How does alliance-based government-university-industry foster cleantech innovation in a green innovation ecosystem?

Abstract Addressing the high research and development risk and negative externality of existing green technology alliances, the Chinese government is focusing on the green innovation ecosystem to facilitate the green collaborative innovation activities of the government-university-industry alliance. However, green innovation ecosystems often suffer from insufficient stability because of high costs, low profits, and long-term return on investment for cleantech innovation. The existing literature analyzed the impact of environmental regulation on cleantech innovation and the effect of innovation ecosystem on the function and role of multi-agent collaborative innovation. However, what are key factors affecting the stabilization of the green innovation ecosystem, and what the effects of environmental regulation policies on the multi-agent collaborative innovation in this ecosystem? To fill these gaps, unlike previous studies in the green innovation literature, this study employed game-based theory to reveal the game strategy changes during the green innovation process, and examine the evolutionary game mechanism of environmental regulation in university-industry ecological innovation alliances. On this basis, the case simulation method is used to change parameter values to simulate key factors that affect the stability of the green innovation ecosystem in multi-agent collaborative innovation. Research shows that there will be two final strategies for evolutionary game analysis: first, industry groups and university groups will adopt the collaborative innovation strategy; second. industry groups and university groups will adopt the betrayal alliance strategy. In the market mechanism, higher default costs and the distribution ratio of research and development costs and green innovation benefits are key factors effecting the stabilization of the green innovation ecosystem. However, the introduction of stricter environmental regulations can make up for shortcomings of the market failure. Specifically, the penalty costs and innovation subsidies that the government offers to industry groups and university groups have a positive correlation with the stabilization of the green innovation ecosystem.