Abstract: In the sense of economic geography, cities are undoubtedly important engines of regional economic growth. Modern cities host diverse types of actors, and the interactions among these heterogeneous entities make cities typical complex adaptive systems. This study constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model involving three typical innovation actors—government, enterprises, and universities (research institutes)—and performs game analysis and simulation. The study finds that: 1) initial willingness is a key driver of collaborative innovation as the initial innovation willingness of the government, enterprises, and universities significantly influences the equilibrium outcome of the tripartite game. 2) sensitivity to costs and benefits determines innovation strategy choices as all three parties are highly sensitive to the costs and benefits of participating in innovation, while spillover and crowding-out effects play critical roles in the urban evolution process. 3) the dynamic coordination mechanism between the government and the market is crucial as appropriate government intervention can well address market failures, but over-intervention may inhibit the cultivation of innovative cities; government reputation also plays an important role in the evolution of innovative cities. 4) reasonable benefit distribution between enterprises and universities is a long-term guarantee for the evolution of innovative cities; the participation of universities and research institutes depends not only on government subsidies but also on enhancing their own innovation efficiency through interdisciplinary collaboration and deep industry-university-research integration. To strengthen the construction of innovative cities, China should build a multi-dimensional policy support system to stimulate the endogenous motivation of innovation actors, optimize the cost-benefit structure to establish a sustainable innovation ecosystem, construct a dynamic government-market coordination mechanism to enhance policy flexibility and adaptability, and improve the benefit distribution mechanism between enterprises and universities to motivate sustained participation from universities.

Key words: innovative cities, evolutionary economic geography, evolutionary game theory, complex adaptive systems, simulation analysis