Evolution of Chinese original-innovation talent policies: a topic modelling approach

ABSTRACTOriginal-innovation talent significantly influences a nation's competitive edge. Consequently, supportive policies towards original-innovation talents are critical for the enhancement of national innovation governance. This study utilised a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the development and evolution of 334 original-innovation talent policies enacted in China from 1978 to 2022, where we scrutinised the features and progression of China's original-innovation talent policies and recapitulated the course of their maturation. Semantic analysis was employed to pinpoint the keyword characteristics of these policies, while the LDA model was utilised to extract relevant information, study the evolution of topic intensity, and dissect the fluctuation of topic intensity across various periods. The results indicated that China's original-innovation talent policies have metamorphosed in alignment with the nation's development objectives, which now focus predominantly on the support of breakthroughs in key core technologies and basic research. The paper concludes with suggestions for strengthening the top-level design of policies, optimising incentive policies, and creating a supportive environment for original innovation.KEYWORDS: Talents policyLDAcontent analysistopic evolution AcknowledgementsThe findings and observations contained in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporters.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [grant no 20AJY0043].Notes on contributorsLiuxuan LinLiuxuan Lin Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Visualisation. Liuxuan Lin is a Ph.D. student in the School of Economics and Management of Fuzhou University. With the major in Policy Science and Innovation of Government Management, her research focuses on technology innovation management, policy metrics, and talent studies.Yalan ChenYalan Chen Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Yalan Chen is a Professor in the School of Economics and Management of Fuzhou University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Wuhan University of Technology and is currently the deputy dean of the Institute of Public Administration in the School of Economics and Management of Fuzhou University, executive director of Science and Technology Policy and Management Research Association under Chinese Academy of Sciences, executive director of Fujian Technology Economics and Management Association, executive director of Fujian Administrative Management Association, etc. Her research focuses on innovation management and technology policy, and human resource management. She also leads a number of key projects including National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, China Soft Science projects, etc.