In the last 20 years, Brazil has implemented a number of policies and programs aimed at strengthening innovation capacity in the productive sector. The country increased its investments in science and technology, stimulated interaction in research between companies and universities and fostered the creation of new institutions to facilitate research and development (R & D) in the private sector.

Despite some success in this trajectory, such as the consolidation of a leading global aircraft industry in the production of commercial jets - Embraer - Petrobras' pre-salt oil exploration and the development of hybrid gasoline or ethanol, the Brazilian innovation agenda did not advance at the necessary pace. Most recently, graduates of top universities in the country have started startups based on knowledge and some of these have become unicorns - companies worth more than $ 1 billion.

In order to boost innovation so as to increase productivity and economic growth in the country and put it on the path of development in the 21st century, it is necessary to implement a set of strategic actions, suggest the authors of the book Innovation in Brazil: Advancing development in the 21st century, launched in April in the United States and on May 16 in Brazil, at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), with a debate on challenges related to innovation.

Among these actions, they propose to deepen Brazil's involvement with the global economy, align industrial and innovation policies, facilitate collaboration between companies and universities, support institutional innovation and promote strategic sectors.

Outcome of a project funded by the National Industrial Apprenticeship Service (Senai), the book brings together reflections from researchers from the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and academics, entrepreneurs and science policy specialists and technological development in Brazil, on the challenges for creating a more innovation-friendly environment in the country. The book will be published in Portuguese, due to be released in October.

"The book is binational in the sense that it has a very balanced participation of authors from the United States and Brazil. In addition, it is interdisciplinary, since, among the authors, there are economists, sociologists, engineers, physicists and businessmen. This allows us to have distinct perspectives on innovation, "said Ben Ross Schneider, IPC-MIT coordinator and one of the book's editors, during the launch in Sao Paulo.

The authors of the book - among them Carlos Américo Pacheco and Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, respectively, director-president of the Technical-Administrative Council (CTA) and scientific director of FAPESP - point out that Brazil is leading investments in R & D in Latin America spend more than twice the average resources of other countries and be responsible for about two-thirds of that activity in the region.

They also point out that Brazil is also a major R & D investor among middle-income countries along with Malaysia and Russia. The country's expenditures for this purpose - equivalent to 1.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - are still low, however, accounting for about half of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries' levels.

However, Brazil's R & D investment in recent decades has also had little impact on productivity, the number of patent registrations by companies in the country remains low and most of the innovations made by the private sector are focused on products and processes aimed at the intern market.

One of the reasons for the Brazilian innovations to be more local, in the authors' opinion, is the low integration of the country, as well as many other middle income nations, with the world economy.

"Brazil continues to have one of the most closed economies in the world. For innovation to move forward, greater integration into the global economy is needed to leverage technologies and move into new markets, "said Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the IPC-MIT and also the book's editor, during a debate on the topics covered in the publication.

Brazilian imports and exports are almost at the same level as Myanmar, accounting for only a quarter of GDP. And while the country liberalized its trade in the 1990s, it continued to protect sectors such as the automotive and textiles sectors, in part because they employ many workers.

These sectors make significant investments in innovation. The automobile, for example, accounts for about a quarter of R & D investments made by industries in Brazil. However, the R & D done by the auto industry in this closed and protected economic environment results in innovations that are new to the Brazilian market, but not necessarily to the world. "This limits export opportunities for Brazil," the authors write.

Some actions to overcome these obstacles pointed out by the authors are the reduction of tariffs on R & D-related inputs and technologies used in industrial production, to promote policies to attract R & D investments from multinational companies, to encourage the repercussions of foreign direct investment in innovation and to reduce barriers to skilled immigrants, especially scientists and engineers.

Although Brazil has been relatively successful in attracting multinational research centers in recent years, policies aimed at promoting significant spillovers from these direct foreign investment into innovation have been less successful. This limits the flow of knowledge and key inputs from abroad to promote innovation in Brazilian companies, the authors point out.

"It is necessary to make the exchange of goods, services, ideas, capital and people between Brazil and the foreign market more fluid," Reynolds said.

Role of universities

According to the authors, one of the lessons that Brazil can learn from the experiences of other countries that also sought to increase the capacity for innovation in recent decades is that, in common, they included in their strategies the strengthening of universities as industry partners and government in research that can result in economic development.

In Brazil, universities have evolved in recent decades, albeit unequally, by adopting an approach that linked the pursuit of excellence in the education of their students to the incorporation of initiatives related to economic development and entrepreneurship.

Some of the challenges faced in translating the scientific and technical knowledge generated by these research institutions into new products, processes and services by the market, however, are small numbers of engineers trained in the country, the high cost of R & D inputs due to protectionist and the limited number of partners in the private sector willing to invest in early stage technologies, the authors write.

"Some Brazilian universities, such as USP, Unicamp, Unesp and URFJ, already have a lot of collaboration with companies. This can be measured by the amount of resources they collect from the private sector for conducting collaborative research - the same level as the best American universities - by publishing co-authored articles or by the number of co-proprietary patents. But there is a lot of room to increase this interaction and it seems to be the moment to seek initiatives that universities can adopt, exercising their autonomy, to become more effective in education, fundamental research and research in collaboration with companies, "said Brito Cruz.

"At FAPESP we are constantly being sought by a large number of companies, mainly from abroad, in search of opportunities for collaboration in advanced research with universities in the State of São Paulo. This shows that the quality of universities is recognized worldwide, "he said.

In the opinion of Fernanda de Negri, research coordinator of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and also one of the authors of the book, there are many areas in Brazil in which the knowledge generated by universities and research institutions could be applied. These areas, such as health, urban mobility and energy, could be prioritized in research investments through specific funds.

"In Brazil, we do not have stability of funding funds for science and technology. This makes it very difficult for universities to plan their research investments, "he said.

"The creation of targeted research funds could be a good strategy to prioritize or make better use of science and technology funding in the country," Negri suggested.

Other areas or strategic sectors in which Brazil could increase the incentives for innovation pointed out by the authors are in renewable energies, such as wind, solar, thermal and biofuels.

"In biofuels, second generation ethanol and 'green chemistry', Brazil is closer to the technological frontier," said Bernardo Gradin, founder and president of GranBio - a Brazilian industrial biotechnology company.

The English version of the book Innovation in Brazil: Advancing Development in the 21st Century can be purchased at www.routledge.com/Innovation-in-Brazil-Advancing-Development-in-the-21st-Century-1st-Edition/Reynolds- Schneider-Zylberberg / p / book / 9780367146894.