伦敦的R&D投入在英国最低,但是创新产出却很高,城市竞争力更是位居世界前列。这一创新悖论从表面上看,可归因于城市创新能力测度指标体系的缺陷,即伦敦存在着未被测度的“隐性创新”;而实质上则反映出人们在评价一个城市的创新能力时,对制造业和服务业两种创新模式的区分认识不足,对服务业特别是知识密集型服务活动在城市创新体系中的隐性创新源头和媒介作用认识不足。基于制造业而不是服务业的创新活动特点来理解和构建一个城市的创新能力,这种认识偏差往往导致城市创新政策不能有的放矢。
London has suffered from innovation paradox with its poor performance of investment in formal R~D against its world competitiveness on traditional measures of innovation. The hidden innovation in London shows there are innovation activities that are not reflected in traditional indicators. This phenomena means that people usually measure innovation ca- pacity of a city by its manufacture nor service innovation capacity ignoring the difference of these two innovation modes and the important role of knowledge intensive service activities in a city's innovation system. If they are based on insufficient understanding about service innovation, the city's innovation policies may not lead to ideal achievements.