Abstract

As a novel driving force for high-quality economic development, scientific and technological innovation in universities is of great significance to promoting high-quality regional economic development and achieving overall coordinated development of the national economy. In order to objectively present the impact mechanism of scientific and technological innovation capabilities of universities on high-quality economic development in the central and western regions and give full play to the driving role of scientific and technological innovation in universities on economic development in the central and western regions, the economic development data of 18 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the central and western regions from 2011 to 2020 and the scientific and technological innovation data of universities in the previous year were selected. The entropy method was used to calculate the level of high-quality economic development and the scientific and technological innovation capabilities of universities, and the two-way fixed effect panel model was used to examine the impact of scientific and technological innovation on high-quality economic development. The study found that the scientific and technological innovation capabilities of universities are closely related to the level of economic development in the central and western regions; the three major elements of scientific and technological innovation in universities have a significant positive impact on high-quality economic development; the input and output of scientific and technological innovation in universities have a significant impact on economic innovation development, and the process of scientific and technological innovation has a significant positive impact on economic openness and shared development; the regional heterogeneity test shows that there are differences in the impact of scientific and technological innovation results of universities on high-quality economic development in the central and western regions, while the regional heterogeneity test shows that there are differences in the impact of scientific and technological innovation results of universities on high- quality economic development in the central and western regions. In summary, the government should start from the aspects of financial investment in scientific research and the formulation of scientific and technological innovation goals, promote the improvement of scientific and technological innovation capabilities of colleges and universities, and drive the high-quality economic development of the central and western regions.

Keywords: Central and western regions, Scientific and technological innovation in universities, High-quality economic development