Final Report Innovation and Competitiveness Labs Realization
1st US-Brazil Innovation Summit Final Report Innovation and Competitiveness Labs On 11-12 July 2007, the 1 ST US-Brazil Innovation Summit was held in Brasília, promoted by the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (Agência Brasileira de Desenvolvimento Industrial ABDI), the Competitive Brazil Movement (Movimento Brasil Competitivo MBC) and the US Council on Competitiveness (CoC). The event gathered business people, government authorities and members of the academic and scientific community of both countries and aimed at building a common agenda based on innovation and planning actions towards the increase of sustainable competitiveness and productivity in the long run. The two days of the Summit held conferences and lectures on innovation and competitiveness. At the end of the second day, approximately one hundred people invited by the organizers met at twelve Innovation and Competitiveness Labs to discuss themes that led the presentations and discussions performed during the Summit: talent, infrastructure and investment. Each laboratory, lasting for one hour and a half, was conducted by two co-presidents assisted by a reporter. The discussions gave ground to the preparation of Reports that summarized each Laboratory s proposals. This document synthesizes the main ideas and contributions given by the participants of the twelve Innovation and Competitiveness Labs. The Innovation and Competitiveness Labs: Talent, Investment and Infrastructure The final document of the 1st US-Brazil Innovation Summit is organized around the discussion on three decision-making areas which are essential to the development of strategies for innovation-suitable environments: talent, investment and infrastructure. The recommendations by the Laboratory participants related to each of such decision-making areas and may contribute as subsidies towards the direction of future actions of public and private actors from Brazil and the US that participated on the Summit. Talent represents the human dimension of innovation, including knowledge production, education, labor training and qualification. One must not and cannot, however, wait for talent to arise by itself; it must be cultivated and stimulated in Brazil, in the US and in the other countries of the Americas. Investment refers to the financial dimension of innovation, including investment in R&D, the support to risk taking and entrepreneurism and the stimulation of long-term innovative strategies. Just like Talent, Investment needs to be stimulated through the creation of an environment suitable to the needs of the economic growth strategies based on the innovation economy. Brazil, the US and the other countries of the Americas must have innovative people and companies, resources and incentives in order to succeed in the new global economy. Infrastructure, in its turn, is about the physical, legal and political structures that may give support to innovative people and companies. It includes intellectual property protection, networking, communication and information, transportation, health, energy, business regulation and cooperation structures among the stakeholders in the innovation area. The main ideas and suggestions discussed in the Innovation and Competitiveness Labs are summarized in the following pages.
1. Talent One cannot think of innovation apart from its human dimension, that means, from people and facts, attitudes and abilities that allow them to innovate. Undoubtedly, some societies present environments more favorable to entrepreneurism and innovation than others; in many countries, it s even possible to talk about an innovation and entrepreneurism culture, understood as the combination of social, economic and political conditions and personal inclination that favors the search for the new and its introduction into the market. Notwithstanding, the innovation and entrepreneurism culture and the conditions that allow it to subsist can and must be created and stimulated in each country. For talent to flourish, however, a fertile soil and a fecund environment are needed. Even though some individuals tend to search for knowledge or the transformation of knowledge into innovative products, processes and services that concretize their market value, the full development of talents will be less common than expected if conditions are adverse. In terms of innovation, two aspects are decisive for talent to flourish: a) a science, technology and education system aligned with the innovation needs and b) companies duly prepared and willing to face the challenges and risks of innovation in highly competitive economies. The relation between science, technology and education system and companies must be a relation of collaboration. The first step consists, however, in harmonizing the expectations, demands and concerns from both sides, in order to involve them in a common and shared project of creating an innovation and competitiveness-based economy. 1.1. Companies and talents Innovation, understood as the virtuous combination of new or old ideas and its successful introduction in the market has the company as a privileged locus. It is in the company that innovation takes shape; it is the company that is aware of and knows how to identify the market s demands and opportunities; the company is the organization with a vocation to take risks in the market. Therefore, innovation policies must focus on companies and their needs. 1.1.1. Develop a long-term view in order to align the company s demands for certain knowledge and qualification with what is taught, researched and developed at universities and research institutes; 1.1.2. Improve companies utilization of the highly-qualified personnel supply, which is still barely incorporated by the market; 1.1.3. Stimulate and develop talents for innovation in the companies; 1.1.4. Qualify managers in innovation management, in such a way that it meets the specific needs of the companies innovation processes and their relations with the science, technology and innovation system.
1.2. Science, technology and education system For companies to use the talents available, the relation between them and the science, technology and education system shall occur in the form of collaboration and cooperation, taking into account the players different vocations and needs. One must seek the synergy between this system and companies, avoiding overlapping and stimulating each party to develop its potential in the areas they master. The harmonization between these two groups of players and organizations, each of them exercising the tasks for which they are more prepared, is essential for the development of an innovation-based economy. 1.2.1. Education and curriculum: Stimulate entrepreneurism at universities and research institutes through curricular modifications and through the creation of a networking between market and companies; Focus the curriculum in practical problems and contemporary issues, in order to improve the insertion of graduates and researchers into the society and the market; Increase the number of engineers and scientists graduated at the Brazilian and US universities; Adopt multidisciplinarity as an education strategy in every knowledge areas. 1.2.2. University-company relations: Stimulate collaborations among companies, universities and research centers led by companies, which must identify the demands, technologies and capacities necessary to the innovation processes; Build interaction and information exchange spaces between companies and universities; Foster Innovation Centers at the universities, through which researchers can develop their knowledge with an innovation and market insertion potential; Stimulate the research directed to businesses and entrepreneurism, both in the sciences and engineering areas and in the private and public management areas, enabling researchers and graduates to act in the interfaces between knowledge and market. 1.2.3. Attitude before innovation: Adopt a proactive behavior towards companies, governments and universities and research centers assuming the role of protagonists in the global scene of innovation; 1.2.4. Exchange of background and experiences between Brazil and the US: Support the exchange between Brazilian and US students, researchers and professionals from several types of institutions, whether private or public: universities, companies, laboratories and research centers and governmental agencies, among others; Deepen collaboration between Brazilian and US universities in science, technology and innovation areas. 1. Develop a long-term view to align companies and the science, technology and education system s current and future demands; 2. Adopt a proactive behavior concerning innovation; 3. Stimulate entrepreneurism in companies, universities and research centers.
2. Investments Economic and social environments favorable to innovation need, as regards to its financial aspects, the availability of mechanisms of capital investment in high-risk activities as demonstrated by the innovation processes. Regardless of whether the capital is public or private, there must be a comprehension and acceptance that investments in innovation whether they occur in the early research and development stages or in the stages of product, services and processes introduction in the markets offer high risks and uncertain return, but are largely compensative when they succeed. Therefore, it is necessary that the national innovation systems and the national financial system properly support and remunerate innovation and reduce, within certain limits, the high risk inherent to it. The economic agents need freedom to make mistakes, that means, incentives for risk taking, but also forms to attenuate the negative impacts of the investments in innovations that did not succeed. 2.1. Investiments 2.1.1. Stimulate the investments in innovation, although they cannot ensure a short and medium-term financial return; 2.1.2. Adopt future prospecting studies and benchmarks as central orientation tools of risk taking by economic agents and their financiers, helping to significantly reduce the risks inherent to innovation processes; 2.1.3. Develop innovation and competitiveness metrics, as well as instruments of evaluation of innovation incentive programs and policies, in order to closely follow the impacts, results and returns of the shares and investments destined to stimulate innovation; 2.1.4. Create metrics of evaluation and measurement of intangible assets and services and processes, alongside with product innovation indicators; 2.2. Financial instruments: Stimulate venture capital, angel capital, seed capital money and other financial instruments destined to high-risk investments; Support the Brazil-US cooperation on legislation related to venture capital, private equity and capital attraction; Create financial instruments for the innovation investment securitization, thus stimulating the sharing of its risks; 2.3. Stimulate shared financing efforts (co-share) - both between public and private agents and among private agents -, in order to share the risks inherent to innovation; 2.4. Public financing: 2.4.1. Transform the government into a risk investment inducer; 2.4.2. Concentrate the resources in investments made according to innovative activities selected by the public and private sectors;
2.4.3. Create tax incentives for the hiring of qualified labor, in order to stimulate the companies to incorporate innovation as a strategy of growth and attraction of new markets; 2.4.4. Facilitate the access of companies to public resources destined to the financing of innovation activities through the One-Stop Shop model for innovation investments, which would combine several services and agencies of the national innovation system, reducing, thus reducing bureaucracy and the process course time; 2.4.5. Articulate a network of innovation centers and agents, that would provide incompany consulting and innovation management for small and medium-size companies; 2.4.6. Promote the instruments and resources available for investments in innovation. 2.5. Enhance the Brazil-US trade, especially of products and processes on the edge of the value chain, through tariff and subside reductions: 2.5.1. Develop a Trade Reform Plan, to be implemented within 3-5 years, to stimulate, improve and enhance the trade between Brazil and the US; 2.6. Promote overseas the advantages to invest in Brazil(trade promotion); 2.7. Set innovation and competitiveness increase targets that are objective and public, in order to direct investments, reduce uncertainties and risks and allow the society to acknowledge and monitor such targets. 1. Stimulate investments in innovation; 2. Develop financial instruments directed to high-risk investments; 3. Create the Innovation One-stop shop, an institution joining all the public agents and regulatory bodies from the technology, development and innovation areas to provide services to companies.
3. Infrastructure The construction of an economy based on knowledge and innovation cannot renounce the physical, political, legal and institutional infrastructures which favor environments suitable for innovation. Intellectual property comes in first place in the roll of legal infrastructure-related concerns: that is what will ensure to economic agents the remuneration of their investments in research, development and innovation, creating an environment of respect to intellectual property. The legal infrastructure, however, is not limited to intellectual property; economies based on knowledge and innovation also depend, on a large scale, on systems and regulatory marks of technical specifications and on an effective and active patent protection system. The physical infrastructure transportation, health, energy and communications and the institutional infrastructure networking, information and cooperation are also worth attention. The institutional infrastructure, has above all a lot to contribute to the development of a knowledge and innovation economy, not only for its synergic effects over all the system, but also for its low implementation cost which essentially involves formal and informal networking among the stakeholders of the innovation area. 3.1. Regulatory marks: 3.1.1. Intellectual property: Use intellectual property as a strategic tool in competitiveness and innovation enhancement processes; therefore, it is necessary to learn how to use it for such purposes. Cooperation programs, experience and professional exchange and knowledge and technology transfer between Brazil and the US may contribute to put such countries in contact with the most advanced strategies and to harmonize the efforts and regulations of the intellectual property area; 3.1.2. Patents Improve and streamline the patents registration system; make the innovation agents sensitive to its importance; 3.1.3. Investment in physical infrastructure Create mechanisms and rules to stimulate the private investment in physical infrastructure; 3.2. Cooperation between the ST&I system and companies: Build institutional networks of technology transfer and cooperation between the ST&I system and companies; Stimulate and support the innovation cluster formation in regions that have universities, research centers and regional production clusters or innovative companies; 3.3. Standard and measurement systems: Improve the institutions in charge of the standards and measurement regulation; Stimulate cooperation and know-how transfer programs between Brazil and the US in the standards and measurements area;
3.4. Innovation system national decentralization: Use the industrial, technological, scientific and innovation policy instruments to decentralize the national innovation system; 3.5. Improve and expand e-gov mechanisms; 3.6. Energy: 3.6.1. Establish cooperation projects between Brazil and the US in biofuels; 3.6.2. Stimulate experience and knowledge exchanges between public and private researchers and managers of Brazil and the US in biofuels; 3.6.3. Improve the regulatory mark on biofuel investments and infrastructure. 1. Regulate intellectual property and other themes relevant for the construction of an innovation-suitable environment; 2. Learn how to use intellectual property as a competitiveness and innovation enhancement tool; 3. Build institutional networks of knowledge and technology transfer between companies and the ST&I national system. The joint action of Brazil and the United States in the construction of knowledge and innovation-based economies shall allow the enhancement of competitiveness in several sectors of their economies, stimulate the economic development and growth and offer higher quality of life standards to their populations. Led by the themes Talent, Investments and Infrastructure, the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development, the Competitive Brazil Movement, the US Council on Competitiveness and other relevant players in the innovation area can set common objectives and targets to stimulate innovation, exchange experiences and knowledge and mobilize the society in search of more competitive and innovative economies.
Participants in the Laboratories of Innovation and Competitiveness Organization: Participants: Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI) Council on Competitiveness (CoC) Competitive Brazil Movement (MBC) Adriana Luísa Brust Peixoto Machado, Intel Álvaro Galvani, MRE Ana Paula Repezza, APEX-Brasil Anderson Leitoguinho Rossi, ANPEI André Limp, APEX-Brasil Antenor Madruga, ABDI (table co-president) Augusto Gadelha, MCT/Informatics Policy Secretariat (table co-president) Bernardo Silva, APEX-Brasil/Unidade de Inteligência Comercial (Commercial Intelligence Unit) Bill Booher, CoC (table co-president) Bruno César Araújo, IPEA Carlos Calmanovici, Braskem, Innovation Strategic Management Carlos Eduardo Pereira, FIERGS/SENAI-RS and UFRGS Cezar Taurion, IBM Brasil (table co-president) Chad Evans, CoC; organizer Clayton Campanhola, ABDI Constantine Papadakis, Drexel University Daniel Malkin, BID/Education, Science and Technology Subdepartment, Sustainable Developme Department Daniel Martin, MBC Danilo Igliori, USP/University of Cambridge Deborah Wince-Smith, CoC Debra Van-Opstal, CoC Eduardo Fonseca, AmCham-Brasil Eduardo Valle, ABDI (table reporter) Edward J Donnelly, CoC Elton Brasil de Souza, FNQ (table co-president) Evilásio Miranda, APEX-Brasil (table reporter) Fernanda De Negri, IPEA Fernanda Gimenes, UnB Fernando Mattos, MBC George Campbell, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art Gilberto Lacerda, UnB Henrique Morais, MRE/Intellectual Property Division Howard Charney, Cisco Systems Inc Hratch G Semerjian, U S Department of Commerce Hugo Borelli Resende, Anpei, Embraer (table co-president) Humberto Luiz Ribeiro, Politec Irani Carlos Varella, Petrobras 10 João Alziro Hertz da Jornada, INMETRO
10 João Emílio Padovani Gonçalves, IPT João Sanches, Merck, Sharp and Dohme (table co-president) John Treat, Alternative Hybrid Jorge Lima, MBC; organizer José Henrique Menezes, IBM Juliana Costa Vasconcelos, UnB Kristy Hawley, CoC Lanna Lima, MBC Luiz Paulo Velloso Lucas (table co-president) Marcelo Caus Sicoli, India Embassy Marcelo Lopes, Civil House/CENSIPAM Marcelo Varella, Civil House Marco Rodriguez, CoC Marcos Kulka, Fundación Chile Marcos Vinícius de Souza, MDIC/Industrial Technology Secretariat Maria Ângela Campelo de Melo, CGEE and PUC-RJ (table co-president) Maria Angela do Rêgo Barros, Motorola Mauro Assano, IBM Michele V Levy, CoC Milena Miranda, Milena Miranda Design Naysa Brasil Teodoro, UnB Oswaldo Cantini, FINEP Paulo Roberto Santos Ivo, IPE Paulo Sotero, WWIC (table co-president) Pedro Alem, ABDI (table reporter) Pedro Kobler, FIESP Renata Marques, MBC Ricardo Felizzola, FIERGS Ricardo Leal, MRE Richard Lester, MIT (table co-president) Rita Ribeiro Machado, INPI Roberto dos Reis Alvarez, ABDI; organizer Rodrigo Bonfim, MBC (table reporter) Rodrigo Carvalho, MRE Rogério Araújo, ABDI Rubens Gama, Embassy of Brazil in Washington, D C (table co-president) Scott Fleming, Chartwell Education Group Sergio Costa, APEX-Brasil Susan Sclafani, Chartwell Education Group (table co-president) Tânia Cristina Bueno, IJURIS Tatiana Lacerda Prazeres, APEX-Brasil Tiago Bevilaqua, consultant Wilson Paulucci, IBQN (table co-president)
Abbreviations ABDI: Agência Brasileira de Desenvolvimento Industrial ABDI (Brazilian Agency for Industrial De velopment) AmCham-Brasil: Câmara Americana de Comércio Brasil (American Chamber of Commerce Brazil) ANPEI: Associação Nacional de Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e Engenharia das Empresas Inovadoras (National Association for R, D&E of Innovative Companies) APEX-Brasil: Agência Brasileira de Promoção de Exportações e Investimentos (Brazilian Export and Investments Promotion Agency) BID: Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (Interamerican Development Bank) CENSIPAM: Centro Gestor e Operacional do Sistema de Proteção da Amazônia (Operational Managing Center of Amazon Protection System) CGEE: Centro de Gestão e Estudos Estratégicos (Center for Management and Strategic Studies) CoC: US Council on Competitiveness FIERGS: Federação das Indústrias do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Federation of Industries of the State of Rio Grande dosul) FIESP: Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo) FINEP: Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Research and Projects Financing) FNQ: Fundação Nacional da Qualidade (National Quality Foundation) IBQN: Instituto Brasileiro da Qualidade Nuclear (Brazilian Institute of Nuclear Quality) IJURIS: Instituto de Governo Eletrônico, Inteligência Jurídica e Sistemas (Institute of Electronic Government, Legal Intelligence and Systems) INMETRO: Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e qualidade Industrial (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality ) INPI: Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Intelectual (Brazilian National Institute of Intellectual Property) IPE: Instituto de Pesquisas Eldorado (Eldorado Research Institute) IPEA: Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Institute of Applied Economic Research) IPT: Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas (Institute for Technology Research ) MBC: Movimento Brasil Competitivo MBC (Competitive Brazil Movement) MCT: Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia (Ministry of Science and Technology) MDIC: Ministério do Desenvolvimento, Indústria e Comércio Exterior (Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade) MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology MRE: Ministério das Relações Exteriores (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) PUC-RJ: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Catholic Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro). SENAI-RS: Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial - Rio Grande do Sul (National Service for Industrial Training Rio Grande do Sul State) UFRGS: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul ) UnB: Universidade de Brasília (University of Brasília) USP: University of São Paulo WWIC: Woodrow Wilson International Center 11