Purpose

The purpose of this study is to make a prediction of the R&D output of China from the perspective of R&D institutions and put forward a set of policy recommendations for further development of the science and technology in China.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, an improved discrete grey multivariable model is proposed, which takes both the interaction effects and the accumulative effects into account. As the current research on China's R&D activities is generally based on the perspective of universities or industrial enterprises above designated size while few studies put their focus on R&D institutions, this paper applies the proposed model to carry out an empirical analysis based on the data of China's R&D institutions from 2009 to 2019. The prediction results from the new model are then compared with three existing approaches and the comparison results indicate that the proposed model generally outperforms existing methods. A further prediction of the R&D output in China's R&D institutions is conducted into a future horizon from 2020 to 2023 by using the model.

Findings

The results indicate that China's R&D institutions have a good development trend and broad prospects, which is closely related to China's long-term investment in science and technology. Additionally, the R&D inputs of China possess obvious interaction effects and accumulative effects.

Originality/value

The paper considers the interaction effects and the accumulative effects of R&D inputs simultaneously and proposes an improved discrete grey multivariable model, which fills the gap in previous studies.