Abstract

　　This paper clearly defines the concepts of the national competitiveness, the national S&T competitiveness, and the national S&T competitiveness structure. It develops an evaluation framework with three dimensions: the national S&T competitive potential, the national S&T competitive strength and the national S&T competitive effectiveness. This paper proposes a structure analysis method and depicts the national S&T competitiveness structure of 35 countries in an empirical research. Apart from the definitions and the structure analysis method, this paper mainly draws the following conclusions: (1) In the one-dimensional national S&T competitiveness structure, the top 5 countries were all developed countries in 2015, while the developing countries generally performed better than developed countries considering the average annual growth rate of the national S&T competitiveness index. The 35 countries are clustered into 4 categories using the two-dimensional structure analysis method. For example, based on the ranking of the national S&T competitive strength index and the national S&T competitive effectiveness index of the 35 countries in 2015, the 35 countries are clustered into four categories: high-strength and high-effectiveness, low-strength and high-effectiveness, low-strength and low-effectiveness, and high-strength and low-effectiveness. (2) To a large extent, there is a significant correlation between the national S&T competitiveness index score and the GDP per capita value. And to a certain extent, there is some correlation between the national S&T competitiveness index score and the GDP value. Moreover, under the background of strength and effectiveness combination, or under the background of strength and potential combination, the national S&T competitiveness structure and GDP or GDP per capita show significant relationship.