Abstract

　　While researchers have used the traditional index system – part of the niche-fitness model – to evaluate the innovation ecosystem, this index system can be seen as not being sufficiently objective, with the consequent problem that it gives equal weight to the indicators and so does not specify the important factors. To remedy this problem of insufficient objectivity, this paper seeks to improve the traditional niche-fitness model in two ways, which are based on the theory of the innovation ecosystem. First, by introducing the principal components analytic method to solve multiple mutual linear problems. Second, by constructing a new evaluation index system from the four aspects of openness, synergy, sustainability, and growth. This new evaluation index system is closer to the characteristics of the organic and evolutionary nature of the sustainable innovation ecosystem compared with the traditional index system. By using the evaluation index system, the research carries out a health assessment for the sustainable innovation ecosystems in different regions of provincial and municipal China from the two perspectives of descriptive and quantitative analyses. Through these analyses, our findings suggest that the sustainable regional innovation ecosystems in China are, on the whole, in an imbalance: there is a gradual decreasing trend from the eastern coastal areas to the central and western regions, and then the northeast regions.