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Keywords

Double First-Class construction, R&D talent aggregation, spatial spillover, R&D expense

Abstract

The existing literatures focus on the performance evaluation of Double First-Class universities. However, promoting first-class universities and first-class disciplines is not the only goal of Double First-Class construction. Serving the strategic needs of national and regional development and providing scientific and technological talents for regional innovation is also an important goal of Double First-Class construction. The effectiveness of Double FirstClass construction in serving the national and regional development strategy, integrating into the regional innovation system, and providing high-level R&D talents for regional innovation has become an urgent and important issue to be solved in the academic community. This paper first discusses the impact mechanism of Double First-Class construction on regional R&D talent agglomeration. Three hypotheses are proposed. First, Double First-Class construction has a positive impact on regional R&D talent agglomeration. Second, Double First-Class construction will strengthen the positive effect of R&D investments on regional R&D talent agglomeration. Third, Double First-Class construction has multiple spatial spillover effects on regional R&D talent agglomeration. Then, spatial autoregressive models for panel data are adopted to verify the contribution of Double First-Class on R&D talent agglomeration in China. Spatial autoregressive models can fit models with spatial lags of dependent variables, spatial lags of independent variables, and spatially autoregressive errors. The spatial features can be used in any combination. The main research findings are as follows. In eastern China, it promotes both the talent agglomeration in the region as well as in the economic and geographical proximity regions, and greatly support talent provision for regional collaborative innovation. In central China, it promotes the talent agglomeration in the region and produces siphon effect of the talents in the adjacent regions. Compared with eastern China, central China relies much more on Double FirstClass construction to attract talents. In western China, it produces siphon effect of the talents in the adjacent areas and does not help the talent agglomeration in the region. The siphon effect in western China is lower than in central China. R&D expense has a positive impact on the regional talent agglomeration in China. In the eastern and central China, Double First-Class amplifies the positive effect of R&D expense and indirectly promotes talent agglomeration. In western China, Double First-Class could not amplifies this positive effect of R&D expense. Finally, policy recommendations are given in terms of the research findings. The key of Double First-Class construction is its supporting role for high-quality economic and social development. The efficient response to high-quality development is an inevitable path for Double First-Class construction. Double First-Class construction must be based on disciplines, make demand-oriented adjustment of disciplinary layout, and form comparative advantages in regional economy with disciplinary characteristics. In central and western China, Double First-Class construction should optimize the discipline layout, promote interdisciplinary integration around industrial innovation, and strengthen the discipline foundation of cultivating R&D talents. In eastern China, Double First-Class construction should target global technological competition, strengthen the discipline layout of breakthrough technologies, promote major original innovation in basic disciplines, and solve the problem of insufficient supply of high-level R&D talents.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2023.05.003

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