Depth and Width of Collaborative Innovation Networks and High-Quality Development

The key driving force for high-quality development is innovation, and collaborative innovation is an important form of organizing and realizing innovation. However, the impact of collaborative innovation networks on high-quality regional development remains unclear. At the city cluster level, this study analyzes more than 300,000 patent data based on the data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2012 to 2020 using the crawler method and social network analysis. The results show that, first, collaborative innovation in China is characterized by growth, network, and structural stability. Second, collaborative innovation can significantly improve the high-quality development of urban economies by reducing human resource mismatch and increasing the “intensive margin” and “expansive margin” of innovation. Third, at the national level, increased urban collaboration in terms of width and depth has contributed to the economy’s high-quality development. However, the two have not yet demonstrated complementarity, although at the level of urban agglomerations, the two are significantly complementary. Fourth, heterogeneity analysis shows that collaborative innovation is more effective in promoting high-quality development for highly matured city clusters and cities with robust innovation capacity. It can considerably overcome geographical constraints. From the regional heterogeneity perspective, the promotion of high-quality development through collaborative innovation is stronger in southern and central China. It is recommended that emerging market countries and city clusters focus on constructing and developing collaborative innovation networks and promoting high-quality economic development through measures such as increasing network density, enhancing the breadth and depth of synergies among cities, and developing differentiated policies.