Previous Editions | Press room | PDF version | Unicamp website | Subscribe to JU | Edition 227 - from September 1st to 7th, 2003
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Cover
Article - Shot in the foot
University & Innovation
As per the music
MRI
Reform: social policies
Reform: praxis and logic
Heloísa: resistance
Technological Park
Unicamp in the press
Panel of the Week
Job opportunities
Theses of the week
Society: dilemmas
The `dirty paper´
 

2

The university and technological innovation or what does the university have to do with it?

SERGIO SALLES FILHO

Innovation occurs in the company, that's fine, but to be more, let's say... comprehensive, it occurs as a social fact. By definition, innovation occurs when the new is, in some way, socially appropriate. Well, in this short and imprecise explanation there are two important tips: first, it is something new; second, something new that has, by certain means, been incorporated into the routine of individuals and/or collectives, natural and/or legal entities, or however people and institutions want to be called.

An OECD publication, known as the Oslo manual (which is part of the so-called “Frascati family” of manuals that define research and development and science, technology and innovation activities), defines innovation as being “the successful introduction into market, of products, services, processes, methods and systems that did not previously exist, or containing some new and different characteristic from those previously in force”. Therefore, innovation should not be confused with technology, even if the latter aims at the former.

Very well, along these lines, innovation is a process – “the successful introduction…”. But it is the introduction of something – “products, services, processes…” – thought, created, developed, experienced. Logically, every innovation has its own story, linked to the attempt to produce and incorporate something new. This story is found – as a general rule, but not necessarily – in research and development activities and in science and technology. It can be in a linear sequence (from the beginning, in basic research, to the product on the shelf) or non-linear (generally it is not). It may have high scientific content, or not. It can be incremental (small changes), radical (new technologies that replace others) or even induce the emergence of a new technical and economic paradigm.

In fact, we need to understand this well to see where we are going with this innovation thing. The consequence of this vision was well understood within the countries' scientific and technological development policies... was it? Some countries recognized this earlier and better than others, but in general, there is no doubt that there are obvious and growing relationships between science, technology and innovation, nor do there seem to be doubts that S&T cannot survive without innovation and vice versa. -versa. Each new innovation (forgive the pleonasm, but it is worth emphasizing) overflows and generates demands for the advancement of knowledge, just as the advancement of knowledge opens up opportunities for new products, services and processes.

Hence, the incorporation of the letter “I” into the S&T acrogram makes perfect sense. S,T&I is not a fad, but an evolution of what is thought about and what is done with scientific and technological development in contemporary societies.
Okay, but then a lot of people appear saying that this so-called innovation only operates for the market and that it instrumentalizes science and knowledge from an immediate perspective – that of the market – thereby losing the necessary long-term perspective and the “freedom” that the production of knowledge requires. This results in the unwillingness of some towards the articulation between science, technology and innovation and towards the university's articulation in the innovation effort. But the meaning of innovation is not restricted to its acceptance by the market, rather it presupposes its social appropriation, which may or may not be mediated by the market.

The force that knowledge today has on the values ​​and organization of societies is much greater than it has ever been. Everything that information technologies have brought and are still bringing to contemporary societies has imposed innovative form, rhythm and content. Manoel Castells believes that what differentiates the current moment from others in history is that, “for the first time, the human mind becomes a direct force of production and not just a decisive element of production systems”.

But is this good or bad for us, less developed countries? Well, of course, because training and creativity are the main differentiators of this information society. Bad, of course, because many don't even have a complete primary education. Just like that, at the same time good and bad, in a country of absurd contrasts.

I prefer, particularly, to find this new technological revolution extraordinarily positive (which, I believe, historians will no longer call industrial, simply because industry is no longer the main differentiator, as it was at the end of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century) . Capital requirements change significantly, with the intellectual gaining great space (not homo intellectual, but capital, the force to transform things into value). And I think it's positive precisely for this reason: there are opportunities with qualitatively different capital mobilization needs that allow a less developed country to aspire to take part in a highly competitive game. Examples of this are the opportunities linked to the software industry and the sustained exploitation of biodiversity, just to name two of the most obvious.
It is worth supporting a basic proposition here: that it is an error with unpredictable consequences for a country to separate the policy and strategy of scientific and technological development from the policy of searching for innovations.
Making innovation is not restricted to promoting research and development, it is necessary to consider the set of activities necessary for innovation to happen. This set of activities is much larger than the specific investment in R&D. It comprises all complementary and essential actions for the preparation, implementation and introduction of something essentially new. This mobilizes different social actors and involves the researcher in a much more comprehensive reality with greater chances of generating social benefits.

Therefore, the effectiveness of public policies focused on the topic cannot ignore support for complementary actions (such as, for example, product development, personnel training, compliance with commercial rules, intellectual property, R&D infrastructure, basic industrial technology , pioneering commercialization support, and so on). Therefore, there should be a strong rapprochement between S&T policies and industrial, agricultural, commercial policies, etc.

Academia and industry, although different species, present obvious interfaces. It is not a question of promoting interspecific crossings – especially because there would be genetic incompatibility – but rather of creating and expanding interfaces, exploring what is complementary in the innovation effort.

If academic institutions are not given the right to work for the market (except the job market), they are not given the right to ignore it either.
Once these considerations are accepted, we can then address the issue without fear of considering policy based on innovation as something that disregards social demands other than those of a strictly private nature, of reproducing the status quo, or as something that is not concerned with the production of knowledge. fundamental scientific (basic research). It all depends on the guidelines of this policy! Let’s look at three arguments in this direction:

a) It is perfectly possible to think of innovation actions aimed at specific socio-economic conditions. Generating income and promoting quality of life for excluded populations requires innovation. A poor community that exploits natural resources in the Amazon, for example, lacks technologies of all types (product, process, organizational and services), as well as access to markets with their increasingly restrictive rules.

b) A technological innovation project often encourages original scientific investigation, creating varied and combined lines of research – such as knowledge and exploration of biodiversity.

c) The policy based on the S,T&I trinomial requires support for all its components, otherwise it will not be a S,T&I policy, but something else.
But what does the university have to do with all this? Well, it is an inseparable part of any S,T&I system, whether through the training of high-level personnel, through the production of original or adapted knowledge, or through the ability to critically think about the future.

That it is part of an education and research system (at least those that do both) is already known, but we also need to know that it is an essential part of an innovation system. Ignoring this fact is the same as wasting opportunities and, worse, wasting public resources (in the case of public universities). The university must increasingly open up to meet and promote public and private demands, whenever there is a clearly signaled social benefit.

In time and before you crucify me: the calculation of the social benefit resulting from public investment does not have a direct and univocal relationship with public or private legal forms. There can be a high social benefit in private investments and a true public calamity in public investments, and vice versa.


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