1. INTRODUCTION
According to Mazzoleni and
Nelson (2007), the innovativeness of an economy is determined by its scientific
infrastructure`s degree of development and its integration to the market, which
turns makes the science-industry relations of fundamental importance for the
emerging countries, in order for them to catch-up to the global leader’s
socioeconomic development.
Although the
interaction between academia and industry is considered one of the most
effective ways to generate innovations, such relationships are recent in the Brazilian
economy, having been developed from individual initiatives not integrated with
each other. As reported by Etzkowitz, Mello and Almeida (2005), with the
publication of the Innovation Law in 2004, the Brazilian government initiated a
public policy to increase innovation capacity at the national level, aiming to
improve the country`s scientific infrastructure and giving incentives to its
integration with the productive sector.
To Etzkowitz (2001), the
U-E interaction approach to innovation enhances the academic community`s
appreciation of the economic potential of research beyond its natural
scientific valor. This fact, in turn, allows the market to influence, in some
degree, the choice of subjects researched, leading to the growth of regional
innovation capacity. However, the literature (BENNER; SANDSTROM, 2000; PLONSKI,
2005; RAPINI et al., 2009; ETZKOWITZ,
2011) indicates that the dynamics of innovation occurs through the interaction
of various actors within industry, academia and the government – the three
together forming a Triple Helix. Under this view, the government plays the role
of creating incentives or barriers to the development of relations between academia
and industry, which are responsible, respectively, for the generation of
knowledge and the marketing of products and services.
With the Innovation Law
(Law No. 10.973), enacted on December 2, 2004, the Brazilian government
included in its agenda a national policy oriented to boosting its
socio-economic development by increasing the innovation capacity, focusing
mainly in improving the scientific infrastructure and its integration into the
productive sector. The Innovation Law is an important catalyst for significant
changes in federal universities, which make up most of the Science &
Technology system in Brazil. However, due to institutional changes occurring
gradually, there is little conclusive research on the functioning and
effectiveness of the transformations already taking place.
This paper aims to
identify the result of the transformations brought about by the Law of
Innovation by diagnosing the university-industry interactions observed in the
School of Engineering of Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), in order to
meet the following objectives:
§
To portray the recent experiences with the productive sector, and examining
its characteristics;
§
To analyze the factors that drive the emergence of and sustain
university-industry interactions; and
§
To evaluate the degree of institutionalization of the cooperation with
the productive sector, considering the different views and levels of importance
attributed to the phenomenon by the academic community.
This study presents
relevant empirical data from one of the largest federal public universities in
Brazil, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro, to the international community.
Additionally, it serves as a methodological model for performing diagnostics of
the university-enterprise interactions from other universities and academic
institutions.
This paper is organized
into five sections. The first section offers an overview of the Brazilian
institutional environment regarding the public policy of innovation in addition
to stating the study`s goals. The second section provides a review of
scientific literature on issues related to the importance of the academy and
its integration to the industry for innovation, as well as the development of
the Brazilian science, technology and innovation system. The third section
describes the method used for the empirical research, conducted at the School
of Engineering of Universidade Federal Fluminense. In the fourth, the data
collected is analyzed and briefly discussed, providing the main findings of the
study, while the fifth and last section presents its conclusions and
contributions.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
The contribution of academia for innovation and the
role of the Triple Helix
In
the current economic perspective, based on knowledge and characterized by the accelerating
pace of change, the learning process is getting increasingly more important for
a good economic performance, since it has direct influence on the innovation
dynamics (LUNDVALL et al., 2002).
Thus, the university, as a producer and disseminator of knowledge, plays a
leading role in the process of industrial innovation (ETZKOWITZ et al., 2000).
However,
due to the growing gap between the demands imposed by society and the
responsiveness of universities, these organizations have been adapting to their
new roles through a set of structural transformations, which can be summarized
in five elements, as identified by Clark (1998 apud SANTOS, 2010):
§
Creating a core body capable of coordinating the necessary changes;
§
Creating peripheral structures to meet the new demands that are not
satisfactorily met by pre-existing structures;
§
Diversifying the sources of funding;
§
Developing an entrepreneurial culture within the university, in an
institutional perspective;
§
Appearance of a few academic departments, more enterprising than the
others.
With
the emergence of the entrepreneurial university, which aims to capitalize on
the knowledge it generates by approaching to the productive sector, the
science-industry relationship is developed, becoming an important tool in
national science, technology and innovation (STI) policies of industrialized
countries. Standing out among them, the United States, Japan and South Korea
are studied extensively because of the results observed in the economic and
technological development area (MAZZOLENI; NELSON, 2007; GUSMÃO, 2002).
At
the same time as it reveals itself an important mechanism for fostering
innovation, the science-industry relationship`s emergence arouses discussions
about the conflicts between economic interests and academic values (PETERS;
ETZKOWITZ, 1990), such as the goals of academic research (pure science vs.
applied) and the rights to commercially explore intellectual property arising
from university research, much desired both by the companies that fund it and
the researchers who execute it. However, despite being conflicting at first
glance, the similar interests fostered the growth of research oriented towards
both academic and economic goals, and as a consequence, a greater technological
and economic development (ETZKOWITZ, 2001, 2011; DAGNINO, 2003; LIMA; TEIXEIRA,
2001).
These
changes are reinforced in the literature by two lines of thought developed in
the 80s and 90s: the evolution of innovation models from a linear to a systemic
approach, and the Second Academic Revolution, which universities are now
actively participate in economic development and social in addition to the
traditional functions of teaching and research (ETZKOWITZ et al, 2000; DAGNINO, 2003; ETZKOWITZ, 2003a). Due to these
currents, Etzkowitz proposes the theory of Triple Helix, in which the
university abandons the secondary role occupied in previous models of
innovation, rising to primary position equivalent industry and government
alike. According to the author:
“[…] the
Triple Helix thesis postulates that the interaction in
university-industry-government is the key to improving the conditions for
innovation in a knowledge-based society. Industry operates in the Triple Helix
as the locus of production; government as the source of contractual relations
that guarantee stable interactions and exchanges; the university as a source of
new knowledge and technology, the generative principle of knowledge-based
economies (ETZKOWITZ, 2003b: p. 295).”
The
helix representing each institution may vary its settings according to the
degree of evolution of the innovation system and to the level of development of
the university-industry interactions. In the configuration I (Figure 1), also
known as Sábato Triangle, the national state encompasses academia and industry,
directing their relationships. Examples of this model include the former Soviet
Union and several Latin American countries. In configuration II (Figure 2), the
institutional spheres are separated, with well-defined borders and highly circumstantial
relations. This model would include examples such as Sweden and the United
States at the end of the 90s decade (ETZKOWITZ; LEYDESDORFF, 2000).
Figure 1: Static model of
university-industry-government relations.
Source: Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000)
Figure 2: "Laissez-faire" model of
university-industry-government relations.
Source: Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000)
While
configuration I was considered an inappropriate model of development, with
little focus on bottom-up initiatives, where innovation would actually be
discouraged, configuration II reflects a policy of economic liberalism
(“laissez-faire”), being a radical attempt to reduce the prominent role of the
state.
To
Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000: p. 112), “one way or another, most countries
and regions are currently trying to achieve the configuration of the Triple
Helix III” (Figure 3), where the institutional spheres overlap, giving rise to
hybrid organizations.
Figure 3: Triple Helix model of
university-industry-government relations.
Source: Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000)
2.2.
The development of the Brazilian science, technology
and innovation systems
According to Longo (2000) and Silva (2008), the
development of higher education in Brazil was late, starting in 1920 with the
installation of the first university (Universidade of Brazil, current
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), while in other American countries it
had been created since the sixteenth century.
The Brazilian system of science and technology (S&T),
which, as discussed earlier, plays an important role in the phenomenon of
innovation, originated in the 1950s, with the creation of the agencies that
coordinate the scientific and technological development (CNPq and CAPES) and
the incentives to the massive opening of multinational companies in the
country.
It is noticed, then, that since its creation, the
Brazilian system of S&T gets an extensive involvement of the Federal
Government, which would continue on the next decade with the creation of public
research institutes and the integration of scientific research activities at
universities, by operation of law.
However, the model of imports substitution, adopted in
the Brazilian economy at the time, delayed the increase of competitiveness of
domestic firms, despite the advances in industrialization and the development
of the national system of S&T (SILVA, 2008; MACULAN; MELLO, 2009). In this
context, Silva Junior and Spears (2012) argue that, as the federal universities
did not interact with the modern economy and commodity exports were priority
for economic growth, the university sustained a position of detachment from
market demands, remained public-funded and went through few changes between the
70s and 90s decades.
Nevertheless, it was during this period, as reported by
Etzkowitz, Mello and Almeida (2005), that the incubator movement emerges,
becoming the main drive for the development of the triple helix relations in
Brazil - initially from local and decentralized initiatives and, subsequently,
through national and coordinated networks. It is important to emphasize that
the Brazilian incubator movement not adopted in its entirety the traditional
concept of incubator, intended to technology-based companies, in order to cover
low-tech companies and cooperatives, among other organizations, due to the poor
economic situation of the time.
Later, in the 1990s, in order to increase its domestic
industry competitiveness, the Brazilian government adopted a series of measures
to stimulate technological development, such as the reduction of tariff
barriers and allowing the foreign capital to pour in the economy, and also
structured the regulatory basis of intellectual property (CARNEIRO, 2005;
PEREIRA, 2008).
The incubator movement itself earned the support of
public policies, allowing for an orderly expansion and eventually giving birth
to programs of knowledge and technology transfer through university-industry
interactions, in addition to public funds for the financing of R&D
projects, the improvement of scientific infrastructure and the encouraging of
university-industry interactions.
However, the Brazilian science, technology and innovation
policies did not achieved the expected level of technological development for
the industry, since they did not includes both necessary aspects for political
models of technological development, summarized by Dudziak (2007): to stimulate
spending on R&D in the private sector and to strengthen its links with
public sector research. Thus, the STI system showed several bottlenecks, such
as barriers to researcher’s mobility, difficulties in contract negotiations
between public and private sector and low level of entrepreneurship (MACULAN;
MELLO, 2009).
The necessary conditions for successful
university-industry interactions include stable legislation and political
environment, in which trust on the compliance of contracts between both parties
exists and their relationships can flourish (ETZKOWITZ; MELLO; ALMEIDA, 2005).
Thus, in 2004, the government created a new regulatory framework to delineate
favorable circumstance for the scientific and technological development and to
encourage innovation in Brazil, placing the university-business interaction as
the main driver for industrial development. This regulation is known as the
Innovation Law (BRAZIL, 2004), which is organized around three components:
§
Establishing a positive environment to the formation of strategic
partnerships between universities, technological institutes;
§
Stimulating the participation of science and technology institutions in
the innovation process;
§
Encouraging innovation at the company level.
2.3.
University-enterprise interactions
According to Antunes (2008), the university-enterprise
interaction, in a context of the dynamics of innovation, occurs as long as both
parties have interests on gathering its benefits, such as increasing the
business competitiveness and improving the university`s education, research and
extension activities, through mechanisms of knowledge management. The reason
for a party to approach the other depends on the context in which this approach
occurs, with common causes, as described by Webster and Etzkowitz (1991 apud DAGNINO, 2003) and Dudziak (2007),
being:
§
Growing difficulty in obtaining public funding for university research
activities;
§
Academic community`s interest on legitimizing their work to society;
§
Rising costs of R&D, which are needed to secure advantages in an
increasingly competitive market;
§
The need to share costs and risks of pre-competitive research with other
institutions;
§
Escalating pace of innovation in the productive sector and reducing time
between research execution and application;
§
Globalization of the economy and the struggle among firms, sharpening
competitiveness;
§
Changes in the rules of intellectual property originated from public
research;
On the other hand, there are also barriers to the
occurrence of interactions university-enterprise, which may originate in the
organizations themselves or in the economic, social and political environment
in which they occur, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Incentives and barriers to science and
industry interaction.
Source: Dudziak (2007)
Another relevant aspect
of this phenomenon is the shape in which it occurs, ranging from the simple
supply of technical services to research projects carried out jointly by both
parties (DUDZIAK, 2007; MACULAN; MELLO, 2009). The modalities of
university-industry (U-E) interactions observed in the literature are:
§
Custom research, generally in the form of specific projects governed by
financing agreements;
§
Consulting projects developed in the teachers-researchers area of
expertise;
§
Programs of internships and training through work experience in industry;
§
Research projects in collaboration with companies through public
funding;
§
Research consortia involving several research institutions and
industrial companies;
§
Creation of technology-based companies from research results
(spin-offs);
§
Mobility of researchers from the university to the industry, and vice
versa;
The changes in
Brazilian universities, accelerated by the Innovation Law from 2004 onwards,
have originated some of the commonly structures of today`s academies, such as
technology transfer offices, support foundations, centers of excellence,
technology parks and incubators. These are the structures responsible for
managing the activities related to U-E interactions in order to overcome the
barriers to their occurrence.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Although the Oslo
Manual (OECD, 2006: p. 133) recommends that "innovation surveys refer to
those innovation activities in the business sector," this study`s goal is
to identify the characteristics of the university-industry interactions
phenomenon in the academic environment. Thus, its guidelines have been
considered, but not strictly enforced.
After an extensive
review of the scientific literature, a preliminary investigation was conducted
in order to identify the forms, mechanisms and bodies involved in university-enterprise
interactions in School of Engineering of Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)
by interviewing two researchers who have been responsible for the bodies
directly related to the university's innovation policy – namely UFF’s Incubator
and Innovation Agency. This stage generated the model of analysis and the
survey form, which was evaluated in its consistency by conducting
test-interviews with two professors at the same institution, and the necessary
adjustments were made afterwards. The final questionnaire used in the
interviews is in the Appendix.
The next step was the
collection of data on the characteristics and the context of U-E interactions
in the School of Engineering, through exploratory interviews with selected
researchers. It is important to highlight that the data collected regarded the
interactions occurred between the years 2011 and 2013, as the Oslo Manual
recommends using data collected at a maximum period of 3 years before any
research on innovation.
A total of 19
interviews were carried out, guaranteeing the anonymity to respondents in order
to avoid any conflicts of interest and possible interferences on the data
collected. The empirical research`s sample was delimited to a set of faculty
members working for the Departments of Mechanical Engineering (TEM) and
Production Engineering (TEP), since those are the only ones with full-graduate
programs and also, because of the intrinsic proximity of these areas of
knowledge with the industrial sector, with which School of Engineering of UFF
has a historical relationship.
From the notes and
audio recordings made during the interviews, the participants' responses to
each question were analyzed and, through semantic analysis, the degree of
similarity or divergence of the most frequent examples and statements were
identified.
It is important to
highlight that due to the limited availability of teachers, the interviews were
restricted to volunteers from the previously mentioned departments. Thus, the
results found in this study are limited to the perceptions of a representative
segment of faculty members, but these do not necessarily reflect the university
in general. Additionally, the information collected in the interviews is
self-reported, not necessarily reflecting the opinion of a group of people or
having previously been proven by researches.
4. CHARACTERISTICS OF UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY (U-E) RELATIONS
Based on the analysis
of the interviews, it was possible to observe different patterns in the U-E
interactions investigated, such as to what degree the researchers involve in
these relations, the profile of the organizations that work with the
university, the primary type of relationship, in addition to the main
mechanisms by which the parties approach each other and formalize their relationships.
Each of these aspects is analyzed and discussed below.
4.1.
Researcher’s involvement
Thirteen of the
nineteen respondents were directly involved in at least one formalized partnership
with the productive sector in the last three years. Among the others, two did
not maintain any kind of relationship at all, while four sustained indirect or
informal relationships[1]
through the supervision of their student`s researches.
Despite the fact that
most of the respondents have had some kind of partnership with the industrial
sector, the degree of involvement on U-E relations varies significantly among
them, as shown in Chart 1.
Chart 1: Distribution of the amount of U-E relations by faculty member.
Another key
consideration is the concentration of university-industry interactions among
researchers. As evidenced in the interviews, just a few faculty members explain
most of the interactions: 3 researchers account for 14 of the recorded
evidence, which represents 42.42% of the interactions. This fact is evidence to
the premise of the prominence of entrepreneurial culture in a particular set of
researchers, those who stand out for their extensive relationships with the
productive sector, as discussed in the literature review. In addition, significant
difficulties were reported in complying with the internal process for approval
of U-E interactions, which discourage the participation of the faculty.
4.2.
Profile of organizations that maintain relationship
with School of Engineering
The organizations that
maintain relationships with School of Engineering of UFF are mostly large
companies[2]
in the shipbuilding and oil & gas industrial sectors, as evident in Charts
2 and 3, with one company (Petrobras - largest company in Brazilian oil &
gas industry) representing almost half (14 of the 33 cooperation projects) of
UFF’s partnerships with the productive sector in.
Chart 2: Distribution of the U-E relations by type of organization.
On the other hand,
small and micro enterprises[3]
were cited in only 2 relations, with a less expressive representation than the
interactions with government agencies and nonprofit organizations. This finding
suggests that there is a gap on the fulfillment of the university`s third
mission, since its knowledge is becoming available to a limited group of
organizations instead of to society as a whole. Also, this fact could be
explained by the high costs and large bureaucracy involved on projects with the
university, which only the biggest companies could afford.
Also, some industrial
sectors had been responsible for only one of the U-E interactions identified,
and thus were classified as "Other" in Chart 3. These include the
electrical power, mining, steel and information technology.
Chart 3: Distribution of the U-E relations by industrial sector.
Small and micro
enterprises were cited in only 2 relations, with a less expressive
representation than the interactions witch government agencies and nonprofit
organizations.
The sectors with only
one U-E relationship (those classified as "other" in Chart 3) include
the electrical power, mining, steel and information technology sectors.
4.3.
The arrangements of U-E interaction employed
The arrangements of U-E
interaction through which the demands and interests of each party are better
considered have varied shapes and characteristics. However, a closed list
composed of six modalities[4]
was adopted, for standardization purposes, as follows:
§
Courses and training: conducting courses with a focus on transfer of
knowledge through teaching;
§
Mobility of researchers and professionals: the professor acts as a
company employee, or the employee as a researcher, for a short period of time;
§
Consulting and specialized technical guidance: technical services for
solving a specific demand with the application of knowledge already mastered;
§
Rental infrastructure and supply of equipment: temporary or permanent
transfer of equipment, laboratory infrastructure or software;
§
Research on demand: technical services for solving a specific demand
with scientific research and the development and application of new knowledge;
§
Thematic researches: technical services for exploration of an
overarching theme relevant to a company with a scientific research approach,
aiming for the development and application of new knowledge;
As shown in Chart 4,
the most cited modalities were research on demand, consulting and specialized
technical guidance and thematic researches, which represent the primary means
of using the academy’s accumulated knowledge, by allowing the exploitation of
its intellectual capacity with the goal of presenting solutions for the
productive sector`s demands. For one of the respondents, these are the
mechanisms that add more value to faculty members and companies alike:
"the more understanding the project requires, the more interesting it will
be for those involved. Therefore, thematic research-type of interactions
presents a greater value for both the company and the university. The exception
occurs when a company has a specific problem that needs quick solution. In that
case, it would perceive a greater value in the consulting- or research on
demand-types of interaction, depending on which is most appropriate to the
problem at hand”.
Chart 4: Distribution of the amount U-E relations by type of interaction.
The main features that
differentiate modalities are related to the means by which an interaction is
formalized. Consultancies, for example, tend to inhibit the development and
publication of scientific papers, due to the large workload required and the
restrictions on trade secrets. On the other hand, both thematic and on demand
researches are less restrictive, allowing faculty members to allocate the funds
received from agencies to other academic activities. However, such projects
"occur slowly and feel like they will show no results," as described
by one of the respondents.
The courses and
training were cited in only 5 cases of interactions reported. However, those
professors who have cited them highlighted the high frequency of courses and
training and its importance as a form of U-E interaction by itself. It is
noted, therefore, a discrepancy between these statements and the absence of
citations from other respondents about their participation in courses and
training for any companies. This evidences a diffused opinion on the courses
and training modality as a type of interaction with the productive sector,
since few faculties engage more deeply with the courses and most of them limit
themselves to teaching some of the classes.
The mechanisms of
academic mobility and rental of infrastructure were the least cited, with only
one case of each type. Such mechanisms are difficult to use because, according
to the interviewees, the university does not have adequate infrastructure,
which most large companies possess, or does not allow the faculty to become
temporarily absent from their obligations to their departments. In addition,
Brazilian law is restrictive in regard to the renting or lending of public
facilities and equipment for private use, which is a particular institutional
feature within the framework of federal universities.
4.4.
Methods of approaching of U-E interaction
For the great part of
respondents (31 of 33 reports), the initiative for the formation of the
relationship came from the productive sector, which constantly searches for
solutions to its specific problems through the intellectual capacity of the
faculty. However, this initial approach don’t usually happens via institutional
channels, but through the faculty themselves, who are sought after across their
network of relationships (students or alumni), or even contacted directly by
companies due to its academic reputation in areas of knowledge relevant to
their businesses.
Another important
finding was that a large portion of the U-E relations reported by respondents
were the result of previous interactions with the same company. In the opinion
of one interviewee, “the same company often resorts to the university several
times, but the liaison within the company changes and so for every interaction
there may be different area or department seeking us.”
There were only two
cases where the professor took the initiative to seek the relationship with a
company. In one of them, the faculty used his network of contacts to seek
specialized services, nonacademic in nature. In the other, what motivated the
researcher to look out for the firm contacted was the funding necessary to
execute a research in the firm’s industrial sector, in a way similar to what
had happened in the company`s headquarter at another country.
4.5.
Formalization instruments
The formalization of
U-E relations is directly related to the involvement of the financial funding
of the cooperative projects. The legal instruments used by the university to
formalize such projects are either contracts or cooperation agreements,
described below[5]:
§
Contract of Service: aims to deliver a product to meet a specific
demand. In this type of relationship, the university gets evaluated according
to the service delivered, like any commercial agreement, and may also be fined
for any failures.
§
Cooperation Agreement: aims to allow the exchange of knowledge in areas
of common interest with the university and may be comprehensive or restricted
to specific themes, being more often used to formalize partnerships with public
entities.
To be executed, both
instruments must undergo a process of analysis and approval on the university’s
collegiate bodies, which however are different for each kind: the approval of a
contract involving fewer decision-makers and less complexity. Additionally,
both can contain clauses relating to the confidentiality of the projects, if
necessary.
Despite the differences
mentioned above, it was identified that faculty has little knowledge of the
approval process for projects of U-E interaction within the university. Of the
33 cases reported, only in 17 the interviewees managed to specify the
instrument used - 14 through contracts and 3 through agreements. Due to being
easier approving projects through contracts, use of this instrument is
predominant.
It is worth mentioning
that all (33) U-E interactions identified and analyzed in this study were
formalized by the university. However, several other relations, not formalized,
were also reported – mostly coming from the professional networking of the
faculty involved or from the orientation of research projects of their own
students –, which means that there was no financial relationship between the
parties.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The growing importance of the university in the
innovation process has been unleashing several changes in its structure. With
the Innovation Law, enacted in 2004, mechanisms were created to accelerate the
development of the science-industry relationships, in order to increase the
innovation potential of the Brazilian industry. Such relationships are
essential for the university secure more resources to finance its activities,
in addition to fulfilling its function of contributing to the economic and social
development (DAGNINO, 2003; DUDZIAK, 2007; ETZKOWITZ, 2001, 2011; LIMA;
TEIXEIRA, 2001)
This study identified a number of manifestations of U-E
relationships that occurred with the School of Engineering of Universidade
Federal Fluminense, an institution with a long history of association with the
productive sector. Some of these manifestations’ characteristics were
investigated, such as the size and industrial sector of the university’s
partners, the level of involvement of the faculty members with these
partnerships, the different arrangements used in the U-E interactions, the
institution responsible for starting the U-E relationships, and the types of
legal instruments used to formalize such interactions.
First, it was found that UFF’s School of Engineering
relationships with the productive sector occurs mainly with large companies from
the naval and oil & gas industries. It was also evident that the U-E
interactions are still concentrated on a small group of professors, which is
explained by the diversity of researchers background and academic interests and
the large dependency of U-E relations to their individual profiles, since there
is no institutional guidance about the benefits, industries, themes or types of
interaction that should be pursued in their cooperation with the productive
sector.
Additionally, the bureaucratic hurdles and the lack of an
adequate infrastructure and administrative support discourage the participation
of researchers in external projects. In the same way, the procedures for
legally establishing the U-E relations are not appropriately disclosed to the
professors: the conducted interviews showed that the faculty members do not
fully understand the role of the university’s departments that get involved in
the approval and administration of cooperation projects, a fact that also
discourages their collaboration with external partners.
On the other hand, those professors who lead the U-E
interactions shows entrepreneurial behavior, becoming directly responsible for
the relationships with external organizations, which in turn are generally not
influenced by the university`s institutional acts. Thus, the U-E interactions
are particularized by faculty members, not representing, in essence, an
institutional relationship between both parties. Despite this, the existing U-E
interactions show that they happen, unilaterally, because the industry demands
knowledge from the academy. The reverse scenario, in which the faculty would
seek closer ties with companies in order to pursue benefits for the university,
was not identified.
In addition to the university`s reactive posture, the
predominance of projects that focus on providing services for businesses are
evidences of the lack of integration of the teaching role in their
relationships with companies. It is worth saying that providing courses and
training for businesses is not widely recognized by the faculty as a legitimate
mode of interaction with the productive sector.
At last, it was identified that most of the existing U-E
relations are formalized through contracts, rather than cooperation agreements.
This fact indicates that the relationship with the industry has more of a
commercial bent than signs of mutual partnership between parties. One possible
reason is that, as indicated by the respondents, the procedure for approval of
a cooperation agreement is more complex and time consuming than the approval of
contracts. However, contracts hinder the researcher's ability to create
knowledge due to their strict deadlines and rigorous constraints on the
dissemination of research content. One of the consequences is the lower
frequency of published scientific papers based on research carried out in the
industrial environment, which in turn plays a big part on the low rate of
innovation, as evidenced by the fact that only one patent had been registered
by the 33 identified U-E relations.
In general, the various findings of this study give a
deeper understanding on the context of the U-E interactions in an academic unit
that already has some degree of relationship to the industry. To achieve its
transformation into a truly entrepreneurial university, however, UFF’s School
of Engineering must increase its efforts in the administrative structure,
repeatedly characterized by faculty as one of the main factors of
discouragement for the occurrence of U-E relations. In addition, all of UFF`s
academic units, and the School of Engineering in particular, could benefit from
an greater effort to raise awareness of faculty members about the importance of
integrating the roles of teaching, research and extension in academic
activities.
The information contained in this research will hopefully
contribute to the adequate UFF`s institutional practices and policies, and
possibly induce other universities to rethink its practices regarding
innovation and U-E relations. Also, other studies should be performed to help
universities achieve this goal, for example, performing similar exploratory
researches on other academic units, and also analyzing the university’s U-E
relations based on quantitative data and documentary information, aiming to
reinforce the findings described here. Additionally, a survey with
entrepreneurs, executives and professionals could be conducted to identify the
productive sector’s perceptions of the U-E relation’s benefits and
difficulties, and this paper could be used as a guideline for the information
to be collected, as well as a framework for analyzing the differences and
similarities in the perceptions of both parties involved in U-E relations.
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Appendix: Questionnaire
interviews with faculty members
Purpose of the
interview: to explore the opinion of faculty members on the context of the
university-industry relations existing in the School of Engineering from 2011
to 2013, considering the institutional policies in place and the experience of
the professor in such relationships.
To that end, the
following questions are intended to identify the characteristics and
peculiarities of U-E relations from the experiences of each faculty in these
interactions. It also seeks to characterize such relationships holistically,
considering the variety of existing interactions, and to identify barriers to
their occurrence and the benefits they generate.
In the context of this
paper, the term "business", "productive sector" and
"customer" are used broadly, including, in addition to private
companies, other types of organizations, such as NGOs, not-for-profit
institutions and government agencies.
·
Involvement of teachers in
the relationships U-E
1) Have you recently
participated (from 2011 to 2013) in any projects together with clients outside
the university? What is the project`s purpose and its field of knowledge? What
is the industry in which the client operates?
2) Among the following
options, how would you classify the type of U-E interaction of each project?
Among the types you have experience with, could you identify some feature,
advantage or disadvantage that stands out from the others?
§
Courses and training
§
Mobility of researchers and professionals
§
Consulting and specialized technical assistance
§
Rental infrastructure and supply of equipment
§
Researches on demand
§
Thematic researches
3) How was the approach to or
from the customer in these projects? Who sought whom? Was the demand
spontaneous or induced by some kind of incentive?
4) Were these projects
formalized by any sort of contract or covenant? How did this formalization
occur? Did you have any legal and / or administrative support in the
preparation of contracts and / or agreements?
5) The project’s deliverable
is a scientific article or a service? If it is a service, does it have a
technical application and / or practice feature? Does it consist in the
creation or improvement of products and / or processes?
6) Does the result of the
project have any potential for patenting or marketing? If it does, would you
want to market it through an enterprise yourself or would you pass the right to
do it to another company? Why?
7) Are the relationships with
the customer occasional or ongoing / recurring? What drives a customer to
maintain and / or resume relations with School of Engineering of UFF?
·
Institutionalization of U-E
relations
8) In your opinion, in what
ways does the approach to School of Engineering of UFF contribute to the
productive sector?
9) In your opinion, what is
the greatest motivation for the faculty to maintain relationships with the
productive sector? What are the benefits generated for the professor and for
the department?
10) What are the difficulties
(internal and external) encountered in the establishment of U-E interactions
within the School of Engineering of UFF?
11) Do you know the Law of
Innovation (2004) and its consequences for federal universities (incentives for
partnerships with business and administrative support to innovation)? Since its
enactment, did School of Engineering of UFF activities of teaching, research
and extension become closer to society? Why?