This study investigates the spatial structure and influencing factors of the innovation network in the advanced medical equipment and device manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD). This industry is crucial to public health system resilience and regional industrial upgrading. Drawing on joint patent data from the IncoPat Global Patent Database covering the period 2005–2024, the study constructs innovation networks and conducts comparative analyses from both national and regional perspectives using social network analysis and geodetector methods. The findings reveal that: (1) At the national level, the innovation network has gradually expanded but remains sparse, characterized by a “core–periphery” structure dominated by Beijing and Shanghai. Urban participation in central and western China is limited. Short-term objectives often drive industry–university–research collaborations, and collaborations in basic research among academic institutions remain insufficient. (2) In contrast, the YRD region has formed a denser, polycentric network, with Shanghai as the primary hub and Nanjing and Suzhou as key secondary centers. Local enterprises exhibit strong incentives to engage in collaborative innovation within industry–university–research frameworks. (3) Geodetector analyses indicate that economic development, technological capability, and government policy support are major drivers of network formation, while infrastructure quality plays a crucial enabling role. The relative importance of these factors varies between national and regional levels. These results provide empirical evidence to inform regional innovation strategies and targeted policy design for strengthening collaboration in the advanced medical equipment industry.

Rare earths (REs) play an important role in modern life, and have been the focus of global attention in recent years. As a result, the number of scientific publications has grown enormously, increasing the need for understanding the knowledge base of various research streams and their emerging branches. The economic analysis of REs has also augmented steadily. Nevertheless, the relevant literature is rather fragmented concerning the thematic topics. To respond to this, a systematic review in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and a bibliometric analysis were developed to offer a systematic and holistic literature review of the economic research on REs. This review incorporates studies of REs regarding aspects of supply, price, export policy, international trade, relationship with clean energy, and sustainability. The database of this review includes a set of 85 systemically selected state-of-the-art articles from five databases, including Web of Science, Science Direct, Springer, Proquest, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) that were published after the rare earth crisis, covering empirical and theory research conducted in different countries with different resource endowments. The results show that the majority of the economic research studies have been conducted in the past six years. Furthermore, among the six categories, the most popular research trend is sustainability. Some possible opportunities for future research are also illustrated in this paper.