The role of Industry-University-Research collaboration in regional technological diversification: An empirical study on the pharmaceutical industry in China

Regional diversification literature has increasingly recognized the importance of diversifying into unrelated technologies. The emergence of technologies is considered the outcome of collaborative efforts, nevertheless, the role of scientific organizations is largely ignored. Especially, we know less about the impact of Industry-University-Research (IUR) collaboration on regional technological diversification. To fill in the gap, we conduct an empirical analysis based on patents from the Chinese Intellectual Patent Office over 2000–2019, in the case of China's pharmaceutical industry. The results show that: (1) Universities are pharmaceutical firms' primary collaborators, followed by research institutes, with hospitals accounting for a relatively small part. (2) There are significant differences in the knowledge bases of actors, with pharmaceutical firms more oriented to the applied field and scientific organizations, especially universities, focusing on basic research. (3) Regions with more IUR collaboration tend to diversify into unrelated technologies about pharmaceuticals, and its role is more evident for inter-regional collaboration. (4) Pharmaceutical firms engaging in IUR collaboration are more likely to diversify into unrelated technologies, while the technological diversification of scientific organizations seems to be irrelevant to IUR collaboration. Furthermore, pharmaceutical firms that collaborate with universities instead of research institutes and hospitals frequently tend to develop unrelated technologies.