  Science and technology systems - and their epistemic communities - are
usually hierarchical and composed of a number of strong, large, leading
organizations, along with a number of smaller and less influential ones.
Moreover, these hierarchical patterns have a spatial structure: the leading
organizations are concentrated in a few places, creating a science and
technology center, whereas the majority of locations are peripheral. In the
example of biotech research in China, we found dynamic changes in
center-periphery patterns. These results are based on a network analysis of
evolving co-authorship networks from 2001 to 2009 that were built combining
national and international databases. Therefore, our results are not only
relevant for evaluating the spatial structure and dynamics in the Chinese
biotech system and its integration into the global knowledge network, but also
revive a discussion on persistence and processes of change in the systems
theory for sciencebased industries.
