Research on the Correlation between Higher Education Facilities and Innovative Economy in Yangtze River Delta Region——Based on the data of high-tech enterprises

Abstract

The Yangtze River Delta region is the most developed region in China's economy and industry, and also the region with the highest degree of opening to the outside world in China, which plays an important leading role in realizing the high-quality development of China. According to the theory of modern economic growth, human capital (especially education) is the source of economic growth, in which advanced education improves the total factor productivity by accelerating the speed of technological innovation and imitation. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the development relationship between higher education facilities and innovative economy.

Based on the number of colleges and universities and the data of high-tech enterprises, the spatial pattern characteristics and formation mechanism can be explored by comparing local spatial autocorrelation, bivariate spatial autocorrelation and time scale. It is found that the higher education facilities in the Yangtze River Delta are randomly distributed but unevenly distributed, while high-tech enterprises are in a state of spatial agglomeration, and there is no spatial correlation, which has not reached a high degree of Industry-University-Research integration and development to some extent.

This difference in spatial distribution needs to be analyzed in combination with China's special national conditions and policies. On the one hand, China's higher education started late, originated in the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, and was influenced by the ancient academy in China, and most of them were located in mountain resorts, thus forming a suburbanization phenomenon with a large location close to the "central city" and keeping a certain distance from the center of the "central city". On the other hand, since the 1990s, institutions of higher learning have frequently undergone structural changes such as merger and reorganization, which have changed the shortcomings in the fragmented school-running and management system with the establishment of comprehensive universities as the mainstream. The factors such as policy, construction and operating costs, cultural environment and infrastructure conditions have been comprehensively considered in the location of colleges and universities. At present, higher education facilities in the Yangtze River Delta region are basically concentrated in provincial capitals. In addition, it also shows that some cities in the Yangtze River Delta region have a low impact on innovative economic output through active policies such as talent introduction and enterprise support, and the spillover of human capital in big cities. Although some cities are blessed by colleges and universities, their economic growth capacity is still in a weak position, which is related to the industrial development stage of the city. Since the integration of the Yangtze River Delta became a national strategy in 2019, the cooperation and exchanges between universities in the Yangtze River Delta region have also been accelerating in terms of the layout of higher education facilities, which not only builds campuses across provinces in the region, but also attracts universities outside the region to run schools in different places. In the future, an integrated leading think tank cluster will be gradually formed to promote the harmonious and unified sustainable development of man and nature, economy and society with innovative economy.