Abstract: Climbing up the global value chain is the goal of China's resource-based industry development, and the level of open innovation is directly related to its position in the global value chain. Based on the theory of global value chain and open innovation, this paper takes 12 industries in China's resource-based industry from 2002 to 2014 as samples to empirically test the direct and interactive effect of global value chain embedding and open innovation on resource-based industry upgrading.By using Stata14.0, it is found that global value chain embedding has an effect of ”inverted U-type”on the upgrading of resource-based industries; open innovation is an effective way to drive the upgrading of resource-based industries, and it has a positive adjustment effect on the impact of resource-based industrial upgrading.The research conclusion shows that: facing the objective reality of serious overcapacity and insufficient effective supply, it is equally important to promote the optimization and upgrading of China's resource-based industries, deepen the supply-side structural reform, and finally realize the improvement of quality and efficiency by simultaneously promoting open innovation and appropriate global value chain embedding.