Rural sustainable development: A case study of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in China

LIU Binsheng, ZHANG Xiohui, TIAN Junfeng, , CAO Ruimin,SUN Xinzhng, XUE Bin

a School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

b Zaozhuang Science and Technology Bureau, Zaozhuang, 277000, China

c The Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, Beijing, 100036, China

Keywords: : Rural sustainable development Rural innovation capacity Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)Economic sustainability Social sustainability Ecological sustainability Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone

ABSTRACT: Sustainable development is the central theme of modern global development.With the arrival of the urban era, the vulnerability and instability of rural areas have significantly increased, and rural sustainable development faces serious challenges.To address these issues, the study took the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in China under the National Sustainable Development Agenda as a case, combined with economic, social and land use data during 2016–2020, and applied Granger causality test method to explore the theoretical and practical pathways of “innovation-driven rural sustainable development”.The results showed that rural sustainable development and economic sustainability displayed a trend of synergistic change, with “explosive” growth from 2018 to 2020.The social sustainability steadily increased from 2016 to 2020.Ecological and spatial sustainability continuously declined during the study period.Moreover, the rural innovation capacity of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone displayed rapid growth during 2016–2020.Although the rural innovation capacity of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone has rapidly improved, it has a weak driving effect on rural sustainable development and economic sustainability.There are two primary challenges that must be overcome to ensure the rural sustainable development of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.The first challenge is the imbalance among the multi-dimensional relationships in the process of rural sustainable development, and the second challenge is the weakening of rural innovation capacity to drive rural sustainable development.To overcome these challenges, this study proposed a systematic pathway for rural sustainable development in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone from multidimensions, such as policy actions, technologies, projects, and institutional guarantees, and formed a universal and representative “Zaozhuang model”.This study expands the theoretical foundation of rural sustainable development and provides theoretical and practical support for innovation-driven rural sustainable development.

1.Introduction

Since 1987, when the World Commission on Environment and Development published “Our Common Future”,the concept of sustainable development has gradually gained popularity and become the central theme in the development of human society.The United Nations Millennium Summit formulated and promulgated the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 to effectively implement the concept of sustainable development.On this basis, the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development formally adopted “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” in 2015, which proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets.With the 2030 Agenda as a guide, China released “China’s National Plan on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” in September 2016, followed by “China’s Construction Plan of an Innovation Demonstration Zone for the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” in December 2016(Wang et al., 2021).These plans proposed to create an Innovation Demonstration Zone for the National Sustainable Development Agenda, providing “Chinese experience” and “Chinese solutions” for sustainable development, which could be transferred to other regions or countries (Wang et al., 2021).

Agriculture and rural areas are the foundation of human civilization.With the rapid advances in industrialization,urbanization, and globalization, the vulnerability and instability of rural areas have increased and rural sustainable development is facing serious challenges.The problem of rural decline in the global countryside is becoming increasingly prominent.The significant gap between urban and rural areas in terms of facilities, services, and income has driven a continuous outflow of young adults and skills from rural areas (Masot and Gascón, 2021; Cabello-Manrique et al., 2022).Along with the deteriorating of demographic situation, agricultural production efficiency reduces, and the rural economy is in decline (Markey et al., 2008; Liu and Li, 2017).At the same time, demographic deterioration has induced a series of ecological and environmental problems, such as the destruction of rural resources and environment, and the pollution of soil and water (Chaudhary et al., 2018; He et al., 2020).Additionally, the process of globalization presents a serious challenge to rural development and has intensified the process of rural decline.The influx of high-quality and low-cost food and oil products from overseas has had a significant impact on traditional agriculture in developing countries, and the elimination of production processes and the transfer of highly polluting industries have further aggravated environmental pollution and ecological damage in rural areas.As a result of these issues, rural areas, especially those in developing countries, must urgently find new ways to promote their own development, in order to break free from the trap of recession and achieve rural revitalization.

By the end of 2020, China’s urbanization rate has reached 63.89%, with remarkable achievements in industrialization and urbanization.However, there are still 509 million people living in rural areas.There is a national goal to eliminate absolute poverty and build a moderately prosperous society, but China’s rural areas still face a series of problems and dilemmas, such as an insufficient development momentum, the destruction of resources and the environment (Li et al., 2021), and imperfect infrastructure and public service facilities (He et al., 2020; Xu et al.,2021; Ye et al., 2022).These issues have become prominent “short boards”, i.e., factors restricting the overall sustainable development of rural areas and limiting the achievement of sustainable development.Therefore, there is an urgent need to further solve these issues and establish effective policies to support the sustainable development of rural areas.

This study used the indices released by the United Nations SDGs and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) to construct an evaluation index for rural sustainable development capacity and an evaluation system for rural innovation capacity.The Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone, as part of the National Sustainable Development Agenda in China, is used as a case to analyze the pathways and mechanisms of innovation-driven rural sustainable development, with innovation-leading rural sustainable development as the fundamental starting point.This study is of great theoretical and practical significance for guiding rural sustainable development in China and will accelerate the realization of regional and even national sustainable development.

2.Literature review

As the problem of rural decline becomes increasingly apparent, the search for scientific pathways and methods to promote rural transformation and development has become a key focus of rural sustainability research.Several countries have actively implemented measures to address the rural decline process, resulting in practices such as rural revitalization movements, land consolidation, and rural renewal.The key purpose of implementing such measures is to enhance the attractiveness of rural areas and promote the development of urban-rural integration (Wang and Tan,2018).Many theoretical studies have also suggested that in view of the “rural disease” roots in the urban-rural imbalance and inadequate rural development, the key to stopping rural decline and improving rural revitalization is to promote the development of urban-rural integration (He et al., 2020).This would ultimately realize mutual support between urban and rural areas and achieve regional sustainable development (Du et al., 2021).The core strategy is to promote the realization of rural reconstruction (Tu and Long, 2017).

Since the beginning of the 21stcentury, along with rapid urbanization and socio-economic development, the outbreak of “urban diseases” (i.e., traffic congestion and environmental pollution) has drawn widespread attention to the issue of urban sustainable development, which has come to form the core of scientific research on sustainability.In contrast, the issue of rural sustainable development has not received sufficient attention (Li et al., 2021).Previous studies have focused on three aspects of sustainable development: agricultural sustainability, rural community sustainability, and the well-being of rural residents.Agricultural sustainability is the most extensively studied of these issues (He et al., 2020), such as in-depth studies of food system resilience and food security (Khoury et al., 2014;Chaudhary et al., 2018), agroecological intensification and sustainable intensification (Tittonell, 2014; Garibaldi et al., 2017), agroecosystem service trade-offs and synergies (Sun et al., 2018), and the comprehensive evaluations of agricultural system sustainability (De Olde et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019; Qin et al., 2022).Studies of rural community sustainability have focused on pathways to sustainable development via rural tourism, evaluation of the sustainable development of tourism resources (Davardoust and Karahan, 2021; Weng et al., 2021), and the spatial evolution and optimization of rural areas (Lu et al., 2020; Ji et al., 2022).Researches of the well-being of rural residents have focused on the sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods (Nourozi and Hayati, 2018) and the impact of urbanization and new rural constructions on farmers’ well-being and quality of life (Hu et al., 2022).With the introduction of the United Nations SDGs, there has been a growing interest in exploring the correlation between rural sustainable development and SDGs.From the perspective of SDGs, Lin and Hou (2023) developed a sustainable evaluation index system for rural areas by integrating the SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 4 (Quality Education), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 13 (Climate Action) and 15 (Life on Land), which represents the initial application of SDGs for evaluating rural sustainable development.

Since the end of the 20thcentury, the advent of the post-industrial era and the acceleration of economic globalization make innovation as a core driver of national and regional sustainable development, with a particular impact on urban sustainable development.For rural areas, some studies have highlighted that social innovation is the foundation of rural sustainable development (Rover et al., 2017).Innovation is a key factor in the development of rural areas, both in terms of diversification and increased competitiveness (Esparcia, 2014), and it is also the key pathway to achieving high-quality rural revitalization (Zhang and Ren, 2020).The process involves agricultural science and technological innovation, institutional management innovation, network intermediary innovation, and social innovation and entrepreneurship (Yin et al., 2020).It has been reported that the national innovation system has a positive effect on rural economic growth (Wu et al., 2017).Social innovations, such as bottom-linked governance, indicate how planning practices contribute to social and ecological development of rural areas (Castro-Arce and Vanclay, 2020).However, the key processes and core pathways of innovation-driven rural sustainable development need to be further explored.

From a holistic perspective, the existing studies of rural sustainable development are relatively weak.Only a few studies have conducted sustainability evaluations in rural areas (Lin and Hou, 2023), and the framework of SDGs has not been integrated into rural sustainable development processes and pathways.A sustainable development oriented evaluation system has not yet been established.Under the background in which innovation has become the core driving force of national and regional sustainable development, the theoretical foundation of the driving role of innovation in rural sustainable development is poorly understood, and the key processes and pathways are unclear.Several studies have involved qualitative research (Rover et al., 2018; Yin et al., 2020), but there are few quantitative analyses of innovation-driven rural sustainable development.

Based on the above aspects, this study explored the relationship between rural innovation and rural sustainable development.A comprehensive evaluation system was designed for evaluating rural innovation and rural sustainable development, utilizing a theoretical framework of innovation-driven rural reconstruction and sustainable development.The theoretical and practical aspects of this evaluation system are discussed in depth with reference to a case study of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone, China.This study has theoretical and practical significance for the promotion of rural sustainable development in China with the context of rural revitalization.

3.Theoretical framework

Rural reconstruction involves reconfiguring the rural socio-economic form and optimizing the regional spatial pattern via the allocation and effective management of the material and non-material factors affecting rural development.The process then optimizes the internal structure and function of the regional and rural systems, as well as the functional integration between urban and rural regional systems, which are key to achieving rural sustainable development (Tu and Long, 2017).Rural innovation is a process of generating new knowledge and technologies.It is a multi-dimensional process based on innovation inputs and support, including innovation in development concepts,development momentum, and system construction (Li et al., 2019; Yin et al., 2020).Rural innovation can act on the process of rural reconstruction through multiple innovation pathways to promote the realization of rural sustainable development.Specifically, rural economic reconstruction can be realized in the process of rural innovation, such as increasing innovation inputs, strengthening the innovation support environment, promoting innovation in development momentum, and boosting industrial development (Fig.1).One consequence of rural economic reconstruction is the reshaping of the urban and rural relationship, triggering a reorganization of regional and rural development pattern.Through the upgrading of industrial function led by development momentum innovation, the intensive use of production space is promoted.This will change the spatial development and utilization mode of production space, living space, and ecological space, thus driving intensive rural spatial reconstruction (Fig.1).Through innovation in system management and construction, rural governance and service capacity are improved,leading to the reconstruction of rural society (Fig.1).In the process of rural innovation, the concepts of low-carbon and ecological development have become deeply rooted in people’s minds and formed the driving force of rural ecological development.The momentum for innovation and development, supported by agricultural science and technological innovation, forms the endogenous driving force of rural ecological development and promotes the realization of rural ecological reconstruction (Fig.1).

The term “sustainable development” has an extensive meaning pertaining to the operation of a large, complex system of “development, coordination, and sustainability” and reflecting the organic unity of “power, quality, and equity” (Niu, 2008).Sustainable development in rural areas not only involves the creation of a sustainable biophysical environment and the development of an ecological economy, but also includes the sustainable utilization of environmental resources and the maintenance and regulation of the social structure of rural areas (He et al., 2020).The rural system, as a crucial component of the regional human-land relationship, is an open system that comprises both internal systems and external environments (Liu, 2018).Rural areas serve as the conduit for the flow of internal system and external environmental elements, and are also the fundamental basis of rural sustainable development.The sustainable development of rural areas cannot be achieved without the optimization and creation of a spatial pattern, such as optimizing the internal structure of the rural areas and achieving the functional integration of urban and rural areas (Tu and Long, 2017).

This study, therefore, considered rural sustainable development as the provision of an intensive, high-quality living and development space for rural residents based on maintaining the natural environmental capacity of rural areas.Moreover, a civilized and orderly rural society should have the ability to disseminate and serve local culture on an ongoing basis.Through the innovation-driven economic, social, ecological, and spatial reconstruction of rural areas,comprehensive rural sustainable development will be achieved.

Based on a theoretical perspective, this study analyzed the mechanism of innovation in rural sustainable development, and constructed a theoretical framework of innovation-driven rural sustainable development.The study addressed the following questions:

(1) Can innovation have a positive effect on rural sustainable development?

(2) Can innovation facilitate a comprehensive enhancement of the economic, social, ecological, and spatial sustainability?

(3) If so, what are the effective pathways; if not, what are the constraints and how could they be overcome?

4.Methodology and data sources

4.1.Study area

Zaozhuang City, which is also the scope of Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone, is located in the southern Huang-Huai agricultural area of Shandong Province, China, with a total area of 4.56×103km2(Fig.2).The topography of Zaozhuang City is characterized by the presence of plains (26.60%) and hills (54.60%).In terms of climatic conditions, it is characterized by favorable lighting conditions, abundant precipitation, and a pleasant climate.The favorable conditions provide the basis for the agricultural and rural development of Zaozhuang City.By 2020,Zaozhuang City had a total of 2095 villages with a rural residential population of 1,568,280, accounting for 40.68%of the total population.The population of villages in Zaozhuang City is slightly higher than the national average(36.10%).The value added by primary industry accounts for 9.60% of GDP in Zaozhuang City, which is also slightly higher than the Chinese average (7.70%).Additionally, the current process of agricultural and rural development in Zaozhuang City is plagued by outstanding issues, such as the inadequate realization of agricultural resource value and insufficient agglomeration capacity for rural development factors.These challenges are also common obstacles in China’s rural development (Long et al., 2011).Therefore, Zaozhuang City presents a unique stage and challenge in China’s agricultural and rural development.

Fig.2.Regional distribution of the Zaozhuang City.

4.2.Data sources

The economic and social data used in the study, for example proportion of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery service industries, rural residents’ disposable income, urban residents’ per capita disposable income, as well as number of beds in medical and health institutions, were obtained from the Zaozhuang Statistical Yearbooks from 2016 to 2020 (Zaozhuang City Bureau of Statistics, 2017–2021).Land use data of Zaozhuang City in 2015,2018, and 2020 were collected from the Resource and Environment Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(http://www.resdc.cn), with a resolution of 100 m.

4.3.Research methods

4.3.1.Evaluation of the rural sustainable development capacity

According to the theoretical framework of rural sustainable development, this study focused on the pathway of“reconstruction-revitalization-sustainable development”.The 17 goals and 169 targets covered by the SDGs were considered in the construction of a comprehensive evaluation index system for rural sustainable development from four aspects, including economic, social, ecological, and spatial sustainability (Table 1).The selection of index was guided by the principles of scientific rigor, comprehensiveness, stratification, and data availability.Relevant document such as “China’s Progress Report on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”was consulted in this process.

The rural sustainable development system has four levels: economic, social, ecological and spatial sustainability,which include 5 elements and 12 indices.The relevant indices corresponded to the following SDGs: 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 12,15, and 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).These goals were specifically tailored to address the challenges prevalent in China’s rural development process, such as inefficient and low-quality industrial development, high risk of poverty, inadequate infrastructure allocation, inadequate provision of public service facilities, weak social governance, and ecological environment damage.Lin and Hou (2023) emphasized that the indices of sustainable development should be combined with SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 15, further attesting to the rationality of index selection in this study.

Currently, the inadequate efficiency of agricultural production, poverty, and the widening urban-rural divide have emerged as primary obstacles to achieve sustainable development in rural areas (Markey et al., 2008; Liu and Li,2017).Therefore, the sustainable development of rural economy should encompass both regional and individual levels.At the regional level, sustainable economic development is manifested through the modernization of traditional rural industries and the enhancement of factor inputs, facilitating industrial structure upgrades, improving production capacity, and ultimately achieving industrial prosperity.In this study, land output rate was chosen as the representative index of economic sustainability, because cultivated land is still the main carrier of rural economic development in China, and agriculture is still the main rural industry.Therefore, land output rate, which is determined by combining the cultivated land and agriculture, can effectively reflect the output capacity of the rural economy in China.As a crucial index of rural industrial structure upgrading, the proportion of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery service industries can effectively reflect the process of agricultural and industrial structure upgrading.Therefore, it was also included in the index system.At the individual level, rural sustainable development requires that rural residents enjoy the same rights to acquire and dispose of wealth as urban residents, while maintaining stable growth in their wealth.Therefore, rural residents’ disposable income and ratio of rural to urban residents’ per capita disposable income were used as the characterization index (see Table 1).

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Rural development requires effective infrastructure and public services, but the current inadequate state of these resources remains a significant challenge for rural areas in China (He et al., 2020).Additionally, the maintenance and adjustment of rural social structure play a pivotal role in promoting rural development (Kitchen and Marsden, 2009).Effective rural governance is crucial to achieve the efficient provision of public services in rural areas and scientifically optimize the social structure.Therefore, achieving sustainable development in rural areas requires a realistic investment in materials and capital, as well as the development of a virtual culture and the construction of systems to enhance the public service capacity and self-organizational ability of rural areas, thereby enabling the effective governance of rural areas.Based on this, we selected the ratio of public service expenditures to fiscal expenditures as a representative index for material and capital investment, while using the number of beds in medical and health institutions for 10,000 people to represent a rural society’s public service capacity.It was difficult to depict virtual culture and institutional construction.Currently, the establishment of civilized (i.e., litter-free, well-managed traffic, law-abiding citizens, etc.) villages and towns serves as a crucial institutional approach for the Chinese government to advance rural culture and moral construction, as well as promoting the optimization of social governance to achieve rural revitalization.Therefore, the ratio of civilized villages and towns at the municipal level and above was taken as a representative index of sustainable development in rural society (Table 1).

Ecological sustainability indicates that the ecological environment is habitable, which means that rural environmental pollution has been effectively mitigated, ecological construction has yielded positive outcomes, and the ecological system operates smoothly.Unlike urban areas, obtaining direct measurements and data on the ecological environment in rural areas is challenging.Therefore, to ensure the universality and applicability of indices,indirect measures were used for characterization.For rural areas in China, the serious pollution of water and soil environments is a major issue (Liu, 2018).The excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers is the primary cause of environmental pollution in rural areas.Therefore, in this study, the ratio of pesticide application to arable land area was used as an index for assessing the sustainability of rural ecology.Additionally, planting trees to increase greenery is the primary mean of improving the living and ecological environment in most rural areas of China.It serves as a guarantee for achieving the sustainable development of rural ecology.Therefore, this study also selected the afforestation area as a crucial index of ecological sustainability.

The objective of spatial sustainability is to achieve the intensive and efficient utilization of rural land space,establish orderly connections between urban and rural spaces, and address the issues of the dispersed distribution,small scale, and extensive spatial expansion of rural settlements.Considering previous studies (e.g., Che et al., 2020),the urban-rural built-up land sprawl index, rural built-up land cohesion index, and urban-rural built-up land aggregation index were selected as characterization indices (Table 1).The rural built-up land cohesion index was used to reflect the degree of agglomeration or extension trend of rural construction space.The urban-rural built-up land sprawl index and urban-rural built-up land aggregation index were used to reflect the connectivity of urban and rural construction space and settlement, and the degree of spatial integration, respectively.

Based on the construction of the index system, we adopted the entropy value approach as the objective assignment to determine the weight of each index, using the specific calculation process and steps shown in Yin et al.(2022a).Furthermore, the linear weighted sum method was used to construct a comprehensive evaluation model for measuring the level of sustainable development in rural areas and to calculate the overall sustainable development score.

4.3.2.Rural innovation capacity evaluation

The rural innovation index system is a key link in the comprehensive evaluation of agricultural and rural innovation capacity (Chen et al., 2015).To study rural innovation capacity comprehensively, objectively, and systematically in combination with previous studies (Chen et al., 2015; Jiao et al., 2020), we constructed a scientifical and systematical index system for the evaluation of rural innovation capacity in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.This index system included two dimensions (innovation inputs and innovation support environment) and six indices (Table 2).

Rural innovation is a dynamic process that involves the constant integration of factors such as skills, capital,knowledge, technology, and information into the rural social production process to facilitate knowledge innovation,technological advancement, and mechanism management innovation (Chen et al., 2015).Therefore, investment in innovation is pivotal for evaluating rural innovation capacity.Due to the challenges associated with quantifying knowledge and information input, innovation inputs were primarily developed based on two key factors: capital and technology.The proportion of science and technology expenditure to public financial expenditure is a direct reflection of the government’s financial investment and emphasis on rural innovation, as it pertains to capital investment (Table 2).The primary focus on technology investments in contemporary Chinese villages is to advance agricultural mechanization and automation.As such, the total power of agricultural machinery per unit of arable land area was used as the characterization index for innovation inputs in this study (Table 2).Additionally, for technology investments, the commonly used metrics also encompass the number of researchers and engineers as well as patent applications (Hu and Qin, 2012).This study adopted methodology proposed by Gardner and Joutz (1996) and used the number of patent applications per 10,000 people as a representative index for measuring rural innovation inputs.

The realization of innovation requires a favorable market environment and demand level, as well as supportive economic and social conditions.Additionally, an effective platform for the transformation of innovative achievements is necessary to establish a conducive innovation ecosystem.Simultaneously, the optimization of the rural innovation environment is also a primary manifestation of institutional innovation in rural areas.Currently, the establishment and advancement of novel business entities such as agricultural cooperatives and tourism demonstration villages serve as a crucial mean for China to foster the formation and refinement of the rural market environment, as well as to facilitate institutional innovation in rural areas.Therefore, the number of municipal-level and above agricultural cooperative demonstration societies and the number of municipal-level and above rural agriculture and rural tourism demonstration units were crucial indices for assessing the innovation support environment in rural areas (Table 2).In terms of a platform for ensuring the transformation of innovative achievements, the number of new innovation research and development (R&D) platforms in rural areas was selected as a representative index.The new rural innovation R&D platforms include provincial and higher-level modern agricultural demonstration zones and parks,agricultural science and technology parks, as well as agricultural high-tech enterprises (Table 2).The entropy value method was used to determine the weights of each index and the linear weighted sum method was applied to measure the level of rural innovation capacity.

Some indices in the evaluation index system of rural innovation capability established in this study were regional in nature and therefore not limited solely to rural areas, such as the proportion of science and technology expenditure to public financial expenditure and the number of patent applications per 10,000 people.This is because the rural innovation capability is a complex and open-border system (Markose, 2004).As a crucial component of the regional innovation system, the rural innovation capability is an open system with distinct characteristics.However, it is not isolated and maintains close ties with both the regional and urban innovation systems.Furthermore, it is influenced by these systems.Therefore, in the process of establishing an evaluation system of rural innovation capacity, the two indices above mentioned have been incorporated into the index system from a holistic perspective.This is significant for enhancing the scientific and effective evaluation of rural innovation capacity.

Table 2Rural innovation capacity indices and weights.

4.3.3.Granger causality test

Based on the theoretical constructs, we measured the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development using the Granger causality test.The Granger causality test is a probability theory method and an econometric analysis tool.Unlike correlation and regression analyses, this method can test the causality between variables in a statistical sense, which is an important causality test method (Cao, 2006).In the Granger causality test, if independent variable is the cause of dependent variable but dependent variable is not the cause of independent variable, the past value of independent variable will help predict the future value of dependent variable,but the past value of dependent variable cannot predict the future value of independent variable (Jiang et al., 2022).The original hypothesis of the Granger causality test is that there is no causal relationship between independent and dependent variables, and if the test probabilityP-value is less than the set confidence level, the original hypothesis is rejected.Thus, independent variable is the “Granger cause”.By swapping the positions of independent and dependent variables, it is possible to test whether dependent variable is a Granger cause of independent variable (Jiang et al.,2022).The unit root variables without a cointegration relationship were differenced first to obtain a smooth series before conducting the Granger causality test.The Eviews 10.0 software (Quantitative Micro Software, Irvine, the United States) was used to examine the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development.

5.Results

5.1.Evolutionary characteristics of rural sustainable development and rural innovation capacity

5.1.1.Rural sustainable development

From 2016 to 2020, the rural sustainable development of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone displayed fluctuating characteristics (Fig.3).From 2016 to 2018, the rural sustainable development declined, but it recovered from 2018 to 2020 and displayed a clear growth process, with the index value rising significantly from 0.4590 to 0.5390, an increase of 17.43%.During the same period, the four dimensions within the rural sustainable development displayed different change characteristics.Rural sustainable development and economic sustainability displayed a trend of synergistic change, with “explosive” growth from 2018 to 2020.The social sustainability steadily increased from 2016 to 2020.Ecological and spatial sustainability continuously declined, with the ecological sustainability falling from 0.1489 to 0.0893, a decrease of 40.03%.

5.1.2.Rural innovation capability

During the study period, the rural innovation capacity of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone displayed rapid growth (Fig.4), with growth rates reaching up to 85.77% and 57.03% in 2016–2018 and 2018–2020,respectively.The growth of the rural innovation capacity was mainly the result of the growth in innovation support environment, in which the growth rate of innovation support environment from 2016 to 2018 reached 173.73%.Moreover, the growth of innovation inputs was relatively slow (Fig.4).

Fig.3.Comprehensive evaluation of sustainable development index in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in 2016, 2018, and 2020.

Fig.4.Comprehensive evaluation of rural innovation index in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in 2016, 2018, and 2020.

5.2.Relationship between rural innovation capability and rural sustainable development

In the investigation, to avoid “pseudo-regression”, we first tested the variables using a unit root test to determine whether the data were smooth.A Granger causality test was used to examine whether there was a causal link between the variables.The results of a unit root test (Table 3) showed that the original series of all the variables involved in this study were unstable, but after the first-order difference they were stable at the 1% significance level, indicating that the dependent variables (Y,Y1,Y2,Y3andY4) and independent variables(X,X1andX2) had the same order of integration.The Granger causality test could be performed on the results of the variables after the first-order difference.

Table 3Unit root test results for rural innovation capability and rural sustainable development.

The Granger causality test was further used to investigate the relationship between rural innovation capability and rural sustainable development in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.First, the results of the Granger causality test for the rural innovation capacity, and rural sustainable development and its four dimensions showed that at a lag of one period and a significance level of 10%, rural innovation capacity showed a causality relationship with both rural sustainable development and economic sustainability, while rural innovation capacity exhibited no significant causality relationship with social, ecological, and spatial sustainability (Table 4).It was therefore confirmed that the improvement of rural innovation capacity in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone promoted the rural sustainable development and economic sustainability, but there was no significant promotional effect on the social, ecological, and spatial sustainability in rural areas.

To explore the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development, in particular, the study further explored the relationship between two dimensions (innovation inputs and innovation support environment) within rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development.The results of the Granger causality test showed that, at a lag of one period and at the 10% significance level, Granger causality existed (Table 5).Therefore, an increase in rural innovation inputs could promote the improvement of rural sustainable development to a certain extent, but there were no significant effects on the economic, social, ecological, and spatial sustainability.

Table 4Granger causality test results for the relationship between rural innovation capability and rural sustainable development.

Table 5Results of a Granger causality test for the relationship between innovation inputs and rural sustainable development.

The results of the Granger causality test for the relationship between innovation support environment and rural sustainable development (Table 6) showed that innovation support environment had a Granger causality relationship with rural sustainable development, economic sustainability and spatial sustainability at the 10%, 5%, and 1%significance levels, respectively.Therefore, an improvement in innovation support environment would promote rural sustainable development, economic sustainability and spatial sustainability.

6.Discussion

6.1.Research implications

The results of this study supplemented previous research in four main ways.First, this study established a comprehensive and systematic evaluation index for rural sustainable development by integrating the SDGs.Sustainability assessments are of great significance for rural areas because they can analyse sustainability through adiverse range of indices.After being released by the United Nations in 2015, the SDGs were cited in several studies as the basis for constructing a sustainability index system (Klopp and Petretta, 2017; Chen et al., 2021), although most of these studies focused on urban areas.There has been little research on the evaluation of sustainable development in rural areas, particularly regarding the SDGs.In this study, we developed a comprehensive assessment framework for sustainable rural development by combining with SDGs 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 12, 15, and 16, which enhanced the applicability of the SDGs for evaluating sustainable development and offered a fresh perspective on how to assess rural sustainable development.

Second, this study proposed a quantifiable evaluation framework for rural innovation capability.The rural innovation capability is an important part of the regional innovation capability, but compared with urban innovation capability, rural innovation capability has received less attention.Yin et al.(2022b) introduced a theoretical and structural model of the rural innovation capability, which included innovation inputs and innovation support environment.Yin et al.(2022a) identified three key dimensions that characterize the development of agricultural and rural innovation: innovation inputs, innovation guarantees, and innovation outcomes.Based on these studies, the present study adopted a perspective of innovation inputs and innovation support environment that comprehensively considered various indices (see Table 2).A quantifiable evaluation system for rural innovation was constructed, which synthesized existing theories and studies, while expanding the research methods and perspectives.

Third, this study established and delineated a rural innovation pathway for promoting sustainable development in rural areas.In the post-industrial era, innovation has become an important driving force for sustainable development at the national, regional, and rural levels.Yin et al.(2022b) reported that rural sustainable development in developing countries, particularly in China, needs to be supported by rural reconstruction, and the construction and improvement of the rural innovation system are the important ways to implement rural revitalization strategies.This study highlighted an intermediary pathway between rural innovation and revitalization, whereby the former can facilitate the latter by promoting economic, social, and spatial reconstruction in rural areas, thereby fostering rural sustainable development.This is an important supplement to the theory of innovation-driven rural sustainable development.

Additionally, this study achieved the quantitative measurement of rural innovation-driven sustainable development in rural areas.The theoretical exploration of how innovation drives sustainable development in rural areas has been examined in previous studies.For example, Esparcia (2014) reported that innovation is a core factor in the development of rural areas; Rover et al.(2017) indicated that social innovation is the foundation of rural sustainable development; and Zhang and Ren (2020) argued that innovation is the core driving force of endogenous rural development and the key path to achieving high-quality rural revitalization.Based on a theoretical framework, the present study used the Granger causality test to quantitatively examine the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development.The results confirmed that rural innovation capacity has a driving effect on rural sustainable development, while also revealing the differential impacts of such innovation across various dimensions of rural sustainable development.This is an important supplement to the research methods on the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development.

6.2.Policy implications

6.2.1.Sustainable development problems

Despite the gradual improvements, the rural sustainable development of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone still faces two major challenges.These issues are also prevalent in other regions of China.

The first challenge is the imbalance among multi-dimensional relationships in the process of rural sustainable development.Although the level of rural sustainable development in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone is currently improving, there is an imbalance in the relationships between the different dimensions of sustainable development.The stable growth of agriculture and continuous increase in farmers’ incomes drive rural sustainable development and economic sustainability.However, the insufficient realization of the value of agricultural resources and the insufficient adoption of new farming methods could hinder the sustainable development of the rural economy.The establishment of public services in rural areas, such as medical care and pensions, involves the accumulation of debt, and the large gap between urban and rural livelihood infrastructure and public services, which presents a risk to social sustainability in rural areas that cannot be ignored.The dependences on traditional highly-polluting industrial structures and insufficient investment in environmental governance have led to a particularly significant decline in ecological sustainability in rural areas.The dispersal and small scale of rural settlements and the insufficient ability to identify rural development factors have also restricted spatial sustainability in rural areas.These problems present serious challenges to the sustainable development in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.The weakening trend of ecological sustainability and spatial sustainability further presents the risks of declining regional sustainable development.

The second challenge is the weakening of rural innovation capacity to drive rural sustainable development.Although the rural innovation capacity of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone is rapidly improving, its ability to drive sustainable development is insufficient, as shown by its weak contribution to the rural sustainable development and economic sustainability of rural areas, as well as the lack of contribution to social, ecological, and spatial sustainability.This is because the foundation of scientific and technological innovation and the capacity to transform results into practice are weak, technology research and reserves are insufficient, and the mode of collaborative innovation between industry, university, and research is relatively narrow.The number of potentially innovative individuals is large, but there are few high-grade (national and provincial levels), large-scale innovation platforms (e.g., agricultural demonstration parks) and innovation support environment, and the development level of innovation is low.This has led to rapid growth in the number of innovation platforms in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone and a significant improvement in the innovation support environment, but the capacity for the implementation of scientific and technological achievements is weak and the transformation rate is low.Moreover,the ability to drive the sustainable development of rural areas is not strong.Additionally, the lack of innovation inputs in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone has become the main factor limiting the improvement of rural innovation capacity.

6.2.2.Constructing sustainable development pathways

The analysis results showed that although rural sustainable development of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone displayed a fluctuating upward trend, there were still serious challenges to achieving the overall sustainable development.Rural innovation capacity of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone has steadily increased, largely through a series of actions such as the promotion of agricultural mechanization, cultivation of new business entities, and the construction of modern agricultural demonstration parks.However, innovation has not had significant effects on the social, ecological, and spatial sustainability in rural areas, and its effectiveness in driving rural sustainable development was weak.The key reason for this is the lack of innovation in rural systems and concepts.Therefore, there should be a focus on innovation-driven rural sustainable development, the enhancement of rural innovation capacity, the strengthening of technological innovation, and the realization of conceptual and institutional innovation through optimizing the pathways of environmental innovation, strengthening collaborative innovation, and cultivating innovation factors.On this basis, multi-dimensional sustainable development synergy in rural areas should be driven by systematic projects and technology pathways that include several major actions to achieve comprehensive sustainable development (Fig.5).

In terms of economic sustainability, technological innovation should be strengthened by applying new technologies such as the intelligent deep processing of agricultural products, ecological recycling and intelligence, e-commerce blockchain platforms, and other systems such as an “agriculture+” expansion project, agricultural quality and efficiency projects, and industrial chain extension projects.This would further consolidate the foundation of agricultural development, grow the rural economy, provide new momentum for industrial development, and strengthen the reconstruction of the rural economy.From the perspective of social sustainability, ideological and institutional innovation should be promoted by changing the concepts of development and governance.Additionally,urban-rural infrastructure integration projects and urban-rural governance modernization projects could be implemented with the technical support of public service equality planning, and public service integration and rural governance modernization could be promoted.

Comprehensive environmental improvement projects can enhance the speed of rural ecological construction and achieve reconstruction.In the area of spatial sustainability, there should be a focus on institutional innovation, with projects initiated to optimize the spatial layout of rural areas and equalize basic public services.With the support of territorial spatial planning technology, this would achieve rural spatial reconstruction.Through the reconstruction of rural areas, the application of innovation will achieve multi-dimensional sustainable development in rural areas.The foundation of the above process lies in the building of rural innovation capacity, which involves establishing a development model, changing the concept of development, and improving its quality through technological,ideological, and institutional innovation (Shandong Provincial People’s Government, 2022).In terms of innovation capacity building, focuses should be aimed at the outstanding problems, such as insufficient innovation inputs, the low level of innovation support environment, and weak innovation output capacity.The cultivation of innovation elements and transformation of innovation results should be strengthened by implementing projects, such as upgrading the platforms for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and deepening innovation in industrial science and technology.This would lay a solid foundation for rural sustainable development.

By combining the above aspects of rural sustainable development from theoretical constructs and previous empirical studies, this study designed a systematic pathway for sustainable development in rural areas from multidimensions.This included a “mode–action–technology project” that focused on the core theme of rural innovation capacity driving rural sustainable development.By strengthening rural innovation capacity, the systematic pathway of rural sustainable development could be applied in rural areas to facilitate the transformation of rural areas and achieve the goal of rural sustainable development (see Fig.5).The realization of this process requires effective support from a series of safeguards, such as multi-dimensional policies for skill development, land access, capital, and organization, with strengthening organizational leadership and enhancing scientific and technological innovation support.

Fig.5.Sustainable development pathway of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.

The Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone shares significant similarities with other rural areas of China in terms of its rural development stages, characteristics, and issues.It is therefore a typical region for the study of rural sustainable development in China.Based on the theoretical framework of “rural innovation-rural reconstruction-rural sustainable development”, this study addressed the prominent issues impacting rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone.This model aims to achieve sustainable development in rural areas through a comprehensive approach that encompasses macro policy and system design, as well as the application of specific engineering and technical methods.It provides a systematic and targeted action plan for China’s vast rural areas.

7.Conclusions

Taking the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in China as a case, this study established a theoretical framework and developed a comprehensive evaluation system for rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development, examined the correlation between them, and proposed a systematic approach to achieve rural sustainable development through innovative practices.

The findings indicated that rural sustainable development is a complex concept with economic, social, ecological,and spatial sustainability, and rural innovation capacity is a multi-dimensional composite process based on innovation inputs and innovation support environment.There is a need to consider innovation in development concepts,development momentum, and system construction.The improvement of rural innovation capacity in the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone has promoted its rural sustainable development and economic sustainability, but it has not yet had significant effects on social, ecological, and spatial sustainability.For the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone, the imbalance in the multi-dimensional relationships of rural sustainable development and the lack of innovation-driving capacity limited the realization of rural sustainable development.These challenges are common among other regions throughout China.Furthermore, it was proposed that to effectively drive rural sustainable development through improving rural innovation capacity, the multi-dimensional sustainable development synergy in rural areas should be driven by systematic projects and technology pathways covering several major actions, such as the improvement of basic agricultural capabilities and the acceleration of rural ecological construction.

There are also some limitations in this study.First, based on the theoretical framework of innovation-driven rural sustainable development, this study attempted to construct a comprehensive evaluation index system.It explored the relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development, but the relevant evaluation index system still needs further optimization and refinement.Additionally, rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development are complex systems with multi-dimensional characteristics that determine the complexity of the mechanism, by which innovation impacts on rural sustainable development.There may be various direct and indirect effects.This study did not explored this issue sufficiently, and refinements are required in subsequent studies to provide more theoretical support for the formation of systematic and feasible innovation-driven rural sustainable development policies and institutional optimization pathways.Furthermore, this study was limited by data availability and only examined the correlation between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development based on data from 2016 to 2020.The relatively short research period may have a negative impact on the investigation of the relationship between them and impede the utilization of certain methodologies.Based on the optimization of the index system, follow-up studies can further explore the long-term relationship between rural innovation capacity and rural sustainable development.

Authorship contribution statement

LIU Bingsheng: conceptualization and funding acquisition; ZHANG Xiaohui: methodology, writing - original draft preparation; TIAN Junfeng: writing - reviewing and editing; CAO Ruimin: resources, project administration; SUN Xinzhang: project administration; and XUE Bin: data curation.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72134002, 42101264), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2023CDSKXYGG006), and the Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of Education of China (21JZD029).The authors deeply appreciate the efforts from the Department of Science and Technology for Social Development of Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, and the Zaozhuang Science and Technology Bureau for their support and assistance in conducting this study.