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Basic research intensity and diversified performance: the moderating role of government support intensity

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Abstract

The relationship between basic research intensity and diversified performance is a very important problem that has not theoretically answered. Based on the panel data of universities directly under the ministry of education, considering the three missions of the university and the typical characteristics of basic research, we subdivide the diversified performance into innovation performance, economic performance, social performance and international cooperation performance. We find that enhancing the intensity of basic research can increase the number of patent applications and invention patent applications, but cannot increase the total number of paper publications and the number of English paper publications. Meanwhile, improving basic research intensity does not necessarily promote economic performance, while the promotion effect on social performance needs a lag period of 1 year. Furthermore, enhancing basic research intensity does not necessarily significantly improve international cooperation performance, and even has a significant negative impact after lagged 2 periods. Finally, government support intensity only plays a moderating role between basic research intensity and innovation performance, but not between basic research intensity and other types of performance. This reveals that the government plays a key role in the stage of knowledge production, but its role in the stage of knowledge transformation is relatively limited.

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Notes

  1. Data source: Statistical Communique of 2018 National Science and Technology Funding Investment http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rdpcgb/qgkjjftrtjgb/201908/t20190830_1694754.html.

  2. Data Source: Recipient of the 2018 People's Republic of China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award http://www.most.gov.cn/ztzl/gjkxjsjldh/jldh2018/jldh18jlgg/201812/t20181226_144349.htm.

  3. Chinese universities have a distinct hierarchy based on the quality of teaching and social reputation. Among them, the best university is 985 university, followed by 211 (not 985) university and finally other universities. As both 211 and 985 universities are in charge of the central government and have higher social recognition. Therefore, existing studies usually regard 211 and 985 universities as key universities in China (Yang 2014).

  4. Data source: Statistical Survey - Department of Science and Technology - Government Portal of Ministry of Education, PRC http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A16/A16_tjdc/.

  5. Due to the limitation of text length, only the abbreviated names of universities are listed here. The abbreviation is based on the name of E-mail box of each university. The specific universities are as follows. PKU RUC TSU BJTU USTB BUCT BUPT CAU BJFU BUCM BNU CUC CUPL NCEPU CUMTB CUP CUGB NKU TJU DLUT NEU JLU NENU NEFU FDU TONGJI SJTU ECUST DHU ECNU NJU SEU CMUT HHU JNU NJAU CPU ZJU HFUT XMU SDU OUC UPC WHU HUST CUG WUT HZAU CCNU HNU CSU SYSU SCUT CQU SWU SCU SWJTU UESTC XJTU XDU CHD NAFU SXNU.

  6. For example, regulations of the State on S&T Awards clearly points out that the state highest S&T awards are awarded to those who have made major breakthroughs in the frontiers of contemporary S&T or have made outstanding contributions in the development of S&T, and creating enormous economic or social benefits in S&T innovation, the transformation of S&T achievements and industrialization of high technology. http://www.most.gov.cn/ztzl/gjkxjsjldh/jldh2018/jldh18xgwj/201901/t20190107_144580.htm.

  7. It is important to note that Chinese universities have a certain requirement in choosing international cooperation universities. That is, they are seeking cooperation with universities that are better than them. For example, the Notice of Nanjing Normal University on the Application for the Second batch of International Partnership Program clearly points out that overseas high-level universities with advantageous disciplines (the top 500 universities in the world) are the cooperation objects. http://www.njnu.edu.cn/info/1098/12433.htm.

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Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the major specific project of National Social Science Foundation of China (number: 18VSJ058). We are very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, which have greatly improved the quality of the paper.

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Qinghua Xia, Qinwei Cao & Manqing Tan

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  1. Qinghua Xia
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Correspondence to Qinwei Cao.

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Xia, Q., Cao, Q. & Tan, M. Basic research intensity and diversified performance: the moderating role of government support intensity. Scientometrics 125, 577–605 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03635-x

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