Structural heterogeneity and proximity mechanism of China's inter-regional innovation cooperation network.

Based on the cooperation patent data between 31 provinces in China from 1985 to 2017, this paper portrays the topological structure, spatial pattern and proximity mechanism of China's inter-regional innovation cooperation network by the graph theory, spatial statistical methods and the quadratic assignment procedure model. The conclusions are as follows: (1) the topological structure of China's inter-regional innovation cooperation forms a hierarchical network with Beijing as the core and it exhibits a typical small-world property and 'core–periphery' structure. (2) In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, the 'quadruple' with the Beijing–Tianjin region, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Sichuan as the peaks has become the backbone of the inter-regional innovation cooperation network in China. At the same time, the spatial differentiation of the three indicators of degree centrality, median centrality and intensity centrality is obvious. (3) In terms of proximity mechanism, geographical, institutional and cognitive proximity exert a significant effect on China's inter-regional innovation cooperation network linkage. However, there are significant differences in the effects of various proximity elements on China's regional innovation network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]