专访牛津教授傅晓岚：中国式创新之路为发展中国家提供借鉴

根据世界知识产权组织今年发布的《2022年全球创新指数报告》，中国在世界排名第11位，在所有发展中国家中排名第一，甚至超越了许多发达国家。在傅晓岚看来，中国虽然在论文数量、专利申请和授予量等方面已然处于世界前列，但与领先的创新国家之间仍存在差距，特别是在突破性创新创造方面。

According to the global innovation index 2022 published this year by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), China ranked eleventh in the world, ranking at the top of all the developing countries, and also has taken over many of the developed countries. In terms of the number of publications and also the number of patent applications and granted, China is at the top of the world,. However, there are still gaps between China and leading innovative countries, especially in terms of groundbreaking innovation.

The typical innovative countries in the world that people normally refer to, include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, the Nordic countries like Finland, Sweden, and recently South Korea. These innovative countries normally have a strong national innovation system. This includes a strong science base, creative R&D manpower, dynamic and innovative companies, strong university and industry linkages, and an environment that favors creativity and innovation and encourages risk-taking and being different. It also has a well-developed innovation ecosystem  with not only firms and  universities, but also the venture capitals, and specialized consultancy and legal services.

For China to make breakthroughs in critical technology fields, especially "bottleneck" ones, I would recommend using a three-pronged method, i.e., work on three driving forces. The first driver is to enhance R&D efforts in those bottleneck technology fields. The second driver is to encourage research driven by free thinking and exploration, so that people can experiment with their ideas motivated by interests and curiosity. Thirdly, Problem-solving is also an effective mechanism to inspire ground-breaking innovation. 

傅晓岚认为，中国创新政策有四大亮点：一是技术转让与自主创新的良好结合；二是中国在实施和扩大创新政策之前先进行试点，并且因地制宜，允许多种不同的政策在不同地区同时存在；三是以解决问题为导向，设定了非常明确的目标；四是对创新研发的投资非常强劲。在创新研发方面，中国政府切实地做出了强有力的承诺，研发投资超过了所有欧洲国家的总和，在全世界排名第二，仅次于美国。

I think one of the highlights of China's innovation policy is a good combination of technology transfer and indigenous innovation. Secondly, China uses pilots before introducing and scaling up the innovation policies and allows a variety of policies across different regions in this big country. Thirdly, China’s innovation policy had strong and clear targets and is oriented for problem-solving. Fourthly, China has made very strong R&D investments into innovation in the past ten years. Chinese government has made strong commitments on R&D investment. If we compare China with the European countries, China’s R&D investment exceeds the total of all the Europeans countries. China ranks second in terms of R&D expenditure in the world, only after the United States. 

中国过去40多年的改革开放和经济增长，以及在技术创新方面不断加强能力建设、赶超发达国家的经验，为其他发展中国家提供了重要借鉴。傅晓岚认为，其中最值得强调的一点是开放的国家创新体系。

China's 40 years of reforms and opening up and the dramatic economic growth, and also China's catch-up in innovation and technology offer many lessons for other developing countries. And if I want to highlight one, I think that is the open national innovation system, which is the Chinese model of innovation capabilities development and catch-up.

中国的创新是一个动态过程：早期阶段更多地依赖于技术转让，而现在则越来越重视自主创新。由于中国的开放恰逢一个日益全球化的时代，中国的创新体系对全球创新体系保持开放。在这个体系中，市场和国家共同发挥着驱动创新的作用，而且可以充分调动国内和国际两个资源、两个市场。因此，相比传统的、只依赖于一个驱动因素的创新体系，中国的创新体系更有效率，运行速度更快。

This is a dynamic process for China’s innovation. In the early stage, the country normally relies more on technology transfer and gradually China places more emphasis on indigenous innovation in its open innovation system. The Chinese innovation system is open to the global innovation system, because China’s opening-up took place in the era with the increasing globalization. In this system, we have the market and the state both of which play an important role as two drivers of innovation for the country and use the resources, talents, capital, and markets, both domestically and internationally. Therefore, this open national innovation system with two drivers - the state and the market, is more efficient and running faster than the traditional innovation system, which only relies on one driver.

随着世界各国对气候问题日益关注，傅晓岚指出，绿色转型和新能源技术将为中国和其他发展中国家提供了一个引领创新的机遇窗口。它可以为经济增长提供源动力，为国家创造收入、就业机会和出口。

This green transformation will bring a new window of opportunity. We call it green windows of opportunity to China and to many developing countries. This becomes a source of economic growth, and creates income, jobs and exports for countries. 

发展中国家作为后发国家可以以较低的沉没成本跨越到新的发展模式。因此，基于中国的经验，这个绿色机遇窗口也可以应用于其他发展中国家。中国正在致力于实现零碳排放，这一可持续发展转型将为中国带来巨大机遇，不仅是发展绿色产业的机遇，也是革新其现有传统产业的机遇，使其更清洁，更节能，生产成本更低，提升中国制造业和其他行业的生产效率。

The developing countries as latecomers have lower sunk cost and it can leapfrog to a new development paradigm without heavy sunk costs. Therefore, this green windows of opportunity, based on China's experience, can be offered to other developing countries too. While China is aiming to achieve the zero-carbon emission in the future, this green and sustainability transformation will bring a huge opportunity for China not only to develop the green sector, but also to revolutionize its existing traditional industry, making it cleaner, more energy-efficient, producing at even lower cost, and higher-level efficiency and productivity .