Beyond Education: The Role of Research Universities in Innovation Ecosystems (original) (raw)

Measurement of Regional Innovation Systems’ Capabilities Through University-Industry (Ui) Interactions: A Case Study for Brazilian Cities

Blucher Engineering Proceedings, 2016

This paper investigates the university-firm knowledge flow in Brazilian cities in order to infer the regional capacity to attract interaction from outside. The Directory of Research group database from Censo 2008 was used in municipal level. Using maps of knowledge flow, a coefficient of interactivity and a cluster analyses we were able to identify the knowledge flow among Brazilian Regions. The results corroborate previous studies about Brazilian regional concentration regarding science and technology, but also show a relative deconcentration with importance to other cities than the traditionally highlighted. Despite the limitations, we understand that using U-I interaction flows to measure innovative capacity of regions may be an interesting methodology that should be better developed.

The role of university-firm relations to foster regional development: evidence from Brazilian Amazon

2012

The role of universities for the innovation process of countries or regions had been widely explored. In lagged regions becomes a reference not only for qualification and research but concentrates brains and fixes qualified people. This paper analyses innovation and especially the interaction of firms with universities and research institutes, as strategy to face the low internal investment capacity in innovation. Our focus is the ultra-peripheral region of Brazilian Amazon and it is part of a larger research project which investigates these interactions internationally. The interest in studying these interactions in Brazil are based on findings that the investments in R&D by the private sector are low, and the national (and thus regional) innovation systems are immature (Albuquerque, 1998). Data was collected based on a questionnaire applied to firms, adapted by Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil from the Carnegie Mellon (Cohen, 2002) and Yale Surveys (Klevorick, 1995) on f...

Universities as knowledge producers for economic development: how is Brazil allocating resources in the production of new relevant knowledge for innovation?

Revista Economia & Tecnologia, 2012

Universities have broadly similar functions in the innovation systems of most industrial and industrializing countries; however the relevance of their role alters substantially. In Brazil, universities are the most important knowledge producers. Departing from the evidence that they do not form a homogeneous group (which is corroborated using the T-Theil index of inequality), a possible classification is then suggested: ‘leader universities’, ‘threshold universities’ and ‘unveiling universities,’ which are in turn divided into two different subclasses: ‘catching-up universities’ and ‘embryonic universities’. This paper demonstrates that even though the largest allocation on financial resources goes to ‘hard sciences’, there is a large allocation of human resources within humanities, applied social sciences and linguistics, arts and literature (soft sciences). This distortion in the distribution of researchers with a relative high concentration in humanities and applied social scienc...

University–industry interactions in an immature system of innovation: evidence from Minas Gerais, Brazil

Science and Public Policy, 2009

This paper evaluates interactions between firms and universities in Minas Gerais, one of the Brazilian states. The heterogeneity in Minas Gerais replicates the heterogeneity that exists in Brazil as a whole. This paper adapts the pioneering Yale and Carnegie Mellon surveys (USA) to an immature national system of innovation. We found that, in immature systems of innovation, beyond their traditional functions, universities perform a dual role in their interactions with firms: they substitute for and complement the research and development done by the firms themselves. In addition, contrary to conventional wisdom, even in the so-called low-tech and medium-tech sectors, universities matter.

The Dynamics of University-Industry Interactions in Peripheral Contexts: Evidence from Brazil

Foresight and STI Governance

This research aims at addressing the factors that constrain the flow of knowledge between universities and industry when these players are embedded in peripheral contexts. A multiple-case study was carried out in order to describe and understand the limitations of universities as agents of innovation in peripheral ecosystems. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the coordinators of five Technological Innovation Centers (entities equivalent to TTO) of all Federal Institutes (five) located in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The findings show that there are constraining elements associated with the socioeconomic environment (the lack of economic dynamism and low absorptive capacity at firms), with universities (a lack of infrastructure, resources, and available researchers) and intermediary agents (the lack of staff and institutional legitimacy). The observed conditions lead to challenges in fostering dense knowledge flows, thus perpetuating regional economic as...

Science, technology and innovation in the Brazilian State of São Paulo: the need for public policies for region-based development

2013

This paper seeks to show the development potential of different regions of Sao Paulo State based on an analysis of its science, technology and innovation infrastructure. In the last ten years, public and private investments in S&T&I grew in Brazil. This new institutional climate opened several opportunities for development according to the different patterns of S&T&I territorial distribution, as we show in Sao Paulo. We analyse these differences based on the spatial distributions of the following input/output indicators: higher education institutions, postgraduate students, indexed scientific articles, investment in innovation, patents, incubators and tech parks. The paper suggests that different territorial patterns should be considered in the formulation of public policies for development.

The underestimated role of universities for the Brazilian system of innovation

2011

Conventional wisdom usually underestimates the important role of public research institutes and universities in successful cases of Brazilian economy. History of science and technology institutions shows a long-term process of formation of these institutions and their interactions with industrial firms, agricultural producers or society. This paper investigates historical roots of successful cases of Brazil. First, we present the late onset of National Innovation System (NSI) institutions and waves of institutional formation in Brazil. Second, we describe the history of three selected successful cases, which spans from a low-tech sector (agriculture), a medium-tech sector (steel and special metal alloys), to a high-tech sector (aircraft). These findings present new challenges for present-day developmental policies.

Changes in Responsibilities and Tasks of Universities in Regional Innovation Ecosystems

Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, 2017

Innovation process research is changing. In addition to the former territorial approach (examining countries or regions), the description of innovation cooperation in local areas is becoming more and more accepted. Instead of the innovation ability of the traditional large enterprises, research has begun to study the role of small and medium-sized enterprises, non-governmental organizations, local governments, and educational institutions (especially universities), which foreshadows the development of a new innovation system. In 2015, we conducted a study focusing on the civil and corporate relations of a major university. We tried to determine the new directions based on the economic and social cooperation as well as to search for the practical implementation of the theoretical helixes in these interactions. We came to the conclusion that universities not only are determinative according to the triple helix model but also have a prominent role in the creation of new innovation ecos...

The University-Industry Relationship in Brazil : The Impact of Institutions and Social Capital in Brazilian ’ S Sectorial Systems of Innovation

2010

This article examines the relationship between universities and firms in Brazil. This relationship is considered an important tool for innovation, and connects the generation of technological knowledge from the university with the potential to generate economic value in the firm, by developing innovative products. The results reinforce the idea that university-industry relationship in Brazil is still incipient and weak, and concentrated in few industries. It is developed a hierarchical regression model that captures the firm’s capabilities and the university’s importance in the industrial level to the innovation process in the firm’s productivity gains.