Scientific systems in Latin America: performance, networks, and collaborations with industry

Abstract

In this paper, we use a combination of bibliometric, social network and econometric approaches to increase our knowledge of how research institutions interact with the private sector in Latin America (LA). We first study recent trends in scientific output and specialization. On average, LA countries have been reducing the gap with the world leading regions. They have also tended to specialize in fields related to economic activities based on natural resources, such as Agricultural and Plant and Animal Sciences. However, collaborations with the private sector remain scarce. In this paper, we have built scientific networks composed by what we define as Research Departments (RD). These RDs belong to universities, research institutes and government agencies. We model the intensity of collaboration of a RD with industry as a function of its size, previous performance, and its position in the LA and national scientific networks. Our results show that the RDs which higher diversity of research partners in their national scientific network work more intensively with industry. Additionally, collaborations with industry are influenced by previous interactions with the private sector.

Ciencia privatizada en América Latina

“…No se trata aquí de una transferencia de tecnología, sino del desarrollo conjunto de investigaciones. Una forma de evidenciar esta práctica es la copublicación con empresas (Confraria & Vargas, 2019). Esta práctica ha sido identificada como uno de los canales más importantes de transferencia de conocimientos en América Latina (Dutrénit & Arza, 2010) y suele pasar inobservado en los estudios que se concentran en indicadores que miden el rédito económico de las vinculación universidad-empresas para la primera.…”

Latin American Experience In Innovation Management (Example Of Southern Cone Countries)

“…The innovation management system consists of several elementsscientists and think-tanks directly engaged in research and development; the management of scientific centers and branches; financial mechanisms and institutions designed to provide resources for technological development; state innovation management bodies. The interaction of these elements is based on scientific communication which has national traits, including principles of performance, goals and objectives (Confraria & Vargas, 2019). Each of the countries determines priority principles of the innovation management system in its own way, finds its own solutions to the problems of research funding, the ratio of public and private partnership.…”

Do Latin American universities engage industry in the scientific publication? A bibliometrics approach through Scopus

“…As one specific advantage of this model of process innovation is that it is amenable to measurement (Leydesdorff & Meyer, 2003), quantitative methods can be employed to measure interactions. In the case of universities' research mission, Bibliometrics have been traditionally used to measure University-Industry collaborations, especially through the co-authorship of scientific publications, as this indicator is quantifiable and invariant, while the measurement is not invasive (Abramo, D'Angelo, Di Costa & Solazzi, 2009;Confraria & Vargas, 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, industrial researchers might act strategically in order to build reputations, to influence the process of obtaining results, to establish intellectual or industrial claims, to attain potential partners, or just to be included in places where new knowledge emerge to be early adopters obtaining a market advantage. Moreover, companies could solve complex problems using universities' labs for which they would need a set of technologies that they could not develop/maintain themselves (Arza & Carattoli, 2017;Confraria & Vargas, 2019;Li, Youtie & Shapira, 2015;McKelvey & Rake, 2020;Tijssen, 2012).…”

“…As Confraria & Vargas (2019) emphasize, policies promoting science-industry connections in the Latin American region are motivated by the potential benefit in innovation and technological capacities in the private sector, covering the specificities of each particular region, such as coffee in Costa Rica, aeronautics and oil in Brazil, oil in Mexico or nuclear technology in Argentina. As Crespi & Zuñiga (2012) summarizes, public policies promoting collaboration between universities and companies increase the level of investments in innovation and labor productivity in these firms.…”