation" in the guiding ideology. In May 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed to "promote the reform of the scientific and technological system and form a basic system to support comprehensive innovation", including improving the new national system under the conditions of the socialist market economy, giving full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, improving the evaluation system and other basic reforms, promoting the transformation of science and technology management functions, and reforming the establishment and organization and management of major scientific and technological projects. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that "deepen the reform of the scientific and technological system, deepen the reform of scientific and technological evaluation, increase investment in diversified science and technology, strengthen the legal protection of intellectual property rights, and form a basic system to support comprehensive innovation", aiming to improve the governance structure of the country's comprehensive innovation, and lay an institutional guarantee for the in-depth implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy and the realization of entering the forefront of innovative countries.
2.2 Develop a reform approach that supports a comprehensive innovation system
The mainland's experiment of comprehensive innovation and reform is an exploration to accelerate the formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation. Through continuous comprehensive innovation and reform, we will realize the policy process of continuous adaptation and iteration in the "learning by doing", and form a long-term mechanism to accelerate the formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation, so as to have the ability to face the transformation goal and continuously and dynamically improve the institutional system. Reform is a process of institutional change, and every stage of reform reflects the relevance of connecting the previous and the next. Looking back at the process of reforming the mainland's science and technology system, it can be roughly divided into three stages, and the experiment of comprehensive innovation and reform is of turning significance.
The first stage is to stimulate people's vitality for innovation, first of all, to reform the system of appropriation for science and technology, starting with the establishment of a technology market, and to promote science and technology to be oriented to the economy and economic development by invigorating scientific research institutions and scientific and technological personnel, and relying on scientific and technological progress for economic development. The second stage is to stimulate the vitality of scientific research institutions, comprehensively restructure the development-oriented scientific research institutes established during the period of promoting the planned economy, speed up the adjustment of the scientific research structure, and bring the scientific and technological system closer to the direction of marketization. The third stage is to stimulate the innovation vitality of all fields in the whole society, aim at building a national innovation system, implement comprehensive innovation reform, coordinate and promote the combination of scientific and technological innovation and institutional innovation, management innovation, business model innovation, business innovation and cultural innovation, promote the transformation of development mode to rely on continuous knowledge accumulation, technological progress and labor quality improvement, and promote the evolution of the economy to a more advanced form, a more refined division of labor and a more reasonable structure.
The comprehensive innovation and reform experiment is a landmark project in the third stage, focusing on comprehensive innovation, carrying out systematic reform experiments, and comprehensively supporting the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy. It has not only formed the scope of comprehensive innovation system, but also formed a series of reform experiences that have been replicated and promoted, including the reform of the empowerment of job scientific and technological achievements, and promoted the evolution of the system to support comprehensive innovation in various related fields. Representative institutional innovations based on comprehensive innovation and reform experiments include the inclusion of property rights incentives in the newly revised Patent Law of the People's Republic of China and the Science and Technology Progress Law. The newly revised Securities Law of the People's Republic of China, which came into effect in 2020, has changed the stock issuance system from an "approval system" to a "registration system" and shifted the emphasis on "profitability" to a focus on "ability to continue operations". The marketing authorization holder system was incorporated into the newly revised Drug Administration Law of the People's Republic of China in 2019 and has now become a core system in the mainland drug regulatory system. In addition to breakthroughs in various fields, the comprehensive innovation and reform experiment has also explored and promoted a set of methods for the coordinated promotion of the central and local governments and the formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation.
3. Establish a mechanism to support the basic system of comprehensive innovation
3.1 Support the value orientation of the basic system of comprehensive innovation
"Comprehensive" is an important methodology for upholding and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized that "the overall layout of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization construction should be coordinated and promoted, and the strategic layout of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, comprehensively deepening reforms, comprehensively governing the country according to law, and comprehensively and strictly governing the party in an all-round way". The "four comprehensive" strategic layout is an important achievement of our party standing at a new historical starting point, upholding and developing the new exploration and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is an inevitable choice for the mainland to pay more attention to development and governance systematically. From the perspective of comprehensively deepening reform, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Comprehensively deepening reform, comprehensive, is to promote reform in all fields as a whole", "This project is extremely ambitious, piecemeal adjustment is not good, fragmented repair is not good, it must be a comprehensive system of reform and improvement, is the linkage and integration of reform and improvement in various fields".
Innovation is a system engineering, including science and technology, economy, society, culture, system and other aspects. The reason why the state proposes "comprehensive innovation" is because of the complexity of current innovation and the problems that cannot be solved by local efforts in various fields of current innovation, which affects the role of innovation as the primary driving force. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, which is to promote comprehensive innovation with scientific and technological innovation as the core, adhere to the demand-oriented and industrialization direction, adhere to the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, give full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources and the advantages of the socialist system, enhance the contribution of scientific and technological progress to economic growth, form a new source of growth power, and promote the sustained and healthy development of the economy.
Comprehensive innovation is an innovation that takes scientific and technological innovation as the core, and on the basis of scientific and technological innovation, it integrates scientific and technological innovation with the economy, society and environment. From the perspective of value, comprehensive innovation is to comprehensively consider the scientific, technical, economic, social and cultural value of innovation. From the perspective of the main body, the main body of comprehensive innovation includes enterprises, universities, scientific research institutes, and innovation support systems, and the current stage also emphasizes the state as the organizer of major innovation. From the perspective of factors, comprehensive innovation should effectively organize and mobilize production factors such as technology, talents, capital, and data to improve total factor productivity. From a domain perspective, comprehensive innovation governance includes governance in different fields related to innovation activities and innovators, including education, science and technology, talent, industry, trade, society, and other fields. From the perspective of process, comprehensive innovation includes the whole process of knowledge creation, technology development, system integration, product, commercialization, promotion and application. Only after a scientific and technological innovation has gone through R&D and commercialization and achieved mass production can it truly realize the value of innovation.
Figure 2 How to think about comprehensive innovation
Institutions are rules permeated with basic shared values. In the "formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation", "comprehensive innovation" is the value orientation of the "basic system". The basic system to support comprehensive innovation should support the creation of the five major values of science, technology, economy, society and culture of innovation. The goal of the basic system to support comprehensive innovation is to adhere to and improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, promote the modernization of the national innovation governance system and innovation governance capacity, focus on the national innovation-driven development strategic goals, establish a "people-centered" core value system, promote the reform and development of the national innovation governance system, and widely unite all sectors of society to actively participate in innovation governance.
3.2 A logical framework to support the basic system of comprehensive innovation
This paper attempts to propose a basic institutional framework to support comprehensive innovation. On the whole, the basic institutional framework to support comprehensive innovation should include five aspects: market system, organizational system, factor system, incentive system, and open system, emphasizing the connection between the supply side, the environment side, and the demand side innovation system.
3.2.1 A market system that supports comprehensive innovation
In the innovation policy system, market-related policies belong to the environmental side of the policy. After entering the stage of cutting-edge innovation, the uncertainty of technological progress and industrial development increases, and it is necessary to give more play to the role of market mechanisms in allocating resources. The system to support comprehensive innovation should give full play to the guiding role of the market in the direction of technology research and development, the choice of paths and the allocation of various innovation resources, and should complement the new national system in important areas. The market system plays a significant role in the national innovation system: first, the property rights, profit motives and market pressures of new technologies promote technological innovation, second, new technologies have diversified, independent and competitive sources, and third, they provide post-event market choices for different enterprises to innovate. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China defined the market-based system as property rights protection, market access, fair competition, and social credit. In terms of the intellectual property system, it is urgent to strengthen the top-level design of the intellectual property governance system that is deeply coordinated with the strategy of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, continue to establish and improve the intellectual property protection mechanism for new technologies, new industries, new business forms and new models, and form an intellectual property system that promotes the development of the digital economy and the bioeconomy. In terms of the access system, it is necessary to effectively break down various hidden barriers to market access, improve the market access mechanism for innovative products, give full play to the creative destruction and net entry effect, promote the replacement of backward production units by new production units with more advanced technology, and promote the formation of a unified national market and give full play to the advantages of a super-large-scale market. In terms of fair competition system, enterprises should be promoted to fully participate in competition, so as to discover and test beneficial knowledge and realize knowledge diffusion, provide controllable and remedial mechanisms for trial and error, and realize the optimal allocation of innovation resources. The mechanism of determining factor prices mainly by the market is used to promote the transformation of enterprises from low-performance and low-cost competition to innovative differentiated competition. In terms of credit system, the construction of an innovation ecosystem requires a set of basic credit supervision systems that run through the whole process before, during, and after the event, including system design and system coordination to support innovation in terms of credit data management, credit evaluation and classification standards, and punishment for untrustworthiness, which are all important contents of a high-standard innovation basic system.
Figure 3 Logical framework to support a comprehensive innovation infrastructure
3.2.2 Organizational systems that support comprehensive innovation
At present, the mainland is faced with how to carry out innovation in the field of new technologies, and the overall uncertainty and differences in the field of innovation have posed major challenges to the institutional arrangements and guarantees related to the organizational mode. The establishment of an organizational system that supports comprehensive innovation is consistent with the improvement of the national innovation system. The problem of the organization is how to integrate innovation into the organization where the market is not functioning well and at a high cost. As the organizer of major scientific and technological innovation and the builder of the innovation system, the state should continue to support public R&D in strategic fields, strengthen the innovation strength and leading role of strategic scientific and technological forces, promote the solution of the problem of the source of core technologies for the next generation, and form a differentiated and effective organizational model for disruptive innovation in different fields. From the institutional point of view, we should implement the main position of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, strengthen the inclusive functional industrial organization policy, and serve the strategic goal of strengthening the security and competitiveness of the industrial chain and supply chain. Improve the institutional guarantee for the autonomy of universities and scientific research institutions, develop various new research and development institutions according to local conditions, and ensure the role of new research and development institutions as a new force for innovation. Promote the improvement of organizational construction of various innovation platforms and social organizations, promote innovation collaboration between subjects from multiple levels and dimensions, and reduce the organizational cost of internal coordination.
3.2.3 Element system to support comprehensive innovation
Global economic and trade activities and economic rules are developing in the direction of institutional proximity and high standards respectively, and the role of preferential policies is further compressed, and the high-end factors required for high-quality development are often more sensitive to the institutional environment determining transaction costs. In terms of funding, we will establish and improve a diversified investment mechanism to support innovation, improve the efficiency of government investment in innovation, accelerate the reform of the capital market system to meet the actual needs of the development of local scientific and technological innovation enterprises, improve the listing system and delisting system, coordinate the development of multi-level capital markets, and standardize new forms of venture capital. In terms of technology, establish and improve the pricing mechanism and technical evaluation mechanism of technical elements, and improve the system that is compatible with the asset attributes of scientific and technological achievements and is conducive to the transformation of achievements and resource allocation. In terms of talents, we aim to solve the "Qian Xuesen's question", do a good job in the integration of education, science and technology, and talents from the institutional perspective, strengthen the integration of talent chain and innovation chain, industrial chain, and capital chain, and provide solid support for innovative talents and capital elements for the construction of a modern industrial system. In terms of data, standardize scientific data management and open sharing mechanisms, accelerate the exploration of data intellectual property protection rules, improve the efficiency of the use of scientific data and R&D data, form mechanisms for the supply, circulation, and trading of data elements to promote innovation, and establish and improve institutional arrangements for the use of data in typical innovation scenarios.
3.2.4 Incentive systems to support comprehensive innovation
Institutions are both incentives and constraints. Through the dual mechanism of providing information and imposing sanctions, the system stabilizes people's expectations and directs social behavior towards an equilibrium outcome. The incentive system aims to make people more willing to engage in innovative activities, more willing to invest in human capital, more willing to carry out innovative cooperation, and more resources to allocate to innovative activities. Proceeding from the requirements of improving total factor productivity and obtaining new momentum for economic growth, we should design incentive mechanisms that meet the expectations of innovation subjects and are feasible in practice, and organically combine science and technology policies, innovation policies, competition policies, industrial policies, education policies and social policies. The institutional design of the front-end of the innovation chain should conform to the value-oriented distribution of knowledge, and the institutional design of the back-end should conform to the value-oriented distribution of the market. In particular, it is necessary to strengthen the provision of market space for innovators, promote government procurement policies to support innovation, promote the government to truly become the first purchaser and important driving force of early-stage entrepreneurial and innovative products, and implement and improve the relevant systems for government procurement to promote the innovation and development of small and medium-sized enterprises.
3.2.5 Open systems that support comprehensive innovation
Historical experience shows that for countries that are catching up with innovation, if the international scientific and technological exchanges and transnational technology introduction are insufficient, and the innovation system lacks sufficient interaction with the external environment, the stability and function of the system will inevitably be damaged. It is necessary to rely on the free trade zone system to strengthen innovation stress testing, promote the "dual-self linkage" mechanism, and steadily expand the opening up of rules, regulations, management, standards and other institutions. Broaden the channels of international scientific and technological cooperation, and connect with world-class innovative talents and technical resources. Strengthen multi-party cooperation with the international science and technology community to enhance the global science and technology innovation governance capacity. We will create an internationalized, facilitated, and legalized trade environment, optimize the border supervision system, explore and implement breakthrough institutional arrangements for the cross-regional allocation of talents, capital, data, equipment and other factors, break down the institutional barriers that hinder the flow of innovation factors, and create an open innovation ecosystem with global competitiveness.
3.3 Support the dynamic evolution of the basic system for comprehensive innovation
Supporting comprehensive innovation, which involves more stakeholders than scientific and technological innovation or institutional innovation, requires a new balance between local interests and overall interests. Each economic and social subsystem related to innovation activities, such as politics, culture, military, finance and education, will have an impact on other subsystems in the practice of innovation activities, but they also have their own relatively independent development logic. Although innovation has a central position in the overall situation of the mainland's modernization, the strong logic of each subsystem may conflict with the logic of innovation, or innovation may not have priority. At present, there is a game between institutional innovation that maximizes local interests and institutional innovation that maximizes global interests, and there is a "synthesis fallacy" of the system, resulting in policy effects that do not really stimulate innovation. The interests of each field are easy to implement, but the overall interests are difficult to be properly protected, and the integration of value into action requires high "transaction costs". The basic system to support comprehensive innovation should focus on systematic, that is, the multiple components and the close connection between various institutions, and it is necessary to form a joint force of system design and innovation policy through the coordination, coupling and innovation policy combination between systems.
The system is an equilibrium over a period of time. At present, the key to promoting the formation of a basic system to support comprehensive innovation lies in giving better play to the fundamental role of legislation and national laws in promoting innovation and reform. Accelerating the process of systematic legislation on innovation will be the key to forming a basic system to support comprehensive innovation. The underlying regime for comprehensive innovation should include a set of regulations that play a role in influencing the innovation performance of innovators. It is necessary to lead, regulate, promote and guarantee comprehensive innovation in the form of the rule of law, build a high-level innovation governance system, promote the rule of law to play its due role in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and accelerate the formation of a national innovation system that attracts high-level innovation elements, consolidates the endogenous capacity of science and technology in core basic fields, and ensures the vitality and high growth of new fields. At the same time, it is necessary to grasp the stability and dynamics of the system to support comprehensive innovation, maintain stability in a certain period of time, and not change frequently, so as to provide stable expectations for the main body of innovation, but when the paradigm of science and technology undergoes major changes, it is necessary to promote institutional changes in a forward-looking manner and adapt to the needs of continuous development of science and technology.
4 Key findings
This paper argues that comprehensive innovation is based on scientific and technological innovation, and on the basis of scientific and technological innovation, it focuses on the five values of innovation to achieve multi-subject, full-process, full-factor, and full-field innovation, which is an innovation that integrates scientific and technological innovation with the economy, society, and environment. The main body of comprehensive innovation includes the state, enterprises, universities, scientific research institutes, and innovation support systems, and should effectively organize and mobilize production factors such as technology, talents, capital, and data to improve total factor productivity. Comprehensive innovation governance includes governance in different fields related to innovation activities and innovators, including science and technology, education, talent, industry, trade, society and other fields. The whole process of innovation must be completed in order to truly realize the value of comprehensive innovation. Supporting comprehensive innovation is the value orientation of the basic system. The five-dimensional analytical framework of the basic system that supports comprehensive innovation, including the market system, the organizational system, the factor system, the incentive system, and the open system. It is necessary to pay attention to the systematization of the comprehensive innovation system, and form a joint force of system design and innovation policy through the synergy, coupling and innovation policy combination between systems, so as to continue to promote the evolution of the comprehensive innovation system. It should be in line with the direction of innovation and development, and promptly lead, regulate, promote, and guarantee comprehensive innovation in a manner that is governed by the rule of law, ensure the implementation of major reform measures, make up for the gaps in the legal system of new technologies, new business forms, and new models, and give play to the role of the system in regulating, guiding, and guaranteeing innovation.
This paper preliminarily explores the internal logic and construction path of the basic system that supports comprehensive innovation, tries to define comprehensive innovation from the theoretical and practical perspectives, and establishes a basic institutional framework to support comprehensive innovation. However, only a preliminary analysis has been carried out on the various aspects of supporting the basic system of comprehensive innovation, and no detailed discussion has been carried out. Subsequently, we can combine the international practice of national institutional system construction from innovation catch-up to innovation-led transformation, carry out comparative research on various aspects of the institutional framework, and also carry out in-depth discussion on how a certain aspect of the system supports comprehensive innovation.
Authors: Qiao Lili*, Liu Zhongquan, Ren Zhipeng, Center for Innovation-Driven Development, National Development and Reform Commission
This article is excerpted from "Theoretical, Practical and Logical Framework for Supporting Comprehensive Innovation Basic System", which was originally published in Research Management, Issue 3, 2024
Source: WeChat public account "Innovation Research"