Abstract: The evolution of the national high-tech zone collaborative innovation network is of great significance to building a cross-regional high-tech zone collaborative innovation community and promoting high-quality development of regional collaborative innovation and integration. This article takes the collaborative innovation network of national high-tech zones as the research object, and based on the cooperative patent application data of listed companies in the national high-tech zones in the east from 2011 to 2020, constructs the collaborative innovation network of national high-tech zones in eastern my country, and its structural evolution conduct visual analysis of features; A hypothesis on the dynamic mechanism that proximity and network dependence drive the evolution of national high-tech interval collaborative innovation networks was proposed, and empirically tested using temporal exponential random graph models. The study found that: (1) The national high-tech collaborative innovation network in the east has the characteristics of a "small world", and the network structure shows a multi-center and community evolution trend; from the "twin stars" centered on Zhongguancun-Guangzhou high-tech zone". The network structure has evolved into a multi-center collaborative innovation network with three pillars: Zhongguancun, Shanghai Zhangjiang, and Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-tech zone. It initially formed the Bohai rim high-tech zone community with Beijing Zhongguancun as the center, and the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai Zhangjiang as the center. high-tech zone community and the Pearl River Delta high-tech zone community centered on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-tech zone. (2) In the examination of the dynamic mechanism of the evolution of the national high-tech collaborative innovation network in the east, geographical proximity has a significant positive impact on the evolution of the national high-tech collaborative innovation network in the east, while the impact of institutional proximity is always not significant; the preference attachment, connectivity, and transitive closure in network dependence all significantly affect the evolution of the national high-tech interval collaborative innovation network in the east; the dynamic mechanism of the national high-tech interval collaborative innovation network evolution has staged. The transformation law is the transition from geographical proximity and preference dependence in the network formation stage to network dependence at the network structure level such as connectivity and ternary closure in the network growth stage. In addition, the following policy implications are provided for building a national high-tech inter-regional collaborative innovation network: (1) Build a national high-tech inter-regional collaborative innovation network mechanism. Streamline the industrial chain with upstream and downstream linkage and reasonable regional layout, use the industrial chain to lay out the innovation chain, and promote the orderly flow, efficient allocation, and in-depth integration of innovation resource elements in high-tech zones through inter-regional linkage and co-construction and sharing of innovation platforms and collaborative centers. Promote the formation and evolution of cross-regional national high-tech collaborative innovation networks. (2) Rely on the "innovation star" high-tech zones to create more centralized and contiguous national-level high-tech zone innovation communities. Encourage "innovation star" high-tech zones located at the core of the collaborative innovation network to follow market-oriented principles to strengthen innovation collaboration and innovation radiation with national-level high-tech zones adjacent or in the same urban agglomeration, explore the establishment of collaborative innovation strategic alliances in high-tech zones, and create more centralized, connected, jointly developed, and cross-regional high-tech zone collaborative innovation communities. (3) Enlarge and strengthen the circle of friends and build a high-quality national high-tech zone collaborative innovation community. Based on the three major national-level high-tech zone innovation communities centered on Beijing Zhongguancun, Shanghai Zhangjiang, and Guangzhou high-tech zone, it is important to use the multiple connectivity of the high-tech zone's innovative circle of friends and the transitivity of shared partners to strengthen bilateral or multilateral knowledge exchange with technology, reduce the cost and market risk of collaborative innovation in high-tech zones, build a high-tech zone collaborative innovation community that includes more high-tech zones, closer cooperative innovation connections, and a more cohesive innovation network structure, and promote high-quality and stable high-tech zone collaborative innovation networks develop.

Key words: national high-tech zones, collaborative innovation network, proximity, network dependency, TERGM