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Assessment on the interaction between technology innovation and eco-environmental systems in China

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Abstract

To investigate the latent relation between technology innovation and eco-environmental systems and promote their coordinated development, we integrated the coupling coordination model and panel vector autoregressive model to examine the evidence from China. The research reveals that the technology innovation benefit and eco-environmental governance and endowment are the prominent factors for optimizing the two systems. Moreover, the findings show that the coupling coordination degree of eco-environment and technology innovation in China presents an upward trend. In terms of the dynamic interaction between technology innovation and eco-environment, the influence of the former on the latter is timely while that of the latter on the former is lagging (except for the central region). The weak coupling coordination degree implies that the mutual promotion of technology innovation and eco-environmental systems has not yet formed. The policy implications are proposed accordingly to promote coordinated development of eco-environment and technology innovation in China.

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Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and available from the first author upon request.

Notes

  1. The current performance appraisal system of TI emphasizes the number of papers only. The Chinese government has recognized the problem and tried to reform the system.

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Funding

This work is supported by the “Chunhui Plan” Cooperative Research Project Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. HLJ2019002), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administration Region (Grant No. GRF PolyU 152031/17B), and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Grant Nos. SB1F and ZJM2).

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R.Y., X.M., and C.W. were responsible for the design and development of this paper. T.W. and M.D. were responsible for data collection and analysis. M.D. was responsible for data interpretation. R.Y. wrote the first draft of the article. All authors read and revised for the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xin Miao.

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Table 9 Cutting edge and representative literature on the field of relation between TI and eco-environmental systems

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Yang, R., Miao, X., Wong, C.W. et al. Assessment on the interaction between technology innovation and eco-environmental systems in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 63127–63149 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15149-x

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