Sistemas nacionais de inovação comparados: Brasil x Canadá

Abstract

The world is currently experiencing a wave of changes that are not only socio-cultural but, above all, economic. The phenomenon called globalization (perhaps the most important of these changes) makes the ability to adapt to them ultimately an essential attribute for nations that wish to act as global players. In addition, the microelectronics revolution - which directly affects information and communication technologies - has provided and continues to stimulate the most recent paradigm, the so-called information paradigm. The latter is the result of a technological revolution, where the aforementioned technologies enabled the emergence of a new phase in the economy: the emergence of a knowledge-based economy, in which “is assumed that the most fundamental resource in the modern economy is knowledge and, accordingly, that the most important process is learning” (LUNDVALL, 1995: 01). As knowledge and information differ considerably from traditional factors of production, a new paradigm emerged capable of explaining the changes experienced when the two variables in question started to be taken into account. LUNDVALL (loc. Cit.) Therefore emphasizes the fact that Technology and knowledge have always been inextricably linked to economic growth. However, the role of knowledge has become more prominent recently, due to its increasing weight in economic dynamics. ALBUQUERQUE (1998) shows that the OECD considers that the economies of member countries have never been more dependent on the production, distribution and use of knowledge as it is now and that “it is estimated that, today, in the main OECD economies more than 50% of their GNP is based on knowledge" (OECD, 1996 apud ALBUQUERQUE, 1998: 365). In this context, companies and countries are under increasing pressure to build and maintain their competitive advantages, which requires the ability to generate and use the innovations that result from these and other new technologies. With respect to innovations, J. SCHUMPETER (1985) was one of the precursors in their analysis. He defended, initially, that innovations are introduced in the market through entrepreneurs, whose importance would be found in the correct assessment of the needs of the market and of its possibility to satisfy them. But in his last works, SCHUMPETER (1984) already admitted that, due to the greatest technological requirements, the innovations became, to a great extent, dependent on the activities of the Research & Development (R&D) departments of great companies. From the mid-70s and 80s, a new stream of economic thought, entitled “neo-Schumpeterians”, critically resumed Schumpeter's contributions. One of the points most highlighted by the new current was the discussion, in greater depth, of the process of generating technological progress, criticizing the classic distinction between inventions and innovations, which came to be understood as an interactive process between companies, consumers and companies. government institutions. Furthermore, it is clear that, in modern capitalism, innovation is a fundamental and inherent phenomenon, since the competitiveness of firms in the long run - and even the competitiveness of national economies - reflects not only their ability to generate innovations but also the need of engaging in innovative activities to mitigate the possibility of delay technological. The main conclusion, resulting from the interaction of all these facts, can be thus summarized: “(...) scientific activities and technical change have been brought close together and become increasingly interdependent activities and today, the capability to innovate cannot be assessed in isolation from efforts in science, research and development ’’ (LUNDVALL, 1995: 04). In addition to all these aspects, it should be noted that the process of creating innovations depends on the market (which will or will not sanction the latest changes), the public sector (via the granting of financing for R&D and regulation of economic activity), companies (via investments for the development and commercialization of new products) and also of universities, since the academic sector brings together much of the basic research necessary for the development of innovations. It is the conjunction of the public, private and university sectors that shapes the so-called “National Innovation System” (SNI) Since this conjunction seems to be essential for the development of new production processes based on cutting-edge technologies and, according to ALBUQUERQUE (1998: 365), one of the basic assumptions of the emergence of a knowledge-based economy is the existence of national systems of mature innovation, it must be the basic premise of a work that seeks to analyze the experience of different countries from this point of view. Two countries were chosen to be analyzed based on the combination of the factors previously mentioned. The first was Brazil, whose choice was mainly due to the existence of the controversy that revolves around the conformation (or not) of a Brazilian SNI.