| Abstract: |
This paper discusses the university-enterprise interactions in the Brazilian
innovation system by focusing on the characteristics of the public research
infrastructure which affects its propensity to interact with the industrial
sector. Logistic regressions have been used to identify, in a wide set of
explanatory variables, the characteristics of the research infrastructure
which increase its probability of supplying technological services to firms.
Besides the primary data collected from a survey carried out in a sample of
institutions related to the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation (MCTI), data concerning the scientific and technological production
of the researchers affiliated to each laboratory have also been used in the
regressions. The choice of the explanatory variables was based in a brief
literature review on the role of the research infrastructure in the national
innovation systems. Aiming at supporting the discussion of the results of the
regressions, this review also included a brief report of the recent
interactions between the research infrastructure and the industrial sector in
Brazil. The main findings of the logistic regressions are: i) the size of the
laboratory (as measured by the number of affiliated researchers) and of the
qualification of its research team positively and significantly affects its
propensity to interact with the industrial sector; ii) multidisciplinary
laboratories tend to interact more with the industrial sector than
laboratories focused on a single field of expertise; iii) there seems to be a
tradeoff between scientific publications and market oriented research, since
the number of papers published by the affiliated researchers is negatively
correlated to the probability of supplying technological services to firms. |