China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a strategy initiated by the People’s Republic of China that seeks to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. It aims to improve regional integration, increase trade and stimulate economic growth.
The name was coined in 2013 by China’s President Xi Jinping, who drew inspiration from the concept of the Silk Road established during the Han Dynasty 2,000 years ago – an ancient network of trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean via Eurasia for centuries.
The BRI comprises a trans-continental passage, the Silk Road Economic Belt, and a sea route.
The BRI is the subject of an R&D Management Special Issue looking at the knowledge flows facilitated by the initiative and the role of R&D in commercialising the ideas:

The New Silk Road: R&D Networks, Knowledge Diffusions, and Open Innovation. The authors are Jin Chen, Tsinghua University; Alberto Di Minin, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna; Tim Minshall, University of Cambridge; and Yu-Shan Su, National Taiwan Normal University.
The special issue aims to develop an analytical framework to study the BRI based on six research articles focused around three different topics.
- Innovation catch-up opportunities enabled by the BRI
- New collaboration models of BRI
- New technology-transfer practices of BRI.
These three research topics form the key dimensions for studying the BRI in this SI. On R&D Today we review two of the papers: –
Boundary spanning roles in cross-border university-industry collaboration: the case of Chinese multinational corporations – Simone Corsi, Xiaolan Fu, and Cintia Külzer-Sacilotto
Open innovation with Chinese characteristics: a dynamic capabilities perspective – Henry Chesbrough, Sohvi Heaton, Liang Mei