Abstract: Exploring the effect of basic research on firms’ scientific breakthroughs can help firms asses the effectiveness of investments in basic research. However, the lack of fine-grained measurement method of basicness has hindered this research. To this end, using Level Score (LS) to measure the basicness of a single paper, this paper explores the influence of basic research on firms’ scientific breakthroughs using regression analysis based on the publication data of global biomedical firms from 2015 to 2017. The results show that, first, the number of basic research papers and applied research papers referenced by biomedical firms can significantly and positively affect the number of papers they produce, in line with the basic input-output relationship. Second, basic knowledge plays a key role in the output of firms’ scientific output. Enhancing the average basicness of knowledge inputs facilitates biomedical firms to produce more scientific breakthrough papers. Finally, we also find that in terms of research types, a more diverse knowledge combination increases the likelihood of producing scientific breakthroughs. This paper empirically validates the contribution of basic research to scientific innovations. In addition, this paper can provide a scientific basis for firms in the field of biomedicine to increase their investment in basic research and enhance their basic research capacity, and also provide certain insights for the formulation of related scientific and technology policies.

摘要： 探讨基础研究对企业科学突破的影响效应，有助于企业评估面向基础研究投资的有效性。然而，缺乏对研究基础性的细粒度测度方法，阻碍了这一研究的开展。为此，本文利用基础性程度得分（Level Score）对单篇论文的基础程度进行测度，基于2015-2017年全球生物医药企业的论文发表数据，使用回归分析方法探究了基础研究对企业科学突破的影响。研究结果表明，首先，生物医药企业参考基础研究论文的数量与参考应用研究论文的数量都能显著正向影响其产出的论文总数，符合基本的投入产出关系。其次，基础性的知识在企业科学成果产出过程中扮演着关键角色，增强知识投入的平均基础性有利于生物医药企业产出更多的科学突破论文。最后，我们还发现，在研究类型方面更多样化的知识组合能够增加产生科学突破的可能性。本文从实证角度验证了基础研究对科学创新的促进作用。此外，本文能够为生物医药领域企业加大基础研究投入、提升基础研究能力提供科学依据，为相关科技政策制定提供一定启示。