Abstract

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In today’s globalization, the competitiveness of each nation appears, increasingly, linked to the creation of a strong and cohesive Science, Technology and Innovation system (S,T&I), that allows cooperative actions and encourages technology transfer.

In the Brazilian context, the government has been carrying on efforts towards strengthening the innovative activities in the country, encouraging, among other things, the funding of projects designed to boost the interaction between public and private sectors, as well as the development of legal mechanisms to boost technology transfer. In this process, the approval of the Innovation Law in December 2004 calls for the national institutions of science and technology (I,S&T) – universities or research institutes to have centers of technological innovation (C,T&I) to manage their policies of innovation. However, the absence of such policies at the I,S&T is seems the first bottleneck that T&I centers will have to overcome to meet their goals properly – among them, “to maintain the institutional policy of fostering the protection of creation, licensing, innovation and other forms of technology transfer. Thus, the implications of the Innovation Law are that I,T&I must have both an Innovation Policy and an Intellectual Property Policy.

However, knowing that Brazil does not have a “culture” of technology transfer and that the T&I centers are dealing with various difficulties to structure their centers for innovation transfer, either due to lack of a more consistent policy designed to sensitize about the institutions about the crucial nature of innovative activity or due to a lack of personnel with expertise to at least take on the basic functions of self-assessment and the creation of strategic planning to achieve excellence in various aspects of the mission of a T&I center, an elaboration development of a policy institutional innovation, intellectual property management and, consequently, implementation of the T&I centers emerge as a necessary startize point.

It is with respect to this point that this book provides an original contribution, by presenting to the reader a set of items that work on issues of great relevance for structuring centers of technological innovation within the I,S&T, at just the moment of strong institutional changes, in which private initiative continues to be called to incorporate their investments in science and technology, proper structuring of T&I centers, even more fundamental so as to effectively consolidate an environment focused on innovation throughout the country. The different themes in the work – “Panorama of the T&I centers in Brazil”, “Institutionalizing the Centers for Technological Innovation”, “Managing Intellectual Property”, “Transfer and Commercialization of Technology” and “Entrepreneurship and Pre-Incubation” – enable reflection about the methods and instruments for institutional management of innovative activity and the structure of innovation clusters.

The results presented in this book – both as regards the reporting of good practices for technology management and in dealing with the articulation of separate subjects in theory, but interdependent on the daily activities of a T&I center – challenge those responsible for the formation of innovation policies at T&I centers and all those involved with the issues of intellectual property and development of innovation providing an opportunity for expanding their understanding of the context surrounding the implementation of the T&I centers in Brazil, as well as to demystify some of the obstacles involved in the process of technology transfer between the public and private sectors.

Good reading!

Published with permission of INOVA

INOVA – Agência de Inovação da Unicamp