Research on Responsible Innovation Performance Evaluation in the Blue Economic Zone of Marine Industry

Responsible innovation is attracting theoretical and practical research attention worldwide due to global climatic changes, severe resource shortages and intensifying environmental deterioration. However, there are still no studies concerning the performance evaluation of responsible innovation in the marine industry. Based on the practices of blue economic zones in China, a responsible innovation performance evaluation system for the marine industry was developed. Based on the data from 2013 to 2018, the responsible innovation performance of the blue economic zone of the marine industry in Shandong Province was evaluated by principal component analysis. The results demonstrated that (1) There was a rank of regions in terms of the comprehensive responsible innovation performance from high to low: Qingdao > Yantai > Weifang > Weihai > Dongying > Binzhou > Rizhao. (2) Considering annual variations, the comprehensive performance of responsible innovation of different regions exhibited slight fluctuations; however, Weihai had demonstrated significant improvement since 2016. (3) The performance trends across various regions indicated that regions exhibiting high performance consistently expanded their advantage over the six-year period. There was a “Matthew effect” in regional development, particularly evident in the disparities between Qingdao and other regions. (4) In regions that rank at the lower end, such as Rizhao, Binzhou, and Dongying, the development of responsible innovation progressed slowly. Finally, some management suggestions to improve innovation performance in the blue economic zone of the marine industry were proposed.