Driving determinants and assessment of the coupling coordination of regional technological innovation-industrial upgrading-eco-environment system

In the past decades, resource shortage and environmental degradation due to rapid economic development have become a severe challenge while limiting China’s regional sustainable and coordinated development. This paper provides a case study of Jiangsu Province in China employing the coupling coordination model and geo-detector model to seek solutions for realizing the region coordinated development from the interaction of technological innovation ( $${\text{TI}}$$ TI ), industrial upgrading ( $${\text{IU}}$$ IU ) and eco-environment ( $${\text{EE}}$$ EE ). This study reaches the following conclusions. (1) The coupling coordination degree ( $$D$$ D ) of $${\text{TI}}$$ TI - $${\text{IU}}$$ IU - $${\text{EE}}$$ EE system (TIIUEES) in Jiangsu Province was general in the stage of mild unbalance. (2) The $$D$$ D value exhibited a positive evolutionary trend in time series. However, the backwardness of $${\text{EE}}$$ EE constrained the regional coordination development, which led to the slow and small growth with fluctuation. (3) Spatially, the $$D$$ D value generally conformed to a gradient distribution from south to north, which was caused by regional internal extremely unbalanced development. (4) Economic benefits had a decisive effect on the coordinated development in TIIUEES, and the interaction of two factors could gain an “enhanced, bilinear” or even “enhanced, nonlinear” result. This study contributes to exploring the driving determinants of $$D$$ D value in TIIUEES based on the description of the temporal and spatial features and providing a credible reference for future research and decision-makers.