Since the concept of “citizen science” was put forward in the mid-1990s, it has gradually become a new research field. However, the question of "what is citizen science" remains an open one in academia because of the various forms and traditions in the field. This article identifies and compares two major approaches to citizen science, respectively represented by Rick Bonney’s practice-based tradition and Alan Irwin’s politically oriented approach. More specifically, the paper traces the origins of each approach and discusses their content, background, theoretical assumptions, as well as policy impacts. The practice-based citizen science originated from pragmatic reflections of a particular form of scientific practices in which the lay public and amateurs are recruited to execute pre-designed research projects. Based on a “deficit model”, it originally aims at facilitating scientific research by expanding its scope and lowering its cost, as well as improving the citizen participants’ scientific literacy. This practice-based approach has become a way of promoting science education and encouraging citizens to contribute to science, particularly in the United States. In contrast, the politically oriented citizen science was embedded in the theoretical reflections over technoscientific controversies and problematic science policies. It builds on a “dialogue model”, with the aim to explore the proper relationship between science and the wider society. Primarily popular in the European Union, this approach has been playing an important role in advancing the democratization of science and acknowledging citizens’ unique expertise and rights regarding technoscientific affairs. Despite the historical divergences between the two approaches, recent years have witnessed significant attempts to integrate these traditions. Such efforts have benefited from the increasing communications and encounters among scholars of both traditions, along with the growing institutional support to citizen science projects from both government agencies and research organizations. While we do not attempt to unify the definitions and approaches in citizen science, we argue that what characterizes “citizen science” is the novel mode of knowledge production in which citizens are participating as agents, rather than as objects, labor, or instrument. The term “agents” has two-fold implications: first, it acknowledges the participating citizen scientists’ unique expertise, skills, and creativity, and therefore recognizes their impacts and contributions to scientific research; second, it highlights that citizens are active rather than passive participants in citizen science projects, who are not purely the “means” but also the “ends”. Drawing on this new understanding of citizen science, the paper also explores the importance and key points of developing citizen science in China. Against China’s current sociotechnical background, citizen science projects have significant potential to contribute to knowledge production, science education, and technoscientific governance, among others. Citizen science is still in an emerging and preliminary stage in China, which has significant space for further development and professionalization and will benefit from organized promotion among scientists as well as citizens. Moreover, citizen science projects can join forces with the Chinese government’s long-term efforts in science popularization and enforce each other. Lastly, the development of citizen science in China should also be considered within the broader framework of science and technology governance and serve as a tunnel through which marginalized social groups and the general public can have their voices in the decision-making process.
In the context of the digital era, the growth of digital technology is outpacing the development of human society, and the alienation of human-technology relationship caused by the reshaping of the physical world by digital technology has become the primary battle of contemporary technology management research. In this process of reverse shaping, digital technology has gradually gained the power to build independently from the socio-economic system by virtue of its reconstructive ability of openness, availability and self-growth. This is manifested in the evolution of digital technology form from “small circle” and “large ecology” to “intelligent society”, and the target of digital technology changes from “rough”, “precise” to “reconstruction”. Further, through the reverse shaping of the real world by digital technology, the explanatory framework of “inverted human-technology relationship” is constructed, and the reshaping path of “digital script-digital module-digital ecology-digital world” driven by digital technology is elaborated, which provides an in-depth understanding of the reverse shaping of the physical world by digital technology. It provides new insights into the inner mechanism and realization path of digital technology to shape the physical world in the reverse direction.
As a necessary component of the national innovation system, S&T Societies are an important breakthrough in the construction of a pluralistic scientific and technological evaluation system. Based on the theory of national innovation system and network organization governance, this paper discusses the specific ways for S&T Societies to participate in scientific and technological evaluation from the perspective of organizational mission and institutional arrangements. The results show that: (1) The participation of S&T Societies in science and technology evaluation is determined by the organizational mission of S&T Societies and the institutional arrangements at the national level, which is naturally legitimate and desirable. (2) In theory, there are five mechanisms for S&T Societies to participate in scientific and technological evaluation, namely reputation mechanism, trust mechanism, advocacy mechanism, learning mechanism and incentive mechanism. (3) There are four roles and corresponding paths for S&T Societies to participate in scientific and technological evaluation. They are the multi-subject linkage path and multi-category participation path as the evaluation organizer, the promotion path and multi-level intervention path as the standard maker, the discussion and research path and restriction and regulation path as the dishonesty restraint, and the systematic reward path and systematic recommendation path as a reward recommender. The findings of this study suggest that S&T Societies should play a greater role in the evaluation of science and technology, and provide direction and content reference for deepening the reform of science and technology system and improving the evaluation system of scientific and technological.
At present, the domestic and international situation is undergoing profound and complex changes. On the one hand, the world situation is intricate and changing rapidly, and unstable and uncertain factors have increased significantly; on the other hand, due to the impact of the epidemic, the downward pressure on the domestic economy has increased significantly. Labor employment presents serious challenges. In view of this, we urgently need to find a realistic path for the stability and high-quality employment of the Chinese labor force, which is of great significance to the current economic development and social prosperity. In the era of digital economy, the impact of digital transformation on labor employment of manufacturing companies has received increasing attention. Based on the data of listed Chinese A-share manufacturing companies, this paper finds that digital transformation has significantly promoted labor employment and has become a strong driving force for expanding labor demand and stimulating employment in the digital economy era. In terms of impact mechanism, digital transformation can promote labor employment through three channels: market scale effect, business scope effect and productivity effect. Research based on heterogeneity found that for high-tech companies, technology-intensive companies, and companies in the central and western regions, the employment promotion effect of digital transformation is more obvious. Finally, this article also finds that digital transformation can increase the proportion of highly educated and highly skilled personnel, thus optimizing the labor structure of enterprises. Compared with the previous literature, this paper makes expansions in the following three aspects: First, this paper not only studies the overall impact of digital transformation on employment scale, but also sorts out three mechanisms of market size effect, business scope effect and productivity effect, and conducts empirical tests on this basis. The research enriches the theory and empirical evidence of the micro-effects of digital transformation, thus making up for the deficiencies of existing research. Second, this paper further examines the impact of digital transformation on the employment structure, and finds out that digital transformation will increase the proportion of highly educated personnel and highly skilled personnel, improve the human capital structure of enterprises, and form a useful supplement to the microscopic research on human capital. Third, this paper introduces factors such as industry attributes, location, and factor density into empirical analysis to explore whether digital transformation has a heterogeneous impact on the human capital of manufacturing enterprises. The research of this paper reveals the internal mechanism of the impact of digital transformation on the employment scale and structure of enterprises to a certain extent, and has important implications for all parties in the labor market. For individual workers, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the structural changes in the labor market, pay close attention to new technologies, new formats, new products, and new business models emerging in the process of digital transformation, so as to achieve high-quality matching with the labor market. For colleges and universities, it is necessary to strengthen the quality of personnel training to ensure that graduates have the corresponding job skills. From the government's point of view, the level of public employment services should be further improved to help workers and enterprises better cope with structural unemployment.
The distribution of income from the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in universities is an important issue of laws and government policies all over the world. Focusing on the first-class universities in China and the United States, this paper summarizes and compares the income distribution mechanism of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in universities in the two countries from the perspectives of the proportion of the inventors and the distribution mode of University dominated funds. It is found that there are obvious differences between the two countries: the reward for inventors in Chinese universities is significantly higher than that in United States; American universities mainly use internal incentives, while Chinese universities mainly use the combination of internal incentives and external incentives. The main reason for the difference in income distribution mechanism is the difference in the development stage and development mode of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in Universities between the two countries. It is suggested that at the present stage, the income distribution policy of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in Chinese universities should still adhere to the income distribution mode under the government dominated model, but on the other hand, it should appropriately change to the income distribution mode under the market-oriented model.
Government’s R&D funding is an important part of entire social R&D investment. Especially, funding for basic and cutting-edge scientific activities is an important driving force and source for the improvement of the national science and technology level. The US federal government's extramural R&D funding mechanism established since World War II has played an important role in promoting the rapid improvement of American scientific and technological strength, and it has important significance for the optimization and reform of Chinese government’s R&D funding mechanism. How does US federal government coordinate the relationship between stable funding and competitive project funding? What are the specific mechanisms for stable funding and competitive project funding? In order to answer these questions, the article uses the bottom-level budget data of federal government’s extramural R&D funding activities as the analysis object, constructs an analysis framework, and uses statistical analysis, cluster analysis, text analysis and other methods. Based on the unified data and analysis framework, the article identifies the framework of the relationships between the stable funding and competitive project funding of US federal government, analyzes the funding mechanisms and its characteristics, and thus forms a complete understanding of the US federal government's R&D funding mechanism. Based on the analysis, conclusions about the characteristics of US federal government's extramural R&D funding mechanism are derived: (1) The federal government's extramural R&D funding is closely focused on federal agencies’ own mission position, reflecting the decentralized characteristics of the US federal government’s R&D funding. (2) Based on different objectives, the federal agencies take the matching funding mechanisms and thus form a perfect funding system. (3) R&D activities that realize the functions and missions of federal agencies themselves are applicable to the stable funding mechanism. (4) R&D activities that produce public products rely more on competitive project funding mechanism. Finally, based on the above conclusions, relevant policy recommendations for Chinese government’s R&D funding mechanisms are put forward: (1) Based on different objectives, the government should adopt an appropriate funding mechanism. (2) Stable funding mechanism has a variety of implementation ways and is an important funding mechanism for fulfilling the national mission. (3) Competitive project funding mechanism also has multiple implementation ways based on different objectives.
During the transition period of China’s economy from cost-driven to technology-driven, technology licensing, as a key approach of technology transference and transformation, plays an increasingly prominent role. Due to the universality of information asymmetry in the technology licensing process, both parties of technology licensing may have the risk of breach of contract due to various subjective and objective factors in the process of contracting, payment, transfer and implementation. dynamic management timely of various default risks is an important demand for technology licensing decision-makers, while solutions and responses to this demand are insufficient in existing research or theories. In this paper, default risks in the key steps of technology licensing are identified; the main risk factors in the licensing process, originating from information asymmetry among technology licensing subjects, are summarized; a quantitative analysis system for technology licensing default risks, based on the risk matrix method, is constructed; and strategies and methods, combined with risk matrix judgment, for dealing with the risks of major technology licensing defaults are proposed. The conclusion and suggestion of this paper can contribute to default risk management practice for stakeholders and decision-makers of technology licensing.
In this paper, the measurement indicators of enterprise high-value patents are constructed by taking the listed manufacturing companies from 2014 to 2018 as is research object and through the adoption of the panel data from China Stock Market Accounting Research (CSMAR) Database, National Public Service Platform for Standards Information and CNKI- Chinese Standard Full-text Database (SCSF). Meanwhile, the influence mechanism of high-value patents on enterprises' technical standardization capabilities is discussed, and the relationship between high-value patents and technical standardization capabilities in enterprises of different sizes is also further analyzed through the application of resource-based view and signal theory and the integration of patents, standards and resource factors in enterprise context into the same research framework. It is revealed in the research that: (1) High-value patents are conducive to improving enterprises' technical standardization capabilities; (2) Enterprise scale has a positive regulatory effect on the relationship between high-value patents and enterprises' technical standardization capabilities. That is to say, compared with small-scale enterprises, high-value patents of large-scale enterprises play a greater role in promoting enterprises' technical standardization capabilities.
At present, scientific and technological innovation, and popularization of science are increasingly integrated. Science popularization is becoming more and more important for improving citizens’ scientific literacy, cultivating innovative talents, cultivating innovative atmosphere, strengthening strategic scientific and technological strength, and empowering national governance capabilities and governance systems modernization. The construction of high-level science popularization think tanks has become inevitable requirement in the new stage of development. This paper discusses the importance of constructing high-level science popularization think tanks in terms of serving scientific decision-making, uniting and leading the public to participate in democratic decision-making, and strengthening public opinion guidance. Starting from the central government’s requirements for constructing national high-level think tanks and science popularization service government’s scientific decision-making, this article defines the connotation features of high-level science popularization think tanks and analyzes the basics of high-level science popularization think tanks in terms of construction goals, research content, service targets, and endogenous motivation. For a long time, the two fields of science popularization and think tanks have been divided in China. In most cases, popular science work and popular science research are limited to how to popularize scientific and technological knowledge, and there is still a considerable distance from advisory advice and strategic support. The main problems include the dispersion of work forces, the inconsistency of the organizational structure with the needs of think tank construction, insufficient incentive mechanisms, and poor delivery channels for supply and demand of think tank products. This article combs the literature on the management mechanism and construction path of think tanks at home and abroad in recent years, and the practice of science popularization service decision-making. It constructs an analysis framework for the construction path of high-level science popularization think tanks from the three dimensions of governance system, product production and influence. From these three dimensions, a comparative analysis of the construction practice of national high-level think tanks and excellent domestic and foreign science and technology think tanks is carried out, and practical guidelines for the construction of high-level science popularization think tanks are summarized. This article compares and analyzes the construction experience of 13 national high-level think tanks and science and technology think tanks at home and abroad by means of field surveys, interviews, and literature research. It summarizes and put forward paths for the construction of high-level science popularization think tanks, including establishing a scientific think tank governance system, optimizing the production mechanism of think tank products, and enhancing the influence of think tanks in decision-making. At present, the construction of high-level science popularization think tanks is in the ascendant. It is necessary to scientifically understand the dual relationship between popular science and think tanks, and recognize the important role of popular science from the perspective of serving the country. It is necessary to focus not only on how to optimize the policy research of science popularization work and promote the development of science popularization, but also how to use science popularization work to better serve government’s scientific decision-making, and closely integrate the practice of popular science with the practice of national governance modernization. It will play an important supporting role in public decision-making, crisis response, public opinion guidance, and high-quality economic and social development.
The characteristic of digital technology has profoundly changed the process and results of innovation, presenting changes such as open innovation process, fuzzy boundary, resource liquefaction, multi-dimensional value co-creation, cross-border network structure, etc. Especially, in the era of open innovation, enterprises’ innovation is no longer the task of a single organization, but of an innovation ecosystem composed of multiple organizations. Traditional enterprises have formed a new organizational type of open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises. However, the current research is still in the initial stage of concept discussion and feature induction, and it is urgent to build a systematic theoretical framework for the future research.
First, as a new organization type formed by the digital transformation of traditional enterprises under the background of digital technology, the definition of the concept of the open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises should be based on the definition of the concept of the open innovation ecosystem of enterprises and the digital transformation enterprise. Therefore, based on these two concepts, this paper tries to clarify “what” the open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises is.
Then, scholars’ research on the open innovation ecosystem mainly focuses on concept discussion and feature induction, there is a lack of attention to “why” and “how” construct the open innovation ecosystem. Meanwhile, scholars have recognized the basic view that digital technology promotes digital transformation enterprises to present an open innovation ecosystem, and have believed that digital technology makes the central enterprises in the system play an increasingly important role. However, scholars have failed to further explore how central enterprises design and build open innovation ecosystems. Therefore, combined with these current two research basis, this paper clarifies “why” the research on the construction of open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises is urgently needed.
Finally, this paper puts forward a research framework including “pattern identification - construction motivation - construction logic - construction process”, and points out “how” to carry out research on the construction of open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises in the future. In terms of pattern identification, this paper argues that different types of open innovation ecosystems of digital transformation enterprises can be identified according to the two dimensions of openness and centrality. In terms of construction motivation, this paper argues that schoolrs should systematically discuss why the open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises constructs, namely the architecture of the construction motivation driven by digital technology. In terms of construction logic, this paper argues that schoolrs should focus on the bridges of why and how the open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises constructs, namely the types and formation mechanisms of their construction logics. In terms of construction process, this paper argues that schoolrs should focus on how to construct four types of open innovation ecosystems of digital transformation enterprises, namely their construction process patterns and evolution rules.
This paper will help guide scholars to deepen and expand the open innovation ecosystem research from the current primary stage to the concrete research, and enrich the research on the organizational types of digital transformation enterprises. Therefore, this paper lays a solid theoretical foundation for the research on the construction of open innovation ecosystem of digital transformation enterprises.
Public research institutes are one of the important actors in national innovation system. Identifying the role of public scientific research institutes in the national innovation system could promote the comparative research and evolution analysis of public research institutions. Based on typological analysis logic, a role classification model of public research institutes is established from two dimensions of social network analysis: network size and mediating role, and an empirical analysis is carried out with the research institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The study found the role types of the research institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the field characteristics behind the role differences.
The new generation of digital and intelligent technology is developing rapidly. As a product of the deep integration of digital and intelligent technology and manufacturing technology, the artificial intelligence technology represented by industrial robots has broad application prospects and is the key to promoting the fourth industrial revolution. According to data provided by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China's industrial robot sales reached 168,400 units in 2020 with a growth rate of nearly 20%, exceeding the total number of robots installed in Europe and the Americas, and has become the backbone of the development of the robotics industry at the world level. Industrial robots can help companies reduce costs and improve efficiency, and their rapid development has greatly boosted the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. General Secretary Xi pointed out that "the integration of a new generation of information technology, robots, and intelligent manufacturing technology is accelerating." At the same time, China proposed to adhere to the core position of innovation in the overall modernization drive, enhance the technological innovation capabilities of enterprises, stimulate the innovation vitality of talents, and transform from the traditional "factor-driven" to "innovation-driven" development model. How to empower the digital and intelligent transformation of enterprises and promote enterprise innovation has become a major proposition. Specifically, industrial robots promote enterprise innovation through "learning by doing", knowledge spillovers, improving labor structure, and forming competitive advantages. What’s more, industrial robots can promote the innovation of manufacturing enterprises by increasing the number of high-quality labor and improving the skill level of the existing labor.
This paper selects China's industrial robot data and listed company innovation data from 2011 to 2019 as research samples, empirically explores the impact of industrial robots on enterprise innovation, and analyzes the mediating role of human capital. The research results show that industrial robots have a promotion effect on enterprise innovation, and this promotion effect remains stable after multiple tests. Further research finds that human capital plays a partial intermediary role in the improvement of the innovation level of enterprises. Industrial robots improve the level of the human capital of enterprises from two dimensions of increasing high-quality labor and improving the skill level of existing employees, thereby improving the innovation level of enterprises. This paper further examines the changes in the effect of industrial robots on the improvement of the innovation level of enterprises when some properties of the enterprises themselves change. The group regression is carried out on the type of enterprise ownership and financing constraints, and it is found that in state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and other enterprises, industrial robots have a significant positive impact on the innovation and invention patents and total patent output of enterprises. The industrial robot has no significant effect on the invention patent output of enterprises with large financing constraints, and the industrial robot has a significant improvement effect on the invention patent output and total patent output of enterprises with small and small financing constraints. This paper puts forward corresponding policy recommendations based on theoretical analysis and empirical research results. This paper promotes the research of industrial robots on enterprise innovation, and has important implications for helping enterprises to transform and upgrade digitally and intelligently, and promote the competitiveness of industries empowered by digital and intelligent technology.
The key breakthrough of promoting the effect of industrial technology innovation lies in defining the path of technological innovation. Based on integrated circuit related technology patents, analyze the structural characteristics of industrial cooperative innovation networks, and outline typical cooperative innovation paths; explore the formation process and influencing factors of integrated circuit technology cooperative innovation networks, use complex networks to build knowledge innovation network evolution models, and analyze through simulation analysis, the paper further analyzes the change of innovation performance and the evolution of network structure. The results show that the knowledge innovation ability has a significant positive effect on the performance of cooperative innovation, and the adoption of multi-type technology innovation strategy is beneficial to the development of the innovation subject when the technological differences among the participants are large, when the technological differences among the participants are small, the centralized technological innovation strategy is appropriate. The degree of dependence on technology path will influence the choice of partner strategy, and the degree of dependence beyond a certain threshold will seriously inhibit the improvement of innovation performance, and the inhibition effect can be weakened to some extent by improving the innovation ability of the innovation subject. On the basis of model simulation analysis, three optimization paths for technological innovation in China's integrated circuit industry are proposed, namely "innovative network edge nodes seek 'aggregation nodes'", "technological innovation-oriented node extension cooperation" and "market revenue-oriented node strengthening" internal connections".
