Abstract: In the context that the global competition pattern is undergoing profound changes, how to promote enterprises to accelerate the progress of key core technology innovation is an important issue for government innovation governance. On the basis of theoretical analysis, this paper combines the enterprise patent information with the national strategic emerging industry planning to measure the key core technology innovation performance of enterprises. It also takes the national innovative city pilot policy as the quasi-natural experiment to empirically test the influencing effect and mechanism of the construction of innovative cities on the key core technology innovation of enterprises. The research results show that the construction of innovative cities has significantly promoted the improvement of enterprises’innovative performance of their key core technology, and with the further implementation of the pilot policy, the policy effect will be gradually improved. The mechanism test reveals that the construction of innovative cities can have a positive impact on the innovation of key core technologies of enterprises through the two paths of promoting the accumulation of urban knowledge capital and improving the innovation risk bearing ability of enterprises. The heterogeneity analysis shows that for the state-owned enterprises, the enterprises in the growth or decline stages, the enterprises located in lower class or economic center cities, and the enterprises located in cities with stronger basic research ability, the role of innovative city construction in enabling key core technology innovation is more obvious. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of innovative cities according to local conditions, promote the renewal and iteration of urban innovation infrastructure and innovation factors, and establish a multi-party sharing mechanism for enterprise innovation risks.

Key words: innovative city, key core technology innovation, urban knowledge capital, enterprise innovation risks