Who makes technological innovation?
Campinas Inova Seminar discusses who does what
What about the university-company relationship?
The primary place for technological innovation is not the university but the company. An “inspiring” position: this is how the executive secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Carlos Américo Pacheco, referred to the lecture that the rector of Unicamp, Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, had just given at the opening of the Campinas Inova seminar, in the last on the 18th, at the university's Convention Center, in front of more than 400 guests.
Brito Cruz, who last April began a four-year term at Unicamp and gave up the presidency of Fapesp for that purpose, knows that his opinion does not count on unanimity in a country where the majority of research activities take place in universities, involving many people to believe that academia is responsible for technological innovation. “The common sense in Brazil, that research is our business and the company is responsible for manufacturing products and selling them, is a mistake of oceanic proportions. It is the company that understands the market, has the culture of analyzing demands and knows how to take advantage of opportunities. That’s where innovation is born,” he said.
The rector evoked the tradition of countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany, France, England, Italy, Canada and South Korea, where the majority of scientists work in companies, and not in universities or research institutes. In Brazil, only 10% work outside academia. “The big challenge, at the moment, is to strengthen and develop these activities within companies, which must have researchers as employees,” he added.
According to Brito, just compare the volume of patents registered by Brazilians and Koreans. “We make 100 a year, compared to 3.500 for the Koreans. Which is natural, as they have 75 thousand scientists in their companies and we have eight thousand. The number of people is related to the amount of technology that is produced, with the export of knowledge,” he said.
By insisting that companies are the place to generate technological innovation, the rector emphasized that this does not mean that the role of the university in this area should be diminished. “What I defend is a very important alliance, yet to be established in Brazil, between academia, business and the State. Everyone doing their part and creating a virtuous circle that leads to the production of knowledge, which in turn leads to the production of wealth and this to development”.
For this alliance, as far as universities are concerned, Brito states that the number of scientific articles has grown year after year and that the capacity to train human resources and the quality of research are increasingly recognized in the country. In relation to companies, Note that we are not newbies. “We have Embraer planes; the results of Embrapa, Petrobrás and CPqD with the Trópico Telephone Center; the entire history of fibers and optical communications; the efforts of large companies such as Siemens, and smaller ones such as those working in the aerospace structure. These are examples of knowledge being generated in the business environment,” he said.
Role of the State – A fundamental element for this alliance, according to the rector, is the State’s support for research activities within companies. “The agreement signed by Brazil at the WTO (World Trade Organization) brings two exceptions that allow subsidies: the so-called 'green' ones, protecting and improving the environment; and those for research and development activities in companies, which can reach 75% of the investment”.
Brito recalls that public resources injected by the United States into companies, relative to the country's industrial GDP, reach 0,6% (somewhere around US$35 billion/year), through channels such as incentive laws, technological orders, creation of institutes that interact with companies, etc. “At the end of the day, for every dollar from the American government, the company puts in nine of its own cash. It is a multiplier factor, as the subsidy is not given to replace private sector investment, but to make it viable”. If Brazil practiced something similar, considering its industrial GDP of R$400 billion, we would be talking about R$2,4 billion coming from the government, with another nine parts from the business community. In other words: R$24 billion, in an investment close to that of South Korea, whose companies compete with those from the rest of the world.
Unicamp's role – Regarding Unicamp’s contribution to technological innovation, the rector warns that the main thing is to train people. “I insist on this because for a long time it was thought that the quality of the university was measured by the degree of innovation it produces. In fact, we only have exceptional cases, such as the development of fiber optics. In essence, what was done was to educate, prepare people capable of creating companies; companies that come to campus every year in order to employ students who will ensure technological innovation.”
Using an old oriental proverb, that it is better to teach how to fish than to give the fish, the rector concludes: “For the University to produce technology for the company is to give the fish; Educating well and offering an innovative profile to students, so they can create technology in companies, is teaching how to fish.”
Event will be regular
Adherence to the Campinas Inova seminar led professor Douglas Zampieri, from the organizing committee, to announce that the event should become regular. In addition to the speakers in this report, the audience heard from Unicamp researchers and representatives from different segments interested in the issue of technological innovation: Carolina Azevedo Ferreira de Souza, professor at the Unicamp Institute of Economics (IE); Luís Antonio Teixeira Vasconcelos, professor at IE; Renato Marcos Endrizzi Sabbatini, professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM); Carlos Vogt, president of Fapesp and coordinator of Labjor; Miguel Juan Bacic, professor at IE; Geraldo Mendes, director of Ciatec; Guilherme Ary Plonski, professor at USP Polytechnic; Sérgio Luiz Monteiro Salles Filho, professor at the Unicamp Geosciences Institute (IG); Oswaldo Massambani, Deputy Secretary of State for Science and Technology; Celso Antonio Barbosa, from Anpei; Elias Menezes de Oliveira, from Petrobrás; Ronald Martin Dauscha, from Siemens; Antonio Carlos Gravato Bordeaux Rego, from CPqD; Mário Sérgio Ussyk, from Embraco; Maria Clara do Prado, from Gazeta Mercantil; Antonio Carlos Larubia, from Sebrae.
Embraer contributes with criticism
Embraer, a manufacturer of commercial and war planes of various sizes, which makes extensive use of partnerships with other companies, is an example of efficiency and success in the Brazilian market. Invited to talk about Embraer's experience in technological innovation, Paulo Lourenção, from the technological development management, stated that the company has a staff of 2.500 engineers, but does not have a research and development unit. According to him, 63% of the resources are allocated to engineering, 31% to infrastructure modernization and only 6% to innovation.
“Innovation, for us, is technologies for products of the future. We are concerned with modeling processes and “guardians” spread around the world inform us about new software, new structural designs, aircraft vibration tests, etc. We also have more than 70 doctors and a hundred master's students, full of ideas. It’s called competitive intelligence, to see what others are doing and vice versa”, explains Lourenção.
Embraer's first concern is strategic alignment, that is, technologies need to be important to compete. “It’s a controversial point: what is innovative for the academy is not always innovative for the company. The state of the art is important to us, but if there is no strategic alignment, we will continue using what we already know how to do”, says the technician. The logic is to know which innovation to pursue. New technologies must necessarily increase competitiveness and the chance of survival.
Paulo Lourenção said that most of the technological development research, which is a high strategic priority, will continue to be carried out within Embraer. He said that the company sees cooperation with the university as important for consolidating centers of excellence, for the possibility of using its competence in times of crisis and for training professionals who will help design future products. And it alerted funding bodies to the fact that project analysis and approval deadlines are not compatible with the company's business needs. “It’s not a criticism, but often, in six or seven months, what we considered a priority at the beginning becomes irrelevant.”
Complex relationship
Carlos Américo Pacheco, executive secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology, told researchers and businesspeople present at the Campinas Inova seminar that the university-company relationship is neither trivial nor linear. He recalled that this interaction requires institutional norms and arrangements of the most diverse nature, implying that the MCT is responsible for articulating the various actors and creating instruments that enable the process of technological innovation.
Foreshadowing the concentration of the debate around the role of researchers and entrepreneurs in terms of innovation, Pacheco, as mediator of the meeting, anticipated his opinion. “This debate has been enlightening and thought-provoking enough for us to have the illusion that the university can replace the company in technological innovation. Innovation, by definition, is business: it is bringing new products and processes to the market,” he said.
The MCT secretary also noted the relevance that, if innovation is an industrial process, the supporting policies are essentially industrial policies. “In any country, these are risk reduction policies – from the point of view of capital flow, of credit with a cost compatible with the risk of investment in innovation”.
Pacheco then admits that a question remains: what is the role of the university in this process? The secretary explains that innovation, even though it is an internal process within the company, presupposes an environment, an innovative culture, a process of interaction between multiple actors. “Every technological system in the world needs a public infrastructure to support innovation,” he said.
Among the countless possibilities for the university to act, it would be above all to influence the creation of this environment. “The MCT produced a diagnosis pointing out the asymmetry between the strong research capacity installed in some universities and the weak research structure in the private sector. We have a huge field of initiatives: the Green and Yellow Fund, for example, more than a source of resources, it is a field of institutional experimentation to mobilize ways of thinking, for arrangements such as the association between universities and companies. This association can take the form of incubators, technology parks, virtual research centers, network communication, etc.”
Fiesp asks for conditions to compete
In an election year, Fiesp (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo) is proposing a political program that discusses the future of industry and the country's development in its economic and social conditions. And it places technological innovation as fundamental in this process, according to Flávio Grynszpan, director of the Department of Competitiveness and Technology.
After praising the discussion that has been taking place at the Green and Yellow Fund, which is considered a great forum where the main actors in the innovation process are – MCT, MDIC, academia and the business sector –, Grynszpan made clear Fiesp's point of view on the issue and the interaction between university and company: “The industry understands that innovation is an industrial process, which does not happen in academia. The generator, the demander of innovation is industry. There are cases in which the university generates new knowledge and technologies that can be transformed into new products, but this is not a general rule”.
The director of Fiesp states that the productive sector does not demand innovation because it is offered, but because the market demands it. “If the market doesn’t force it, there will be no innovation,” he insists. According to Grynszpan, only now is there beginning to be awareness in the industry of an environment that stimulates innovation, mainly to meet export programs and the competitive substitution of imports.
To stimulate the process, Fiesp proposes partnerships with multinationals, which, as they are already in the international environment, would shorten the path for national companies. “We would like to have hundreds of Embrapa and Embraer. But we are talking about small and medium-sized companies, which, as suppliers or partners of multinationals, would guarantee access to the global market. It is cheaper to Brazilianize national companies than to 'multinationalize' Brazilian companies”, observes Grynszpan.
Fiesp also defends a government program to improve Brazil's position in the high technology market. “We carried out a study showing that Brazilian companies have an average share of 1% in international trade, but much lower when it comes to the high-technology market.”
Dilema – The Green and Yellow Fund, according to Flávio Grynszpan, is seeking to solve another problem: allowing innovation under international competitive conditions. For this training, the government would double investment in research and development by 2006, concentrating this increase in the business sector. “Without technological expansion, there will be no space for innovation and, consequently, for the training process”, explains the director. Another support mechanism, already under negotiation, is to provide Finep with globally competitive rates.
The director of Fiesp concludes: “If the productive sector does not develop technology, we will forever be in agony of having the university far from companies. The problem is not with the university, it is with the productive sector, which needs to be equipped with instruments to innovate. And one should never think that academia is the generator of innovation. The times it has done this, the university has done badly, because it does not know how to generate competitive products.”
