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The Yellow River runs through nine provinces (regions) in western, central, and eastern China. It is not only an important ecological security barrier in China, but also an important region for social activity and economic development. Strategically planning the development of the Yellow River Basin at the national level can not only accelerate the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, but also effectively promote the western development strategy and regional coordinated development strategy. Nevertheless, the poor carrying capacity of the ecological environment in the Yellow River Basin, the obvious feature of industrial development relying heavily on energy, and the insufficient ability to ensure people's livelihood have constrained the innovation driven transformation and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Therefore, the Yellow River Basin must vigorously enhance its ability to support scientific and technological innovation, strengthen macro-integration, synergize and deepen the reform, accelerate the deployment of the integrated development strategy of science, technology and innovation in the Yellow River Basin, systematically plan the construction of the Yellow River Basin Science, Technology and Innovation Corridor, and promote the coordinated development of ecological protection and economic and social development led by scientific and technological innovation. This study analyzes the development characteristics and spatial distribution of the Yellow River Basin, and systematically analyzes the scientific and technological innovation needs and constraints of the Yellow River Basin from three perspectives: ecological protection, industrial development, and social development. It proposes the overall idea of achieving innovative development in the Yellow River Basin, and proposes countermeasures and suggestions from five approaches: strengthening scientific and technological innovation cooperation in the ecological field, enhancing the scientific and technological innovation capabilities of key regions, coordinating the reform of the entire basin's scientific and technological system, accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces led by science and technology, and digital transformation to promote the improvement and efficiency of social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By adopting a set of panel data from thirty provinces in China from 2007 to 2017, this paper examines how regional innovation efficiency is influenced by different types of innovation policies from a specific long-range plan ('National Medium- and Long-Term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006–20)'). We incorporate public direct research and development (R&D) grants, R&D tax credits, and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection into our research. We also explore the heterogeneous influences of these factors at different stages in regional innovation development. The results indicate that public direct R&D grants have a significantly negative influence, especially in innovation-catching-up regions. Conversely, the R&D tax credit has a considerably positive impact on innovation-catching-up regions. IPR protection plays various roles according to different innovation development stages. Specifically, IPR protection has a positive impact on innovation-leading regions, while it negatively influences regional innovation efficiency in innovation-catching-up regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]