Abstract:Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2002 to 2015, this paper explores the impact of three ways of knowledge acquisition, including the industry-university-research collaboration, the purchase of domestic technology and the import of foreign technology, on regional innovation capacity, and the mediating role of absorptive capacity. We have found that, viewing from all the provinces, all the three ways of knowledge acquisition significantly and positively affect regional innovation capability, and absorptive capacity has a partial mediating role in the relationship between both of the industry-university-research collaboration and the purchase of domestic technology and regional innovation capacity, and has a fully mediating role in the relationship between the import of foreign technology and regional innovation ability. For the groups of provinces and cities, the impact of the three ways of knowledge acquisition on regional innovation ability are different; absorptive capacity has a partial mediating role between both of the industry-university-research collaboration and the purchase of domestic technology and regional innovation capacity in the groups of provinces and cities with medium innovation capacity, while has no mediating effect between all ways of knowledge acquisition and regional innovation capacity in the groups of provinces and cities with high and low innovation capacity. Finally, this paper puts forward the relevant strategies and suggestions.