Exploring the Development Strategies of Science Parks Using the Hybrid MCDM Approach

Science parks contribute to a country’s economic growth, promote industrial transformation, and meet the development needs of high-tech industries. They also play an essential role in enhancing technological development and competitiveness. Due to the impact of the fierce U.S.-China trade war on the global economy, many Taiwanese companies are considering moving their high-end product production lines back to their home country. This trend may promote the growth of the population in the surrounding areas of science parks and affect the limited infra-structure at the same time. This study explores how science parks could achieve sustainable development goals by formulating their development strategy. We summarized four evaluation aspects for constructing the driving factors for developing the science park through literature review and interviews with experts. Combined with the hybrid multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, we analyzed stakeholders’ satisfaction among the four aspects of the driving factors for the development of the science parks and put forward appropriate strategy recommendations. We found that the improvement of public infrastructure (PI) can improve not only the environmental quality (EQ) but also promote the business environment (BE) and the working environment (WE). This improvement could attract domestic and foreign manufacturers, create employment opportunities, expand the park's scale, and eventually promote industrial development. This research improves the method of collecting empirical data to establish the driving forces for developing science parks through suitable development strategies.