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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Spatiotemporal Evolution Characteristics
and Driving Forces of Regional Sustainable
Innovation Efficiency
in the Yangtze River Delta Region
1
School of Geographic Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China
2
Yangtze River Economic Zone Research Institution of Jiangsu, Nantong 226019, China
Submission date: 2024-09-10
Final revision date: 2024-12-06
Acceptance date: 2024-12-16
Online publication date: 2025-02-17
Publication date: 2026-01-30
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2026;35(1):1059-1072
KEYWORDS
Regional Sustainable Innovation Efficiencyspatial and temporal evolutionspatial econometric modelsundesirable outputsthe Yangtze River Delta region
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Sustainable innovation is a new paradigm for innovative development related to sustainable
development. This paper selects 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2012 to 2021.
It applies the super-efficiency SBM-Undesirable model to measure regional sustainable innovation
efficiency (RSIE). It introduces the standard deviation ellipse, the Hurst index, spatial econometric
models, etc., to depict the spatial pattern, spatiotemporal evolution, and the driving forces of the RSIE.
The results show that: 1) The RSIE in the study region showed a basic trend of fluctuation and increase
during the study period, with regional differences decreasing year by year. 2) The RSIE is distributed
in a “southeast-northwest” direction, and the center of gravity is shifted in a spatial characteristic of
“first to the south, then to the north”. 3) Nanjing, Hangzhou, and their surrounding areas will emerge as
the future growth poles for the RSIE. 4) A favorable socio-cultural and innovative learning environment,
high salary levels, and enterprise clustering boost the RSIE, while unreasonable government funding
and environmental regulation hinder it. Both government funding and enterprise clustering exhibit
positive spatial spillovers, while infrastructure has negative ones.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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| ISSN: | 1230-1485 |
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