China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 released

7. Innovation and entrepreneurship

In this major item, Shenzhen has replaced Beijing in the top spot. Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou claim the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Wuhan. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.

Innovation and entrepreneurship, as a platform for communication economy and transaction economy to integrate, reorganize, and boom, serves as the main driving force for a core city to develop. Therefore, this major item values not only the resources and investment in research and development (R&D), but also the results and especially achievements. It also evaluates the policy support in this field.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, R&D agglomeration, innovation and entrepreneurship vitality, and policy support. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including internal R&D expenditures, local government expenditures for science and technology, R&D personnel, index of academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, companies listed on Growth Enterprise Market and National Equities Exchange and Quotations, patent application and authorization volume, national reform pilot zones, national innovation demonstration zones, information and knowledge industries, and national key laboratories and engineering research centers.

(1) R&D agglomeration

Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. Their deviation values are much higher than those of other cities, indicating that they lead other cities by a large margin in terms of R&D expenditures and R&D personnel reserves. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Chengdu. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Chengdu have increased.

(2) Innovation and entrepreneurship vitality

Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai are the top three in this sub-item. The deviation values of Shenzhen and Beijing are much higher than those of other cities. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Nanjing. Compared with 2018, none of the top 10 core cities has moved up in rankings.

(3) Policy support

Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are the top three cities in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, Qingdao, Xi'an, and Shenzhen. Municipalities directly under the central government stand out in this aspect. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Chengdu, Wuhan, Xi'an, and Shenzhen have increased.