Spatial pattern of knowledge innovation function among Chinese cities and its influencing factors

Knowledge innovation is a key component of urban innovation function and an important basis for modern urban development. Combining the multidisciplinary research of knowledge innovation, this paper constructs a measurement framework of urban knowledge innovation function from the perspective of urban geography and analyzes its spatial pattern and influencing factors. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The function of urban knowledge innovation refers to the tasks and roles it undertakes in the process of knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and knowledge application, which is based on the internal knowledge stock and external practice conditions to meet the needs of human survival and development in the new era. The measurement dimensions include functional scale, functional intensity, functional scale, and functional vitality. (2) The development level of knowledge innovation functions in Chinese cities is uneven, and the cities with outstanding knowledge innovation functions are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal areas and a few developed areas in the central and western regions, forming the diamond-shaped knowledge innovation structure with the Beijing-Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Shaanxi-Chengdu-Chongqing as the four vertices and central Wuhan and Hefei as the center. According to the Jenks natural breakpoint method, it is divided into national-level, regional-level, local-level and knowledge-innovative development cities. (3) The spatial differentiation characteristics of urban knowledge innovation function are simultaneously affected by various natural and human factors. Among them, economic environment, opening environment, and cultural environment have the strongest interactive explanatory power with other factors, and are the dominant factors affecting the city’s knowledge innovation function. In the future, China should fully considers the status and characteristics of the city’s own knowledge economy development with corresponding policies and measures suitable for the development of the city’s knowledge economy, and strengthen the dominant position of human and social factors in the constructing the city’s knowledge innovation function.