The effect of basic research on scientific breakthroughs:Evidence from biomedical firms
Basic research is the source of innovation which has a significant impact on the development of high-tech firms in particu-lar.Nowadays,the industrial transformation resulting from scientific research has elevated the importance of basic research to a higher level.Exploring the effect of basic research on firms'scientific breakthroughs becomes a significant issue,which can help firms asses the effectiveness of investments in basic research.However,the lack of precise measurement methods of basicness has been a hin-drance to this line of inquiry.Traditional indexes,such as funding allocation and citation counts,indirectly measure the intensity of basic research,which would possibly introduce potential inaccuracies and finally compromise the validity of the conclusions drawn.To this end,this study applies Level Score(LS),a quantitative index that we proposed in our previous research,which can well quantita-tively measure the basic level of a research paper,to identify firms'basic research.Based on the publication data of global biomedical firms from 2015 to 2017,this study uses regression analysis to explore the influence of basic research on firms'scientific break-throughs.Different measurement methods of firms'scientific breakthroughs based on citation rank and expert recommendation are used in this study for regression analysis and robustness test to avoid the limitations of previous studies that measure scientific breakthroughs from a single perspective.The results of our study show that:first,the number of basic research papers and applied research papers referenced by biomedical firms can significantly and positively affect the number of papers they produce,in line with the basic input-output relationship.Second,basic knowledge plays a key role in the output of firms'scientific output.A higher proportion of basic re-search in knowledge inputs correlates with an augmented production of scientific breakthrough papers.Meanwhile,enhancing the aver-age basicness of knowledge inputs facilitates biomedical firms to produce more scientific breakthrough papers.Finally,we also find that in terms of research types,a more diverse knowledge combination increases the likelihood of producing scientific breakthroughs.This result is consistent with some of the previous studies that the birth of breakthroughs may depend on the recombination of existing knowl-edge.Firms need to learn both basic and applied research knowledge and actively explore the possibility of combining the two types of knowledge for breakthrough innovation.By applying the Level Score index in biomedicine industry,this study further verify its feasibili-ty in measuring basic research.We believe that this index has the potential to be further promoted in both theoretical and empirical re-search of science and technology assessment.In this study,we empirically validates the contribution of basic research to scientific breakthrough innovations,which can help improve the measurement methods of basic research and provide more empirical evidence for the field of biomedicine.The conclusions can provide a scientific basis for firms in the field of biomedicine to increase their investment in basic research and enhance their basic research capacity.Meanwhile,certain insights and theoretical support will be given for the government to formulate related scientific and technology policies.
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