Evaluation and Prediction of Regional Innovation Ecosystem from the Perspective of Ecological Niche: Nine Cities in Hubei Province, China as the Cases

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to read your prepared manuscript.

Here are some comments which might contribute to the increase of the quality of your study:

- the corresponding author in the list of co-authors is missing, address of institution and email is missing too.

- the abstract does not give a clue about the aim of the research (what scientific problem is solved there);

- The structure of the paper does not rely on journal requirements (introduction is missing).

- "Preface" now is focused on China's content and political background. However, readers of the journal expect authors to provide the introduction - with the "scientific background" of the problem, relevance and novelty of the research for the whole scientific basis, the aim of the study, objectives of the research, and the to provide criteria of China selection for this case study. This is what we expect from authors. Information which is now provided in "preface" might go too, but not alone without scientific background.

- Why literature review's text is provided in a different size?

- Literature references are provided in a different style for this journal than it is required, so authors must check and correct before resubmission.

- Literature review is formally based on Chinese scientists works. However, there are a lot of different researches abroad. Moreover, this journal is very much international and authors must show knowledge of the field despite borders. Not sure if just summarizing previous researches (every study separately) is enough for the literature review - analysis (comparison, grouping, etc. are needed). Please, make a revision of your literature review and find some similarities/differences, common insights to emphasize (maybe you will reduce the length of this part too). Moreover, please, use international sources you may cite to give arguments for your study.

- Methodology part misses paragraph about the research ethics. It must be described which research ethics principles and how were adopted in this study. I missed information about data sources and their openness. Why particular period and why nine regions were selected for the sample? It needs to be explained.

- The discussion part is missing - how implications from this research complies to previous studies and how it enrich the field knowledge. Besides, research limitations are missing too.

- The last part should be conclusions and recommendations. 

- List of references must be reviewed due to style requitements.

- Some important parts are missing as author contributions, conflict of interest, etc. Please, take a look to the journal's template to see what is still missing.

- Looking to this manuscripts' length it seems it is too long for one paper. Maybe authors could decide on the narrower aspect to be presented in one paper?

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

It could be reviewed after resubmission on updated version.

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to give some suggestions for our manuscript. The response is in the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Within the paper, the authors apply ecological theory to the study of regional innovation. This demonstrates novelty of the research and deep knowledge of the authors. The authors illustrate the calculation process of regional innovation niche suitability and evolutionary momentum and apply the approach to the case study of 9 prefecture-level cities in Hubei Province from 2017 to 2022. The authors evaluate such indicators as innovation benefits, innovation technology, innovation culture and innovation policy. The paper demonstrates interdisciplinary approach to the study of regional innovation. It is noteworthy that the authors offer recommendations for cities given the analysis results. Thus, the paper demonstrates both scientific and practical constitutions. The authors select and analyze relevant factors that directly affect the suitability level of innovation niche in each region.

Recommendations for enhancements includes the following points: 1) The authors need to be precise in terminology use. Terms ‘niche suitability’, ‘evolution momentum’, ‘evolutionary momentum’, ‘innovation ecosystem’, ‘innovation ecological niche’ have to be precisely defined for the purpose of regional economic studies. 2) Benefits of application of ecological theory to the study of regional innovation have to be indicated. Such information will highlight contribution of this paper. 3) Research question/hypothesis is necessary to elaborate. 4) Literature review is not structured thematically, research gap that has to be addressed is not indicated. Theses issues have to be improved.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

It is recommended to proofread the article for the style and grammar. For example, see line 557 "resources created to create new technologies".

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to give some suggestions for our manuscript. The response is in the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.      This paper in general clearly indicates its research steps and results.  It is a paper backed up by the numerical evidence.  However, some fundamental issues remain to clarify or improve.

2.      It is not clear why these nine cities in Hebei Province in China were selected for empirical research. The authors use the domestic leader’s saying to justify the research motivations, “As President…”  However, these domestic propaganda or authorities may not be sufficient to justify the research motivations of an international journal article.  It is better to highlight why and how these nine cities are worth researching for theoretical, empirical, or policy reference, especially to international readers.

3.      As pp. 4-6 indicate, this paper computes the weight on each niche (sub-index) and then computes the total scores of these nine cities.  It is then clear if these equations on pp. 4-6 are applied from the existing literature or partially first proposed       by the authors.  The sources of equations should be explicitly indicated.  The methodology papers should be cited.

4.      Usually equations are labeled by only parentheses and a number in the text.  ‘Formula’ used in this paper is not an appropriate term.  It is better to use the term ‘equation’ in the text and (number) in the end of an equation.

5.      The font size in Figure 1 is too small.  It is difficult to read. The terms in Figure 1 should be shown in a larger font.

6.      The font size in Figure 2 is too small.  It is difficult to read.  The word number for each caption in Figure 2 should be reduced and the terms should be shown in a larger font.

7.      According to pp. 4-6, these weights should be obtained by an objective process instead of a subjective process (such as AHP or other approaches using experts’ opinion).  The benefits of using such an objective approach should be more elaborated.  There are other objective approaches to obtain the weights such as DEA.  The advantage of using the current GM(1,1) model should be further addressed.

8.      The data source of Table 2 looks strange.  Usually there is no data source indicated if the numerical results are computed or solved by the authors.

9.      The format of Table 6 is not consistent with other tables’.

10.  Even though Figures 4 to 6 are nicely drawn, it is not clearly why the sustainability scores of these nine cities should be studied and why they are important to international readers.  The authors should elaborate more on what foreign readers can learn from reading the sustainability scores of these nine cities.

11.  In conclusions, in addition to the suggestions to the local readers, the linkage with the environmental theories and reference values to foreign readers should be also reinforced.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate proofreading is required.

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to give some suggestions for our manuscript. The response is in the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

 

Thank you for your efforts to follow all comments from the previous review process and to improve the quality of your paper.

Congratulations, now its scientific soundness is much better because of introduction and literature review improvements.

However I see that just 2 out of 27 used resources are from other than Chinese academic community. Would you be so kind to strengthen this part? You mention particular authors "and others...", but never give details. So I would suggest to find authors of other universities and countries, supporting your ideas in the literature analysis part.

My comment about research ethics was not fulfilled. You do not need to explain the context of the country you did the research. I have expected you to identify which research ethics principles (issues) you applied and how in your research. You may find examples of research ethics principles here.

Examples of research ethics' issues:

Ethical issue	Definition
Voluntary participation	Your participants are free to opt in or out of the study at any point in time.
Informed consent	Participants know the purpose, benefits, risks, and funding behind the study before they agree or decline to join.
Anonymity	You don’t know the identities of the participants. Personally identifiable data is not collected.
Confidentiality	You know who the participants are but you keep that information hidden from everyone else. You anonymize personally identifiable data so that it can’t be linked to other data by anyone else.
Potential for harm	Physical, social, psychological and all other types of harm are kept to an absolute minimum.
Results communication	You ensure your work is free of plagiarism or research misconduct, and you accurately represent your results.

Source: https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/research-ethics/

Or such as here: https://www.forskningsetikk.no/en/resources/the-research-ethics-library/methods/quantitative-methods/

For example, it must be said about the access to open data or how did you gathered these data; that you were enough objective and fair while interpretating results, etc. This is what I have expected from the small paragraph of research ethics (in the research methodology part). Maybe you still can improve it?

Moreover, I was expecting that the discussion part will reveal how your research main insights comply with previous researches (maybe they confirm main insights from previous studies, or otherwise - deny). This is why links to previous studies (references or mentioning some authors) are needed in this part. I would suggest to move your research limitations from the end on your paper to the end of discussion part.

Recommendation part misses institutions/persons/positions to whom you provide those recommendations. This would be very much helpful to understand who can implement them in your analysed content.

Good luck to finalize your research and the manuscript.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Quality of English is enough. 

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to give some suggestions for our manuscript. The response is in the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.     The authors have followed almost all suggestions from this reviewer and made substantial improvements in accordance.  Some minor points remain to clarify or improve.

2.     Figure 1 still has very small font sizes which are very difficult to read.  It is suggested that for the left column items as the main dimensions, the font size should be no less than 14pt.  Some captions have too many words in small font sizes in the right column.  They need to be adjusted.

3.     Table 5 reports the weights.  All of them are less than 0.1.  It is better to indicate the sum of these weights.  Is the sum of these weights equal to one?  If not, please provide some justifications why the sum of weights is not equal to one and why these weights need not be normalized to have a sum of one.

4.     The discussion now is Section 6.  However, this section is less than one page and too short.  It is suggested that Section 6 should be merged with Section 5.

5.     The newly added parts in Section 6 are very informative.  Part of them can be summarized in both conclusions and the abstract.

 

6.     In the references, all authors should be shown.  The reference formats need to be adjusted a lot in accordance with this journal’s formats.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to give some suggestions for our manuscript. The response is in the file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf