Science and Technology in Brazil:
A new policy for a global world
Simon Schwartzman, general coordination
Eduardo Krieger, biological sciences
Fernando Galembeck, physical sciences and engineering
Eduardo Augusto Guimaraes, technology and industry
Carlos Osmar Bertero, Institutional analysis
This is the summary document of the science and technology policy study
carried on by the Sao Paulo School of Business Administration, Getulio
Vargas Foundation, for the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology,
within the Program for Scientific and Technological Development (the
PADCT II agreement between Brazil and the World Bank). The ideas
expressed in this text are the sole responsibility of its authors.
Sao Paulo, November, 1993
Contents
Summary i
Introduction
Recommendations ii
1 . Technology and applied science
2 - Basic science and education iii
3 - International Cooperation
4 - Information and knowledge dissemination v
5 - Institutional reform v
6 - Goal-oriented projects vi
1 . Science and Technology in Brazil
2. Background
a. The beginning: S&T development in a period of economic expansion
b. Main initiatives 6
c. Crisis in the eighties and nineties
3. The achievements of the 1970s and the realities of the 1990s 11
a. The "endless frontier." 11
b. Planning 11
c. Import substitution in science 12
d. Elitism in technology and education. 12
4. New realities 14
a. Changes in the role of science and technology in the international scene.
b. Changes in the nature of the scientific enterprise
c. Changes in the nature and capabilities of the Brazilian state. 20
5. A new policy for a global world
6. Policy recommendations
a. To redirect the country's technology policies 25
b. To protect the existing pool of scientific competence.
c. To develop a three-pronged policy for S&T development, with clearly
distinguished support mechanisms for basic science, applied work and
extension and education. 29
_ Basic science research and education. 29
_ Applied science 31
- Education 34
d. Infrastructure for information and knowledge dissemination 37
e. Institutional reform.
f. Goal-oriented projects 42
Conclusion 44
Papers commissioned for this study
Bibliographical References
SUMMARY
Introduction
Brazil developed, in the last quarter of a century, a very significant effort to build its
scientific and technological capabilities, but in the last decade this sector has suffered
intensely from lack of resources, institutional instability and lack of clarity about its role
in the economy, society and education. Brazil's Science and Technology sector is in need
of urgent action. Recent transformations in the world's economy have made a country's
scientific, technological and educational competence more important than ever to
increase production, raise the standards of living of its population, and deal with its
social, urban and environmental problems. Policies for science and technology can only
be fruitful in association with coherent policies and actions for economic adjustment,
education and industrial development. Policies from the central government can only be
effective if they involve the active participation of state and local governments and of
business, workers, educators and the scientific and technological community. The
proposals put forward in this document should not be seen in isolation, but as a
contribution to a much broader effort.
This policy paper was prepared by the Getulio Vargas Foundation at the request of
Brazil's Ministry of Science and Technology and the World Bank, as established by the II
Program for Scientific and Technological Development (the PADCT II agreement). The
work was carried on with the cooperation of an independent group of scientists,
economists and specialists of science policy in Brazil and abroad, which produced about
40 papers dealing with the international context, Brazil's scientific and technological
capabilities, the links between science, technology and the economy, and Brazil's
institutions for science and technology support. This final document is the responsibility
of the projects' coordinating team, and does not express necessarily the opinions of the
Brazilian government, the World Bank, the Fundacao Getulio Vargas, nor of the
individuals who contributed with specific studies.
The main thrust of this policy paper is that there is a definite need to move from the
previous mode of scientific and technological development into a new one, more
adequate to the current and future realities. This policy paper presents a summary of what
Brazil's science policy was in the recent past, the current situation, an overview of the
recent transformations of science and technology in the international context, and puts
forward some proposals for new directions. To implement these recommendations, the
Brazilian government, with the support of the World Bank and other sources, should
establish a high-level task force to evaluate this and other policy studies now being
concluded, and propose specific policy measures to be carried on by the Ministry of
Science and Technology and other agencies, and to be presented to Parliament to be
enacted in law when necessary. The main recommendations are summarized below.
Recommendations
Science and Technology are more important than ever for Brazil, if the country is to
raise the standards of living of its population, consolidate a modern economy, and
participate as a significant partner in an increasingly integrated and global world. The
economy must modernize, and adjust to an internationally competitive environment.
Education should be expanded and improved at all levels. As the economy grows and
new technologies are introduced, new challenges will emerge in the production and use
of energy, environment control, public health, the management of large urban
conglomerates, and changes in the composition of the labor force. Strong indigenous
competence will be necessary to participate as an equal in international negotiations and
in the setting of international standards that may have important economic and social
consequences for Brazil.
The new policy should steer away from the extremes of laissez faire and centralized
planning. A traditional, laissez-faire approach to scientific and technological
development will not produce the necessary competence on the scale and quality needed
for these tasks. Large-scale, sophisticated and highly concentrated technological projects
are not likely to spin off into education and industrial development as a whole. Attempts
to bring the whole field of science and technology under the aegis of centralized planning
and coordination run the risk of stimulating large and inefficient bureaucracies, and to
stifle initiative and creativity of research.
The new policy should implement tasks that are apparently in contradiction: to
stimulate the freedom, initiative and creativity of the researcher, while establishing strong
links between his work and the requirements of the economy, the educational system and
of society as a whole; and to make Brazilian science and technology truly international,
while strengthening the country's educational and S&T capabilities.
To fulfill these tasks, the following recommendations are made:
1. Technology and applied science:
a. To redirect the country's technology policies, in line with new economic realities.
On the short run, policies should be geared to the reorganization and technological
modernization of the industrial sector. Permanent policies should exist to induce the more
dynamic sectors of the productive system to enter a continuous process of innovation and
incorporation of new technologies, to follow the rhythm of technical progress in the
world economy. Both approaches require, as the main priority, the incorporation of
existing technology to the productive process.
b. Research groups in universities and government institutes should be strongly
stimulated to link to the productive system and to engage in applied work, while
maintaining a high level of academic and basic research activities. Resources for applied
work should not come from the budget for basic activities, but from specific sources in
governmental agencies, special programs, private firms, and independent foundations.
Applied projects should be evaluated in terms of their academic quality, but also of their
economic viability and social and economic significance.
c. The current situation, in which 80% or more of the current expenditures are public,
should be changed. This should not be done by reducing further the government's
expenditures in R&D, but by stimulating the private sector to invest more in this sector.
d. Government agencies dealing with matters requiring research work, such as health,
education, environment, energy, communications and transportation, should have
resources to contract research with universities and research institutions on matters of
their interest. This practice should prevail upon the tendency of these agencies to create
their own research outfits, and their projects should be subject to joint evaluations by peer
review and policy oriented authorities. Research institutes and centers in public agencies
and state companies should be placed under peer oversight, and required to compete for
outside research support.
e. The current military projects should come under technical, academic and strategic
evaluation with the participation of selected, high quality scientific advisers, and be either
streamlined, discontinued, reduced, or converted to civilian projects.
f Research programs in applied fields, like electronics, new materials, biochemistry
and others, should only be established in association with identified partners in industry,
which should be involved from the beginning in setting objectives and in sharing costs;
they should be subject to independent evaluations of economic, managerial and scientific
feasibility, and monitored on these terms.
2 - Basic science and education
. Support for basic science should be maintained and expanded, with special attention
to its quality, according to accepted international standards. Basic or academic science,
broadly understood as research work that does not respond to short-term practical
demands, remains essential for Brazil. The information it generates is free, and is the
main source for the acquisition and spreading of the basis of tacit knowledge that
permeates the whole field of science, technology and education. For a leading country,
heavy investments in basic science can be thought of as problematical, since their results
can be appropriated by other countries and regions for very little cost. For the same
reason, investments in basic science in small scientific communities can be extremely
productive, since they allow tapping the international pool of knowledge, competence
and information.
. The existing pool of scientific competence has to be protected. Many of the best
R&D institutions and groups are being dismantled by absolute lack of resources, and
emergency measures are needed to deter this process. The government should guarantee a
stable and predictable flux of resources to its main S&T agencies for their daily routines
and "over the counter," peer reviewed research supporting activities. The most qualified
research institutions and groups should be preserved in their ability to keep their best
researchers and their work and educate new scientsists. The main mechanism for this
should be the implementation of the proposed system of "associated laboratories," which
should provide stable resources to about 200 research groups and institutions, based on
clear procedures of evaluation and peer review. The estimated cost for maintaining this
program is approximately US$ 200 million a year; a similar amount will be needed to
provide these laboratories with basic equipment and infrastructure.
. Research institutions, particularly in universities, should be required to play a very
active role in the enhancement of undergraduate and technical education, not only
through teaching, but also through direct involvement in the production of good quality
textbooks, the development of curricula and new teaching methods and programs of
continuous education. Adequate mechanisms should be devised to make these activities
more rewarding and prestigious than they have been so far.
3 - International Cooperation
Globalization requires a profound rethinking of the old dilemma between scientific
self-sufficiency and internationalization. They should not be perceived as contradictory,
but as complementary. Brazil has much to gain as it increases its ability to participate
fully as a competent and respected partner in the international scientific and technological
community. To meet this objective, the following policies should be implemented:
a. Fellowship programs of CAPES and CNPq for studies abroad should be revised,
maintained, and eventually expanded. Fellowships should be awarded only to first-rate
students, going to first-rate institutions, with a clear perspective of returning to productive
work in Brazil. Fellowships for doctoral degrees should be combined with "sandwich"
fellowships for doctoral students in Brazilian institutions for reduced periods abroad, and
with short-term support for training periods in laboratories and companies. The existence
of good quality doctoral programs in a given field does not preclude the need to keep a
permanent flux of students to the best foreign universities.
b. Provisions should exist for post-doctoral programs both abroad and in Brazil, and
to bring top-quality scholars from other countries for extended periods, or even
permanent appointments, in Brazilian university and research institutions.
c. The channels for international cooperation between Brazil, international agencies
and institutions, and the international scientific community, should be kept open and
expanded. The World Bank, the International Development Bank and the United Nations
Development Program have played important roles in providing resources for capital
investment, research support and institutional development for Brazilian institutions. This
presence should be maintained not only because of the resources involved, but because of
what they bring in terms of international perspectives and competence. In the future, such
agencies could be very helpful in a process of institutional reform. As a rule, cooperation
among scientists, research institutions and private foundations in different countries is
established directly, and need the support, but not the interference, of governmental
agencies.
d. The issues of protectionism vs. market competitiveness in scientific and
technological development should be dealt in pragmatic, rather than in ideological terms.
The country should not renounce to its instruments of technological and industrial policy,
including tax incentives, tariff protection, patent legislation, government procurement and
long-term investments in technological projects, in association with the private sector.
Adequate legislation for patents and intellectual property should be established with the
understanding that they are necessary for the normalization of Brazil's relations with the
industrialized countries.
4 - Information and knowledge dissemination
New and systematic means to incorporate technology into the industrial process
should be developed, with strong emphasis on the development and dissemination of
norms and standards, information, and procedures for technological transfer and quality
improvement. A well organized and properly funded knowledge infrastructure is
necessary to assure the easy access of scientists to libraries and data collections in the
country and abroad, making use of the latest technologies of electronic communication
and networking. It is necessary to make these links effective and transparent to the
individual researcher, and to establish mechanisms to bring texts and data to the
scientist's working place. The role of CNPq's Brazilian Institute for Scientific and
Technological Information (IBICT) should be reexamined in the light of the new
technologies and competencies developed elsewhere.
5 - Institutional reform
. The Ministry of Science and Technology should restrict its role to matters of policy,
financing, assessment and evaluation, without carrying R&D activities under its direct
administration. Although a cabinet-level position for science and technology is clearly
necessary, the very existence of a ministry of science and technology, with all its
overhead costs and exposure to political patronage, should be reexamined.
. The existing system of federal institutions for scientific and technological support
should be evaluated in terms of its ability to perform the functions needed by the sector:
support for basic research, support for applied projects, large and small research grants,
fellowship and training programs, scientific information, norms and standards, and
others. Brazil needs a federal agency to provide long term, sizeable grants for institutions
and cooperative projects. This was the role played in the past by the National Fund for
Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT), administered by FINEP. Whether
these resources should be managed by FINEP, CNPq or by a new institution should be
examined as part of a broad review of the roles, jurisdiction and competencies of the
existing agencies.
. Financing agencies should be organized as independent, state owned corporations,
and free of formalistic and bureaucratic constraints. They should be placed under strict
limitations regarding the percentage of resources they can spend on administration, and
should be supervised by high-level councils with the participation of scientists, educators,
entrepreneurs and government officers. They should rely on external advise for their
decisions, and their bureaucracy should be limited to the minimum.
. Research institutions and public universities should not be run as sections of the
civil service. They need to be free to set priorities, seek resources from different public
and private agencies, and establish their own personnel policies.
. No research institution receiving public support, and no government program
providing grants, fellowships, institutional support or other resources to the S&T sector,
should be exempt from clear and well-defined procedures of peer evaluation, combined,
when necessary, with other types of economic and strategic assessments. Peer review
procedures should be strengthened by the federal and state governments, made free from
pressures of regional, professional and institutional interest groups, and acquire a strong
international dimension. For instance, research proposals could be easily distributed to
international referees through electronic mail.
6 - Goal-oriented projects
The broad changes suggested in this document do not preclude the adoption of well-
identified projects linking science, technology and the productive sector, to deal with
specific questions and problems and to strengthen the country's capabilities in selected
areas. It is necessary to develop a list of main areas of established competence and social,
economic and environmental relevance, which should be the focus of future investments;
to identify areas that should be phased out, or reduced; and special weaknesses and
competencies in need of strengthening and support.
Science and Technology policy in Brazil
A new policy for a global world
Science and Technology in Brazil
Brazil developed in the last 25 years the largest system of S&T in Latin America, one
of the most significant among semi-industrialized countries. There are about 15 thousand
active scientists and researchers in the country, and about one thousand graduate
programs in most fields of knowledge 1 . Fellowships keep several thousand students in
the best universities in the United States and Europe at any time. The number of research
papers in international publications is the highest in the region. Research takes place
mainly in the major universities, such as the University of Sao Paulo, the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, the University of Campinas and the Sao Paulo School of
Medicine; in research institutes linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology, such
as the National Institute for Space Research, the National Institute for Research on the
Amazon and the National Institute of Technology; in research institutes belonging to the
National Research Council (the Brazilian Center for Physics Research, the Center for
Mineral Technology, the Institute of Applied and Pure Mathematics, the National
Observatory, the National Laboratory for Computer Sciences, the National Laboratory of
Astrophysics, the Emilio Goeldi Museum of Natural History, and the National
Laboratory of Synchrotron Light); in the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research
(EMBRAPA), linked to the Ministry of Agriculture; in the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, linked
to the Ministry of Health; in research centers kept by the largest state-owned
corporations, such as Petrobras (oil), Telebras (telecommunications), Eletrobras
(Electricity) and Embraer (airplane construction); in research units linked to the armed
forces, such as the Air Force Technological Center (CTA); in institutes belonging to state
governments, specially in Sao Paulo, like the Butantan Institute (vaccines), the Biological
Institute and the Institute for Technological Research (IPT); and in a few leading private
corporations, such as Aracruz Cellose (paper), Itautec (computers), Aco Villares, Metal
Leve (mechanical components), Elebra (computers), and others.
Most research activities in Brazil take place in universities. Brazil has about 1.5
million students enrolled in undergraduate programs, 30 thousand in masters and 10
thousand in doctoral programs. About one third of the undergraduate, and most of the
graduate students are in public universities, which are free of charges. The remaining one
1 This figure depends on what a "researcher" is. The Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) listed
52,863 researchers in 1985, for about 3.5 million persons with higher education degrees. However, only
21.7% of those, or eleven thousand, had doctoral degrees. The number of university professors with
doctoral degrees in 1991 was about 17 thousand, or 12% of the total. This figure is also consistent with the
number of research proposals presented to FAPESP and CNPq each year (Brisolla, 1993; Martins and
Queiroz, 1987; Schwartzman and Balbachevsky, 1992). As for the graduate programs, the figure depends
on whether one counts degrees offered or course programs proper.
million attends private institutions, which, with very few exceptions, do not have
graduate education and research. The Federal government spent about 3.4 billion dollars
on higher education in 1990 2 , and the state of Sao Paulo an additional 871 million for its
three universities (Goldemberg, 1993b; Durham, 1993; Campanario and Serra, 1993).
The gross per-capita costs for students in public universities are between five to eight
thousand dollars a year, with most of the money going for salaries and the maintenance of
hospitals 3 . For research, university professors have to apply to Federal or State agencies,
national and international private foundations, or to engage in research contracts with
governments, public corporations and, to a lesser degree, private institutions.
Table 1. Brazil, expenditures in science and technology and Gross Domestic Product, 1980/1990,
in US$ millions of 1991(*).
year
I-federal
budget(
2)
II-state
budgets(
2)
Ill-
Govern
ment
expendit
ures(I+II
)
IV-
Expendit
ures of
the
Producti
ve sector
V-
Nation
al
Expend
itures
(III+IV
)
VI-
National
expendit
ures as
%of
GDP
VI-
Gross
Domestic
Product
(GDP)(3)
1980
824.5
496.8
1321.3
330.3
1651.6
0.43
386863
1981
1519.6
672.4
2192.0
548.0
2740.0
0.74
370279
1982
1863.3
654.6
2517.9
629.5
3147.4
0.85
372122
1983
1475.4
462.6
1938.0
484.5
2422.5
0.67
359727
1 1984
1426.9
500.7
1927.6
481.9
2409.5
0.64
378422
1985
1953.9
501.9
2455.8
613.9
3069.7
0.75
408151
1986
2288.6
651.3
2939.9
735.0
3674.9
0.84
439451
1987
2556.1
466.9
3023.0
755.7
3778.7
0.83
455424
1988
2506.4
396.7
2903.1
725.8
3628.9
0.80
454918
1989
2147.1
512.5
2659.6
664.9
3324.5
0.71
469663
1990
1679.0
672.2
2351.2
587.8
2938.9
0.72
406906
Source: Brisolla, 1993. Data from MCT-.CNPq/DAD/SUP/COOE.
Notes: (*) Deflated according to general price index of the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (IGP-DI/FGV)
and converted to US dollars according to the average rate for 1991; (2) - actual expenditures; (3) -
Corrected for inflation and converted to US dollars according to the average rate for 1991.
The development of these activities was accompanied by the creation of a complex
system of institutions, which are presently led by the Ministry of Science and Technology
(MCT). MCT is formally responsible for coordinating S&T policy in all areas, directly or
through agencies such as the National Council for Scientific and Technological
Development (CNPq) and the Financing Agency for Studies and Projects (FINEP).
Besides, both MCT and CNPq have research institutions under their jurisdiction. The
2 These figures are only rough estimates, because of high inflation and unstable exchange rates.
3 For different perspectives on student costs, see Paul and Wolynec, 1990, and Gaetani and
Schwartzman, 1991. The estimation is that hospitals absorb about 10% of university's budgets (they have
also other sources of income).
Brazilian Science in Context
Brazil is a scientifically small country, performing much less than 1% of the scientific research
in the world, and this attracts much less that 1% of the citations in subsequent literature. No
Brazilian scientist was among the nearly three thousands mentioned as principal contributors
or significant influentials in a survey of scientists elsewhere. Brazilian research amounted to a
little less than half of the research performed in the rest of Latin America and about a third of
that performed in Israel where scientific performance was high as indicated by the rather
frequent mentioning of Israelis as great contributors and influentials. In economy and
population, Brazil is roughly half the size of the rest of Latin America, as in science. But
Brazil is a whole order of magnitude larger than Israel in terms of the economy and even more
in terms of population and yet far less research is performed in Brazil than in Israel. This
shows that scientific performance in a country is not a reflection of the size of the country in
terms of population or economy (there is only a very weak correlation with population and a
weak correlation with the economy). These differences in scientific performance seem shaped
by differences in institutionalization of science.
Thomas Schott, 1993.
n in Brazil
Most states
or research
largest of
ch Support
nounted to
ten similar
20 million
actice they
al societies
leir special
in private
there is no
technology
her than to
itions; and
i 1981 and
1989, Brazil spent between about two and three billion dollars a year in science and
technology activities, amounting to about 0.6 to 0.8% of the GDP. Of this, only about 6%
came from the private sector, and another 10% from state-owned corporations (Brisolla,
1993; Coutinho and Suzigan, forthcoming; Wolff, 1991). These resources have been
subject to high levels of instability in the last several years, in a context of near hyper
inflation and economic stagnation.
Impressive as some of these achievements may be, they still leave Brazil as a minor
player in the world's scientific community (box 1). Articles by Brazilian authors
published in the international literature are less than 1% of the world total. In 1992 Brazil
ranked twentieth among nations in scientific production in absolute terms, trailing China,
Belgium, Israel and Denmark, and ahead of Poland, Finland, Austria, Norway, Taiwan
and Korea (Castro, 1986; Schott, 1993). Links between scientific research and the
productive sector are weak, and its impact on the quality of undergraduate and technical
education is limited, a few significant exceptions notwithstanding.
. Background
. The beginning: S&T development in a period of economic expansion
Some of Brazil's scientific institutions date from the late 19th century, and the
National Research Council from the early 1950's. The larger part of the current S&T
4 The estimate, made by SBPC, is that in 1991 the states were supposed to provide 317 million dollars
for research activities, but granted only 84 million. Figures for 1992 were 182 and 82 million. Of the total
spent, about 70% came from FAPESP. Brisolla, 1993.
capability, however, was built during the 1968-1980 years, in a period of military rule
(Schwartzman, 1991). Three factors contributed to this rapid expansion. The concern of
some military and civilian authorities with the need to build up the country's S&T
competence, as part of a broader project of national growth and self-sufficiency; the
support this policy received from the scientific community, in spite of earlier (and often
continuing) conflicts between scientists and academics and the government; and the
economic expansion of the period, in which Brazil's economy grew at an annual rate of 7
to 10 percent. Another important element was the improvement of the government's
ability to carry out policies in those years, through the establishment of small,
independent agencies outside the federal bureaucracy, and an expanding fiscal basis.
The policies of the last 25 years should be seen in terms of the changes in Brazilian
society and economy in the previous decades. Between 1950 and 1980 Brazil turned from
an agrarian into a highly urbanized society, but with high levels of social and economic
inequality between regions and social groups. Employment in the primary sector went
from 59.9% of the active population to 29.9% in those 30 years, while industrial
employment went from 14.2% to 24.4%; the service sector, meanwhile, went from 25.9%
to 45.7% (Faria, 1986). The industrial sector developed under the protection of tariff and
non tariff barriers that shielded national, multinational and state-owned companies in the
Brazilian territory from international competition. By 1970, the Brazilian industry
supplied most of the demand for manufactured goods in the internal market, depending
only on the import of sophisticated machine tools, chemicals, oil and electronics. A
Strategic Program for Development, set by the Military government in 1968, sought to
overcome these limitations. The country should build its own basic industry, develop its
own sources of energy, and absorb the latest advances in science and technology. Starting
with the Second National Development Plan, public corporations were created or
expanded, subsidies were provided for the private sector, and barriers were raised against
foreign competition, to protect the country's infant industries. Science and technology
were perceived as a central ingredient in this strategy, and received unprecedented
support.
This ambitious project of scientific, technological and industrial self-sufficiency,
however, did not receive more than scattered support in the productive sector, and
remained for the most part restricted to special segments of the state bureaucracy and the
academic community. For most firms, including the large, state-owned corporations, the
origin of technologies used in their activities was less important than their cost and
reliability. Restrictions to the entrance of foreign technology and capital - as it happened
with the computer sector in the eighties _ were perceived as a hindrance and a burden.
This difficulty was accentuated because there was no understanding of the effective
mechanisms and policies leading to technological innovation in the productive sector.
The need to strengthen the country's basic technological infrastructure _ metrology,
normalization, quality control and certification _ received only secondary attention, at
least until the late seventies.
. Main initiatives
The main initiatives of this period were the following:
- The university reform of 1968, with the partial adoption of the American system of
graduate education and the reorganization of the universities in terms of institutes,
departments and the credit system;
_ The placement of science and technology under the responsibility of the economic
policy authorities, which allowed for a much higher influx of resources to S&T than ever
before;
_ The creation of a new Federal agency for S&T under the Ministry of Planning, the
Financing Agency for Studies and Projects, FEMEP, unencumbered by civil service
routines and restrictions, and responsible for the administration of several hundred
million dollars a year for science and technology support (Guimaraes, R., 1993);
_ The establishment of a few large-scale centers for R&D, like the Coordination for
Graduate Programs in Engineering of the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro (COPPE)
and the University of Campinas, geared toward technological research and graduate
education in engineering and sciences;
_ The beginning of several programs of military research, such as the space program
and the "parallel" nuclear program;
The agreement with Germany for cooperation in nuclear energy, which was to
create an autonomous capability in the construction of nuclear reactors based on locally
reprocessed fuel;
__ The establishment of a policy of protected market for the computer industry,
telecommunications and microelectronics, linked to an emerging national private sector;
__ The formulation, by the Federal Government, of successive National Plans for
Scientific and Technological Development;
_ The establishment of centers for technological research under the main state-owned
corporations, which sought to keep up with the technological frontier, develop standards
and transfer technology to their main suppliers;
The strengthening and expansion of EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Corporation of
Agricultural Research;
_ The consolidation of peer review procedures in some of the main public agencies
for science, technology and graduate education: CNPq, CAPES and the Sao Paulo
Foundation for Research Support (FAPESP). The main federal agency for science and
technology development in the seventies and eighties, however, FINEP, never introduced
systematic peer review procedures although it works routinely with external consultants.
Larger decisions of resource allocation in CNPq also remained usually outside peer
review.
. Crisis in the eighties and nineties
It is possible to point to several weaknesses in an otherwise successful policy of
scientific growth. Links between S&T and the productive sector remained weak, lacking
demands for advanced technology, in an economic environment characterized by
protectionism and reliance on cheap labor and natural resources. The only significant
exceptions occurred in the modern, export oriented sector of agriculture, which benefitted
from research on the introduction of new varieties, the control of plagues, and the
biological fixation of nitrogen, with very significant gains in productivity (Malavolta,
1986); in sectors associated with the large state corporations, such as
telecommunications, energy, and the chemical industry; in the production of military
equipment; and in the computer industry, with the attempt to link research with a
protected industry of small computers for the internal market (Lucena, 1993; Tigre,
1993). In the universities, the new research and graduate programs remained often
isolated from undergraduate education and teacher training. The quality of the scientific
institutions created and expanded in the seventies was often not very high, and peer
review procedures for quality control not always prevailed.
After 1980, the science and technology sector entered a period of great instability and
uncertainty, characterized by institutional turmoil, bureaucratization, and budgetary
uncertainty. The evolution of national expenditures for Science and Technology in the
eighties, as illustrated on table 1, followed two parabolas. It grew in the first years of the
decade, fell in 1983 and 1984, increased again with the short-lived economic expansion
of the Cruzado Plan in 1985 and 1986, and fell rapidly when inflation picked up again in
1988, reaching its lowest levels in 1991 and 1992 (Brisolla, 1993). In 1985, the National
Fund for Scientific and Technological Development administrated by FINEP was just
one fourth of its 1979 value. This instability and uncertainty were related to economic
stagnation, but also to an expanding arena of conflicting interests striving for public
funds, and to an increase in political patronage (Botelho, 1990 and 1992) (box 2). The
S&T sector became one among many interest groups pressing for more resources,
sometimes with partial success, but losing ground on the long run. The same pattern took
place in most public universities, particularly in the federal system. The growing
unionization of academic and administrative personnel allowed for significant gains in
salaries, employment benefits, and participation in the universities' management, but
stifled the institutions' ability to improve quality and make better use of their resources.
The World Bank supported Program for Scientific and Technological Development
(PADCT I, 1985, followed by PADCT II in 1990) was conceived in the early eighties,
when the full dimension of the crisis was still to unfold. The program was supposed to
improve the decision making capabilities of government and to strengthen R&D in
biotechnology, chemistry and chemical engineering, earth sciences and mineral
technology, instrumentation, physical environment and science education. In practice,
instead of building upon a basis of existing resources, PADCT became often the only
source of public support for the fields included in its priorities. Instead of improving the
country's management and decision-making capabilities, it may have had the opposite
effect, by creating an additional bureaucratic layer upon the existing institutions
(Stemmer, 1993). Contrary to some claims, PADCT did not introduce peer review in
Brazil, which had existed since the fifties. However, it may have strengthened it, since its
projects were significantly more substantial and were submitted to more detailed analysis
and discussion than those of CNPq.
In the early nineties, there was a trend to make science and technology more directly
relevant to industrial competitiveness, in a new international context characterized by
increased market competition and the growing relevance of science based industries
(Guimaraes, E., 1992). A few features of this trend can be listed:
What Global Figures do not show
Between 1985 and 1988 the federal government budget item related to general
administrative expenditures jumped from 4.7 to 10.4% of the total expenditures for science
and technology. This change reflects an increase in political patronage that takes hold of
Brazilian bureaucracy at the time of the 1986 elections. At the same time, the National
Commission for Nuclear Energy alone absorbs 25% of this item, which was a way to provide
money for discretionary expenditures for the Brazilian nuclear program. We can add to this
figure the capital investments in state companies in 1988, which included the bailing out of
Nuclebras and other items marginal to science and technology as such, like airport
infrastructure, debt payments, and others. The total comes close to one third of the federal
budget for science and technology. This bureaucratization of science appears also in the fact
that, in that year, about 25% of the resources from the Ministry of Science and Technology
were used for administrative activities, most of it in its central administration (excluding
supervised institutions such as the Institute for Space Research). The remaining expenditures
were given to applied research (33%), basic research (7.7%), graduate education (8.6%) and
fellowships (6.5%). Military expenditures took a significant bite from the applied research
item: 12% for the old National Security Council, 8% for the Armed Forces General Staff
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_ The increasing concern with university managerial autonomy and accountability,
and transparent rules for public financing to the sector.
Cooperation and partnership between university and industry
The Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Federal University of Santa
Catarina works in three important areas - fine mechanics, new materials and industrial
automation and quality control. It has a support program for small and mid-size industries
financed by Germany's Geselschaft fur Technische Zusammarbeit, in an agreement with the
Program of Human Resources in Strategic Areas of the Ministry of Science and Technology,
and cooperates with the state's Secretary of Agriculture in the development of agricultural
equipment prototypes, and in the development of environmentally safe agricultural
technologies, which has also the support of the World Bank.
The Department has long-term contracts for research and development with many
industrial firms, including Embraco, Portobello, Pirelli, Weg, Mannesman-Demaq, Braun-
Boweri, Volvo, Bosch, Eletrosul, Copesp, CNEM and CTA. Such contracts account for about
n the early
e reduction
the ability
om budget
mance and
efficiency (Schwartzman, J., 1993). On the positive side, the state universities in Sao
Paulo were granted a fixed percentage of the state's tax basis for their financing, and
increased autonomy to manage their resources. In some places, like at the School of
Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (box 3), the situation led to new
experiences of cooperation and partnership among university departments, local and
foreign governments, private firms and donors, for research and development and for the
creation of new high technology firms ("incubators") (Castro, M. H., forthcoming).
. The achievements of the 1970s and the realities of the 1990s.
The scientific and technological competence acquired by Brazil in the last decades is
an important asset for its continuous drive for social and economic modernization. There
are, however, important questions and concerns about the adequacy of this system of
S&T, as it was organized in the 1970s, to achieve what is expected from it. Part of the
difficulty lies in the persistence of the assumptions that presided the S&T policies in the
sixties and seventies, when faced with the realities of the nineties; and part on the
structures and vested interests created along these years.
. The "endless frontier. "
The basic assumptions that presided the development of S&T in Brazil during the
sixties and seventies were not very different from those in the United States and other
developed countries at the time. In both cases there was the notion of science as an
"endless frontier," worth expanding for cultural reasons, for its beneficial effects in the
quality of education, and for its promises in terms of practical applications. All fields of
knowledge were equally deserving, and all good projects and initiatives should get public
support. There were other resemblances: the importance given to military R&D; the
notion that scientists should be funded by the state, free to control their institutions and
distribute research resources according to their own criteria; and the assumption that
social and economic benefits to society as a whole would necessarily derive from basic
S&T in the universities and military research in government institutions (Branscomb,
1993).
. Planning
There were also important differences. Brazilians believed more in comprehensive
planning, and in planning for science and technology, than Americans did. There was, as
there is still, a dire need for reliable information, and stable decision procedures for
resource allocation and the establishment of long-term projects. The tradition was to try
to fulfill these needs with comprehensive planning exercises, which could be turned into
law and administered by the bureaucracy, thus making further decisions unnecessary.
Three National Plans for Scientific and Technological Development were issued since the
early seventies. Complex coordinating bodies (such as the Council of Science and
Technology, CCT) were devised to try to link the research activities of different
ministries. The Ministry of Science and Technology was created in 1985 as a response to
demands from leading personalities in the scientific community, which expected it to
fulfill this planning and coordinating role, emaking it more relevant to the country's
economic and social needs. The notion that these links were to be achieved through
centralized planning contributed to the development of large bureaucracies for S&T
administration. CNPq and FINEP increased their staff several times between the sixties
and the eighties, and the bureaucratic apparatus of the new Ministry also grew.
. Import substitution in science.
Another difference was that the development of S&T in Brazil was understood as part
of a broader pattern of import substitution that was dominant in the economy, and led to
barriers against foreign competition and the protection of infant industries. Although
Brazil never attempted to develop a "national science," and valued its access to the
scientific international community 5 , the level and intensity of international interchanges
was never as intense as that of other small scientific communities (Schott, 1993), and its
research institutions and programs were seldom exposed directly to international
standards of quality and evaluation. Considerations about regional inequalities and short-
term needs, and political pressures for the creation of academic and research institutions
throughout the country, led often to the weakening in the criteria for resource allocation
by the government agencies.
. Elitism in technology and education.
A final feature of the Brazilian S&T development effort has been the elitism of its
technology and educational policy orientations, despite the political and socially
progressive outlook of many of its promoters. Military technology was expected to be the
harbinger of economic and technological modernization, leading to a disproportionate
concern in government, diplomatic and academic circles, with the international
constraints on the transfer of sensitive technologies. The two PADCT programs placed
strong emphasis on the higher-end, frontier technologies, with a much smaller place
given to science education, management and diffusion. Except in the field of health, there
were no organized efforts to bring the benefits of scientific knowledge to the population
as a whole, or to the basis of the productive system. In spite of the initial influence of the
American Land Grant colleges, Brazilian agricultural education and research remained
restricted to a few institutions, and geared to the capital intensive, export sector of the
economy (Azevedo, 1993). The recent effort to develop indigenous capability in
computer science concentrated in the protection of the national hardware industry, rather
5 There were several proposals to create a typically "Brazilian" social science, based on the country's
peculiar historical and cultural nature, from Gilberto Freyre to Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, nothing similar,
however, ever existed in the natural sciences, except in applied fields such as agriculture, natural resources
and earth sciences, as should be expected.
than in the generalization of the use of the new technologies and competencies
throughout society (Lucena, 1993; Tigre, 1993).
In education, Brazil tried to generalize the university research model before any
serious attempt to deal with the problems of basic, secondary, technical and mass higher
education. In consequence, the country has, simultaneously, some of the best universities
and graduate programs, and one of the worst and unequal systems of basic education in
the region. In practice, the university research model remained restricted to a few public
universities in the Sao Paulo and in the federal system. Most other public institutions
incorporated the institutional features and costs of modern universities (including full-
time teaching, departmental organization, integrated campi, besides free tuition), without
adequate mechanisms for quality assurance and the efficient use of public resources.
About 65% of the students in higher education do not have access to public institutions,
and attend the less prestigious, paying private institutions (Goldemberg, 1993b;
Schwartzman, Durham and Goldemberg, 1993).
Table 1: Brazil, Education figures: population of 5 years of age
and above.
Brazil
Women
Rural
Northeast
Literacy (1990): Can read and write, se
f reported).
5 years and more
76%
77%
58%
57%
10 to 14 years
86%
89%
70%
67%
60 years and more
56%
53%
32%
44%
Educational attainment (years completed)
Total
100%
100%
100%
100%
one or more
82%
82%
65%
65%
two or more
77%
77%
57%
57%
three or more
68%
70%
46%
48%
four or more
59%
60%
34%
39%
five or more
41%
42%
17%
28%
six or more
33%
34%
11%
22%
seven or more
29%
30%
09%
19%
eight or more
25%
26%
07%
16%
nine or more
18%
19%
04%
12%
twelve or more
06%
06%
01%
03%
total (thousands)
113,629
58,373
28,011
31,614
Source: Fundacao IBG
i, Anudrio Estatistico, 1992.
Brazil had always been a highly stratified and unequal society. Even when the
intention was there, governments had faced enormous difficulties in reaching the broader
population with services like education, health and extension work. This situation should
be reversed, but this does not mean that efforts to create good universities and competent
research groups should be postponed until the problems of basic, technical and secondary
education are solved, since these skills and competencies are essential for carrying on the
needed transformations. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that scientific,
technological and educational investments could not have had a broader impact on
professional education and the dissemination of general and technical competence than
they did. They can, but specific policies are needed for that.
. New realities
. Changes in the role of science and technology in the international scene.
The international scene for science and technology has changed dramatically since
Brazil begun its drive for S&T development in the sixties. The main features of the new
context can be described as follows:
_ Science and technology are much closer to industry and markets than before (box
4). Industries depend, for the development of new management skills, processes and
products, on specialized knowledge that cannot be generated anymore, as a matter of
course, in their daily activities. The consequences have been an increase in R&D
investments, the setting up of specialized laboratories and research departments, and the
search for new links with universities. There is a renewed concern with the problems of
intellectual property, which occurs in association with an expanded knowledge industry,
carried on through licensing, technical assistance projects and international consulting.
__ The pace of technical innovation and competition in industry has accelerated,
requiring from firms a permanent capability to change its organization, absorb new
significant
is given to
ninistrative
the pace of
e growing
;tion lines,
ket niches,
untries, are
cle of new
Fundamental and Economically Relevant Research: The New Links.
In all industrial countries, governments have tended to shift, in recent years, to
indirect actions intended to promote the development of a trade-oriented research
environment: legislative and regulatory measures considered to be obstacles to the diffusion
and application of knowledge have been lifted (for example, various anti-trust regulations were
removed in the United States to facilitate pre-competitive research co-operation between
firms); new rules were adopted to encourage scientists to take a more active interest in the
exploitation of their work (for example by allowing academic research-workers and
institutions to apply for patents, even when the invention had been the result of federally
sponsored programs, or by relaxing academic rules so that professors could participate in
commercial ventures); incentives multiplied in order to promote science-based industrial
activities (i.e. fiscal incentives, schemes to develop employment of scientists by firms of all
types, research funding instruments for industry-university collaborative ventures, etc.).
This focus has been accompanied by gradual re-direction of the public research
support towards new types of programs, in order to channel efforts onto areas of greater
economic relevance. This has affected all types of research activities. For example, institutions
that have traditionally been bastions of fundamental research (from the CNRS in France to the
National Science Foundation in the United States) devote more and more attention to applied
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iternational
increasing
entrance requirements in terms ot tne standardization or scientific instruments, language
and patterns of communication, leading to new inequalities and concentration of
resources and skills.
_ As the economic and military importance of scientific and technological knowledge
increases, there is a growing tendency to limit its diffusion through legislation on
intellectual property and governmental barriers to the diffusion of "sensitive"
technologies. This tendency, however, is offset by the intense international competition
of firms and governments to sell their technologies, and by the lack of well-defined
boundaries between academic (and therefore free) and proprietary knowledge. The net
result is that the bulk of modern technology is available for countries with the necessary
pool of competence in engineering and basic sciences, except for a few military items
that can still be controlled by the main powers.
Major Changes in American S&T Policies
Americans now understand that the world has radically changed. But the paradigms on which
the post-war S&T policy consensus rests are still firmly planted in many people's heads,
especially in Washington, and the institutions of government that will be needed to implement
a new consensus have changed hardly at all. But three major changes in the U.S. will require
not only a rethinking of technology policy, but changes in institutions and new international
linkages as well:
(a) Recognition that defense priorities will no longer dominate the U.S. federal
government's technology policy. Instead defense must face a drastically shrunken production
and weapons acquisition base, will have to increase the fraction of the defense budget devoted
to exploratory development and prototyping, even as the defense R&D budget decreases.
Because the technologies critical to the new force structure will increasingly fall into areas in
which commercial industry is ahead of defense industry, especially the information and
communications technologies, defense agencies will have to gain access to commercial
technologies. This will require radical change in defense acquisition policies and practices.
(b) Recognition that progress in modern, science-based engineering depends
increasingly on a publicly-provided infrastructure of basic technical knowledge, tools,
materials, and facilities. Between the realms of basic science and proprietary technology there
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n the new,
term social
ntal; more
lan in the
1 change is
ch yielding
ch allowed
n, creating
ad reverse
engineering (David, 1992). The current view is much more complex. Scientific
discoveries often take place in the context of application; there is no clear-cut distinction
between basic and applied work; tacit knowledge and incremental improvements are
more important than isolated scientific breakthroughs. One consequence of this changing
perspective is that support for basic research has lost ground, when not linked to
identifiable products and results.
_ The development of new patterns of international scientific cooperation, with the
establishment of large-scale international ventures such as the Human Genome Project
and global research activities in the fields of meteorology, global warming, astrophysics,
and regional cooperative projects. While traditional "big science" programs, such as the
European Consortium for Nuclear Research (CERN), were characterized by large
scientific installations, the recent ones tend to be organized in terms of extended and
closely linked networks of scientists and research groups. For small scientific
communities, the alternatives are either to participate in some aspects of these ventures,
or to lag further behind (box 6).
European Cooperative Projects
Eureka Projects:
- 646 projects in 9 areas: medical and biotechnology, communications, energy, environment,
information technology, lasers, materials, robotics and production automation, transport;
- EU 95: High Definition Television 1986-93, Budget: $750 million
- EU 127: Joint European Submicron Silicon Programme, 1989-1996. Budget: $4.6 billion.
European Community Projects:
- Framework III Programme, 1990-1994, 12 member countries, Precompetitive Research.
Total budget, $7.99 billion.
- DGXII: Science, Research and Development. Brite/EURAM: Industrial and materials
technologies, plus other research programs
- DGXIII: Information Technology and Communications. RACE, communication
technologies; TELEMATICS, information exchange.
-DGIII: Industry. ESPRIT (moved from DGXIII).
NHPtlfP
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iast. Public
/ledge, and
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nt and the
quired new
lology, the
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:ing related
icism. The
iry lines is
ditions for
ves to the
conventional organization of teaching and education along disciplinary lines, bringing a
further source of tension between teaching and research. Government agencies for
science support are being revised and transformed. The links between universities,
government and industry are deeply changed by new patterns of technical education,
cooperative research and financing, generating new opportunities and tensions.
Traditional scientific careers are perceived as less rewarding, prestigious and secure than
in the past, while new professional patterns emerge.
. Changes in the nature and capabilities of the Brazilian state.
Brazil, which presented one of the world's highest rates of economic growth until the
1970's, did not adapt to the changing international environment of the eighties, and
entered a prolonged period of economic stagnation cum inflation from which it is still to
recover. Different explanations are given to this fact, going from the exhaustion of the
import substitution model that characterized the country's economy since the 1930s, to
the political and institutional inability of governments, since the eighties, to carry on
long-term policies, in a context of international hardship and intense political competition
for public subsidies. There is a clear notion, today, that the State has to reduce its size and
its presence in the economy, while gaining competence to set and carry on long-term
policies of economic growth, social welfare and environment protection. It is not clear,
however, how this change should affect the S&T sector.
This situation of instability and lack of vision affected the S&T sector in two
important ways. The most obvious was the reduction of resources for most existing
programs, and the lack of perspectives for new projects and initiatives, even when
international commitments, such as the loan contracts with the World Bank and the
Interamerican Development Bank, required well defined matching funds according to
prescribed time tables. Probably more important were the problems of institutional and
financial instability. The Ministry of Science and Technology changed name and status
several times, budgets allocated to R&D institutions oscillated, and the actual delivery of
these funds depended on constant, painful and daily negotiations with often
unsympathetic economic authorities at the lower ranks in the bureaucracy. Not only
resources were limited, but there was no consensus in government, public opinion, or
international agencies, about the importance and role of scientific research, or about
matters like basic vs. applied, civilian vs. military, academic vs. industrial research. This
instability has been a matter of great concern, given the long time it takes for scientific
institutions to mature, compared with the speed in which they decay in conditions of
budgetary and institutional insecurity. In the early nineties, the state of Brazilian science
and technology can be summarized by the following points:
_ The federal agencies for science and technology support (FINEP and CNPq) are
very limited in their ability to grant resources for research projects. Most of CNPq's
resources are used for fellowships, while FINEP is specializing on loans to technology
projects in the private sector. On the other hand, Sao Paulo's Foundation for Research
Support (FAPESP), was preserved as an efficient and prestigious institution, and even
increased its share of the state's main tax revenue (from 0.5 to 1.0%), supposedly for
applied work and industrial development. Several other state-level research support
institutions were created in the late eighties, but few are active and efficient.
The administrations of some federal agencies for S&T suffer the effects of swelling
bureaucracies, low salaries and political militancy of their employees. Others, on the
contrary, are understaffed, and unable to hire adequate persons to fulfill their functions.
CNPq has been particularly affected by a permanent tension between its employees and
the council's academic advisory bodies. Most federal research institutions, including the
research institutes under CNPq, are paralyzed by lack of resources and incentives.
_ There is no consensus about what to do with the large-scale projects of the past,
which are in large part paralyzed by lack of resources. The military doctrine of
technological development from the 1970s seems intact within the Armed Forces, in spite
of the current constraints. None of the large projects was discontinued - the atomic
submarine, the space project (including the development of rockets and satellites) and the
construction of military airplanes. The space project is moving from military to civilian
control, and the government has sent a bill to Congress to create a Brazilian Space
Agency, which would consolidate this transition (Cavagnari, 1993).
_ Benevolent legislation allows for early retirement (at the age of about 50), with full
benefits, of many professors in public universities and the civil service. About 30% of
current expenditures in the federal universities are used for retirement benefits, and this
figure is growing. Lacking information, it is difficult to know how this is affecting the
pool of active researchers, whether they are continuing their activities in other (and
sometimes the same) institutions, and how they are being replaced. The general
perception is that the private benefits of early retirement, combined with the instability
and low prestige of many teaching and research institutions, are depleting Brazil's active
scientific community. While this situation does not change, it is important to stimulate
the retiring, well-qualified professors to remain productive in other roles, starting for
instance new careers as entrepreneurs. Retirements should be used also as an opportunity
to open the vacancies to a new generation of young academics and researchers.
_ Within these extremely adverse conditions, the Ministry of Science and Technology
is trying to put forward some ideas and policies for the sector (box 7). One of its main
tasks has been to assure a regular flow of budgetary and non budgetary resources to the
sector. The proposal for the federal budget is to obtain between one and one and a half
billion dollars for the activities under the Ministry of Science and Technology for 1994.
The government has decided that a substantial part of the resources obtained through the
privatization of public companies should go to the science and technology sector; and
recent legislation granted tax benefits to firms engaged in technological development.
The official expectation is that these two sources alone could double the resources for
science and technology for 1994. The Ministry is also engaged in continuous negotiations
with economic authorities for the stabilization of the flux of resources to the agencies,
and with international institutions for continuing or renewed support for the S&T sector.
The second goal of the Ministry is to continue and conclude some of the large projects
that have already started, and are stalled for the lack of resources. The two most
preeminent are the space and satellite program and the laboratory of synchrotron light.
The ministry has also proposed a bill establishing a unified career structure for
researchers and employees in federal institutions. In the Ministry of Education, CAPES,
the agency for high-level manpower education and training, maintains a stable line of
fellowships and support for graduate programs. Some projects created during the Collor
period (1990-1992) to stimulate quality and competitiveness in the industrial sector are
still in place, although with very little resources to go on.
Activities of the Ministry of Science and Technology, 1993.
a) permanent activities carried on by MCT or with its support:
- large projects involving investments in basic infrastructure;
- research projects in the basic, natural and social sciences;
- technology development projects in the fields of biotechnology, with emphasis on
genetic engineering and its applications; in new materials, including microelectronics; in
chemistry, including the synthesis of natural products, all with strong impact in the
modernization of the productive system.
egional programs, like the weather and climate forecast projects for the Northeast and the
Center-South regions
c) the definition of new legal and financial instruments for the S&T sector:
- incentives for industrial investment in R&D;
- rules for the implementation of the Informatics and the Amazon Free Zone legislations;
- utilization of resources derived from the privatization program for strategic projects such
as the Satellite Launching Vehicle, the supercomputer of the National Laboratory of
Computer Sciences, the National Laboratory of Synchrotron Light, the National
Laboratory of Nuclear Physics, the research program in the Antarctic region and the
survey of natural resources in Brazil's continental shelf.
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The main
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i scientific
cience and
ate in their
benefits remain local and national, and depend on purposeful efforts from local and
national governments.
The main thrust of this policy paper is that there is a definite need to move from the
previous mode of scientific and technological development into a new one, more
adequate to the current and future realities. Science and Technology are more important
than ever for Brazil, if the country is to raise the standards of living of its population,
consolidate a modern economy, and participate as a significant partner in an increasingly
integrated and global world 6 . The economy must modernize, and adj ust to an
nproved at
challenges
health, the
position of
in equal in
for Brazil,
lformation,
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The Internationalization of Trade, Business and Technology
The internationalization of trade, business and technology is here to stay. This means
that national borders means much less than they used to regarding the flow of technology, at
least among the nations that have made the now needed social investments in education and
research facilities. National governments have been slow to recognize these new facts of life.
Indeed, the last decade has seen a sharp increase in what has been called "techno-nationalism",
policies launched by governments with the objective of giving their national firms a particular
edge in an area of technology. Our argument is that these policies to not work very well
anymore. It is increasingly difficult to create new technology that will stay contained within
national borders for very long in a world where technological sophistication is widespread and
firms of many nationalities are ready to make the investment needed to exploit new generic
technologies. A closely related observation is that a well-educated labor force, with a strong
cadre of university trained engineers and scientists at the top, is now a requirement for
membership in the "convergence club".
Nelson and Wright, 1992.
The new policy should implement tasks that are apparently in contradiction: to
stimulate the freedom, initiative and creativity of the researcher, while establishing strong
links between their work and the requirements of the economy, the educational system
and of society as a whole; and to make Brazilian science and technology truly
international, while strengthening the country's educational and S&t capabilities. To
achieve this, the individual researcher, and their research unit or laboratory, should be
freed from bureaucratic and administrative constraints, and stimulated to look for the best
opportunities and alternatives, in the country and abroad, for the use and improvement of
his competence. This requires, in turn, a competitive environment based on public
incentives and private opportunities that rewards achievement, increases the costs of
complacency and underachievement, and gears a substantial part of the R&D resources
" The term "global" conveys the notion of an interdependent world civilization, with permeable
boundaries and no clear hegemonic centers. There is a growing literature on the global nature of modern
societies. See for instance Albrow and King, 1990; Robertson, 1992; Featherstone, 1992; Wallerstein,
1990.
toward a few important and strategic selected goals. More specifically, the new policy
should include the following tasks:
_ To increase the links between academic science and the productive sector, and
to increase the share of the latter in the national effort for scientific and
technological development, approaching the patterns of the modern, industrialized
economies, where most of the R&D effort takes place in the productive sector.
This requires a significant increase in private investments in R&D, not a reduction
of the already limited public funds.
_ to create two different "markets," one for academic science, another for applied
technology. The academic market needs a system of rewards and incentives for
scientists, appropriate career structures, and means to increase public support for
science. The market for applied technology should combine the requirements of
competence and quality with those of economic feasibility and social need.
to increase the links between science, technology and education, from the
graduate programs down to technical and basic education;
To invest heavily in the development of innovative capabilities of the
productive system as a whole, through incentives, extension programs and the
strengthening of the country's infrastructure for basic technology;
_ To support a few integrated projects of clearly identified social and economic
relevance and in need of S&T research and education, in areas such as energy,
environment preservation and control, transportation, public health, food
production, and in social fields such as basic education, poverty, employment and
the management of urban conglomerates (Goldemberg, 1993; Soke and Tucker,
1993; Castro, N., 1993).
__ To create the conditions for Brazil's participation in international programs
dealing with global issues;
_ To make the government agencies for science and technology more flexible and
bound to peer review procedures, and to stimulate research groups and institutions
to search for partnership and support from a variety of sources and through
different procedures, beyond what governments can provide and do.
. Policy recommendations
To achieve these goals, the following recommendations are made:
. To redirect the country's technology policies, in line with the new economic
realities.
Technology policies are needed to make it possible for the country to enter a new
pattern of industrial growth, centered on increasing levels of competitiveness. On the
short run, the policies should be geared to the reorganization and technological
modernization of the industrial sector. Then, permanent policies should exist to induce
the more dynamic sectors of the productive system to enter a continuous process of
innovation and incorporation of new technologies, to follow the rhythm of technical
progress in the world economy (box 9). Both approaches require, as the main priority, the
incorporation of existing technology to the productive process. Sectorial policies are
needed for the reorganization and technological modernization of less efficient parts of
the economy, and for the consolidation and expansion of the more dynamic industrial
sectors. Support for research and development activities should be selective, and clearly
associated with broader processes of innovation based on the transfer, diffusion and
absorption of technological competence.
;hnological
irms. It is
revolution
he role of
iffusion of
)ment and
mnce to its
ives, tariff
stments in
:se policies
;tence, and
t, adequate
with the
ns with the
irantee nor
) (box 10).
Technology transfer: the new economic policy orientations
Regarding the transfer of technology from abroad, it is necessary to preserve and
consolidate the economic policy orientations introduced in the nineties, aimed to remove
existing obstacles and restrictions affecting the main transfer channels - the import of capital
goods, technology contracts and foreign investment. It is necessary to go further regarding the
use and diffusion of foreign technologies incorporated in capital goods, with the liberalization
of import mechanisms for equipment, and the reformulation of the informatics policy. It is also
necessary to proceed with the revision of the traditional administrative procedures for the
registration of technology transfer contracts. These practices amounted to strong government
intervention and restrictions in the transference process. In the same vein, policy changes in
the informatics sector, eliminating restrictions to the presence of foreign companies and the
establishment of joint-ventures, helped to remove a significant block to technological transfer,
which was specially important because it affected precisely the industrial sectors where
technical progress is more intense.
Eduardo A. Guimaraes, 1993.
Recommendations about the Patent Law
-Some changes, such as the concession of patents to pharmaceutical products and process, are
unavoidable to normalize Brazil's international economic relations.
-the new legislation should be based on the text being negotiated with within GATT, as it is
the case of the proposal put forward by the Interministerial Group. American pressures to
include the patenting of life forms and the "pipeline" do not correspond to internationally
accepted rules as yet. In addition, no short-term agreement of free trade with the U.S. is being
considered, to justify such concessions. A rapid approval of a new legislation without
transition adjustment periods for specific industrial sectors would attend, in general terms,
American Hgn-mnHc
Financial Stability and the PADCT
Financial stability is essential for reaching results, specially for experimental
laboratories. There is no point in granting resources to buy expensive equipment if there are no
additional resources for installation, operation and maintenance, and more specifically for
hiring and training technicians to operate it. Large time lags occurred frequently within
PADCT between the arrival of equipment and the availability of operational resources.
Difficulties to import equipment created absurd situations in which projects were to be carried
on in one or two years, but the equipment arrived two or three years later, when there was no
money left for installation, salaries, training and operation.
Long-term programs are needed, specially for centers of excellence. Projects could be
annm\reA for Qpvpral vpars with a firm mmmitmpnt for thp first vpar anH additional navmpnts
solute lack
;overnment
gencies for
I activities,
lal stability
*h. Special
d research
researchers
establish a
ough long-
term grants based on past performance (" laboratories associados"), which requires
prompt implementation. Estimates of size and cost of such a network vary, but the scale
of the operation is not too difficult to determine. Of the estimated 15 thousand active
researchers in the country, about a third, or five thousand, could be included in 200 such
"laboratories" of 25 persons each, supported with one million dollars a year in average, or
40 thousand dollars per person, two hundred million dollars in total. This would be the
cost of keeping the pool of competence in place, providing a basis from which other
policies can be devised. A similar amount will be needed to provide these laboratories
with basic equipment and infrastructure. Most of this money is already being spent as
salaries by universities and other government agencies, so that the cost of this program
would be even less (although the resources for research and infrastructure should be
provided in addition to what is needed for regular graduate education). Ideally, the
program should compensate for oscillations in salaries, guarantee resources for current
expenditures, and provide means for the acquisition and modernization of scientific
equipment, regardless of the group's institutional location. Resources should be allocated
competitively, under strict peer review evaluation, and for limited periods (typically three
to five years). The criteria for allocation should be the laboratories' track records, the
quality of their researchers, their ability to get funds from other sources, and their long-
term perspectives and projects.
This network of research laboratories should be strengthened by a specific line of
support for individual scientists, allowing them to move around to find the best places to
use their competence; laboratories could be rewarded for the quality of people they can
attract.
A competent and prestigious peer review procedure is essential for the project of
"laboratrios associados" to work. On the long run, difficult problems of choice between
equally competent groups and proposals may appear, requiring decision procedures that
go beyond traditional peer review. However, given the current small size of Brazil's
scientific community, most competent groups are likely to be supported, without
increasing the historical levels of expenditure.
. To develop a three-pronged policy for S&T development, with clearly
distinguished support mechanisms for basic science, applied work and extension
and education.
The fact that basic science, applied R&D and high level technical education are very
often indistinguishable, and take place simultaneously in the same institutions, does not
mean that they should not be treated separately in terms of their supporting mechanisms,
working from different perspectives and with different approaches.
Basic science research and education.
Basic or academic science, broadly understood as research work that does not
respond to short-term practical demands, remains necessary not only for its eventual role
as the source of privileged discoveries for applied work, but because of its nature as an
al basis, so
ntradiction
orts to help
le growing
ce is also
high 7 . The
is paid by
)f the basis
education.
ight of as
regions for
scientific
tional pool
such as the
(Resende,
Basic research: the Laboratory of Synchrotron Light
The source of synchrotron light that is being built at the National Laboratory of
Synchrotron Light (LNLS) in Campinas is a large undertaking with a strong interdisciplinary
content. The equipment consists of an electron accelerator and a storage ring. Electrons
circulate at high speed producing electromagnetic radiation of high intensity, covering an
extensive energy band. This radiation can be used for different purposes, from basic research
in solids, atoms, molecules and biological materials to different applications such as
photolithography for the fabrication of highly integrated electronic circuitry. The light source
is being built by a well-coordinated team of physicists, engineers and technicians, using many
components developed in association with national companies. About US$ 11m have been
invested so far in the project. It is the first Brazilian experience of building and, later,
operating a large physical laboratory to be used by researchers from the whole country. Its
success or failure will have important consequences regarding future decisions to go ahead
with other large projects. The total estimated cost of the light source is USS 35 million.
Sergio Resende, 1993.
uesiaes its eventual impact on tne productive sector, oasic science can play a
fundamental role in enhancing the quality of higher education for engineers and for
society as a whole. This role, however, does not take place as a matter of course.
Universities have to develop explicit links between their graduate and undergraduate
programs; intellectual and financial investments have to be made for the development of
materials for science teaching, from handbooks to educational software and experimental
kits. When these links and investments exist, basic science becomes more legitimate, and
more likely to be supported by society.
Changes are also necessary in scientific and graduate education. Master degree
programs should be shortened, and turned either into well-organized courses of
professional specialization, or short entrance and leveling programs leading to doctoral
degrees. Non-degree, specialization courses should be stimulated, with very little
bureaucratic formalism, and as self-supporting as possible.
Globalization requires a profound rethinking of the old dilemma between scientific
self-sufficiency and internationalization. The experience of small, high-level scientific
communities in countries like Canada, Israel, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, shows
that this may be a spurious question. They build their competence through a purposeful
effort to be present in the international scientific scene, by the extensive use of the
English language, participation in joint research projects, evaluation of their research
' Only about 15% of the resources for "public good" research in the US comes from the productive
sector (Aron Kupperman, private communication).
activities by scientists from other countries, and a constant international flux of students,
researchers and information; they are not less developed, and their science less relevant
for their societies, for that reason.
The current fellowship programs of CAPES and CNPq for studies abroad need to be
revised. Fellowships should be awarded only to first-rate students going to first-rate
institutions, and with a clear perspective of returning to productive work in Brazil.
Fellowships for doctoral degrees should be combined with "sandwitch" fellowships for
doctoral students in Brazilian institutions, and short-term support for training periods in
laboratories and companies abroad. Procedures should be devised to constrain the
beneficiaries to pay back the money received if they fail to get their degrees or to return
to their institutions; fellowships for countries and institutions with poor records of
academic achievement for fellows should be avoided. Under these conditions, the current
number of fellowships awarded should be maintained and even expanded. The existence
of good quality doctoral programs in a given field does not preclude the need to keep a
permanent flux of students to the best foreign universities. Provisions should exist for
post-doctoral programs both abroad and in Brazil, and to bring top-quality scholars from
other countries for extended periods, or even permanent appointments, in Brazilian
university and research institutions (De Meis and Longo, 1990).
_ Applied science
The central feature of applied science is that it has a user, and the
generated in the R&D process tends to be proprietary. The main clients
science in Brazil have been the military, the large state-owned corporations
section of the private sector, including the export-driven agricultural firms.
Applied R&D should be evaluated in terms of its short-term scientific
Multi-client program in Forestry Research
The Research Institute of Forestry Research (IPEF) of the School of Agriculture Luiz
de Queiroz, Sao Paulo University, was created 25 years ago in Piracicaba, bringing together
five private companies, Champion, Duratex, Rigesa, Industrial de Papel Leon Feffer and
Madeirit, to deal with questions of common interest. Today, there are 23 associated
companies, and the results have been surprisingly good. The average productivity of wood,
which was around 15 m 3 /ha/year, is now about 30 m 3 /ha/year for the companies associated to
IPEF. The institute has contributed to this increase in productivty through basic research and
education and training of personnel for the companies. Its germ research center, recognized by
UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, is the largest in the southern hemisphere in genetic
materials, and commercializes about three tons of seeds each year, exporting to countries like
Indonesia, Venezuela and Thailand. As an example, 300 kg of seeds from Eucalyptus
urophilla where sold recently to Indonesia, which is the country from where this species
originates. The associated companies are located in the states of Bahia, Minas Gerais, Espirito
Santo, Sao Paulo, Para, Parana, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. This
model of association was followed by other institutions. Today, besides IPEF, there is the
Fund for Forestry Research in Curitiba, Parana (FUPEF) and the Society for Forestry
Investments in Vicosa, Minas Gerais (SIF). Research takes place also in state research
itiQtitiitpQ cnrVi aQ thp *\5n Panln Fnrf»Qtr\/ Inctitntp wJiirli cfllc ahrmt 9^ trmQ nf cppHq \/p«rl\/
knowledge
for applied
and a small
quality and
such as the
and long-
ot open to
). Lacking
the risk of
lized R&D
ver. In the
ries can do
>reading of
ost public
lanisms to
linish. The
)d. If loans
i outcomes
g-term and
joint R&D projects that would not otherwise find support through commercial banks.
General policies and support mechanisms for applied R&D are difficult to devise, since
they refer to an extremely variegated range of activities, and require different
combinations of economic, scientific and strategic considerations. A few suggestions,
however, can be made:
Research groups in universities and government institutes should be strongly
stimulated to link to the productive system and to engage in applied work, while
maintaining a high level of academic and basic research activities. It is as unwarranted to
expect that all basic science should be linked to production as to assume that they should
be kept isolated from each other. There is no reason to believe that applied work would
necessarily distract researchers from their basic and academic oriented activities.
However, tensions and conflicts of interest may arise, and need to be administered case
by case. Links between academic research and the productive system can take place at
multiple levels, depending on the capabilities and needs of each side. They can go from
help in the solution of short-term problems and difficulties faced by industries, to the
transfer and scaling up of innovations produced by research centers for industrial
production; and, at the higher end, to the development of large scale, cooperative projects
of R&D (Frischtak and Guimaraes, 1993). Links can be established either with single
institutions or with associations and consortia of users, as in the example of the Institute
of Forestry Research of the Universidade de Sao Paulo (Azevedo, 1993) (box 13).
Resources for applied work should not come from the budget for basic activities, but
from specific sources in governmental agencies, special programs, private firms, and
independent foundations.
_ Government agencies dealing with matters requiring research work, like in health,
education, environment, energy, communications and transportation, should have
resources to contract research in universities and research institutions on matters of their
interest. This practice should prevail over the tendency of these agencies to create their
own research outfits, and their projects should be subject to joint evaluations by peer
review and policy oriented authorities. Research institutes and centers in public agencies
and state companies should be placed under peer oversight, and required to compete for
research support outside their agencies.
_ The current military projects should come under technical, academic and strategic
evaluation with the participation of selected, high quality scientific advisers, and be either
streamlined, discontinued, reduced, or converted to civilian projects (Cavagnari, 1993)
(box 14).
ochemistry
i industry,
ginning in
Military Research and competitiveness
The goal of making Brazil a world power can only be achieved if the country can
survive and develop in a competitive international environment, which depends on the non- industrv
military components of its strategic capabilities - mainly its scientific and technological '
capability. In consequence, the country's efforts should be directed to this goal, without giving
priority, necessarily, to military R&D. There is no doubt that the main current military projects
should be continued until their completion, but the perspectives of military R&D regarding the
more advanced technologies is limited, given the tendency of civilian R&D to administer such
technological projects as efficiently as the military.
The difficulties found in the development of military programs could be reduced if
the development of higher end technologies is not militarized. This, however, does not mean
that the Armed Forces should be excluded from research and development activities. On the
the establishment of appropriate objectives; they should be subject to independent
evaluations of economic, managerial and scientific feasibility, and monitored on these
terms.
__ New actors should be brought in projects of local and regional development,
including local and state governments, business associations, financial institutions,
universities and technical schools.
- Education
The main challenge for Brazilian science and technology in the coming years is to
spread competence for innovation horizontally, to the productive system as a whole, and
to increase the educational level of the population. While this is not done, the S&T
establishment is bound to relate only to a small part of the country and its economy, with
limited resources and relevance.
Policies for science and technology should not wait for educational reform, but they
cannot be expected to succeed without profound transformations in the educational
system as a whole, through increased access to educational opportunities, quality
improvement of basic and secondary education, strengthening of technical education and
diversification and better use of public resources in higher education. Questions of
educational policy lie beyond the scope of this document. However, a few items should
be stressed regarding the interfaces between the educational and the S&T sectors:
Technical Education. Brazil has maintained a wide gulf between education for the
academic professions, including engineering, and middle-level professional training, the
first provided by universities, the second by federal and state technical schools (and also
by industry and commerce through their own institutions, SENAI and SENAC). The
knowledge-intensive basis of modern industry and services requires the development of
general skills for the technician, and proximity with industry for the institutions trying to
t^f^Ji^o +q/^Utai/-»o1 Q/-1ii/-.o<-i^t-> <-Vit*/-vnrrVi tvwmnl r»i~»in-PQ r\m m- o m c tT^nc+m <mA Q1n
Human resources development in South Korea.
South Korea developed a massive effort in the fields of education, Science and
Technology since the 1960s, as part of their strategy of industrial conversion. Besides the
sheer size of the effort, there are some strategies worth stressing, regarding the bridges they
sought to create between the worlds of education and research and the world of industrial
production.
- Long-term programs of institutional development. Universities, individual
professors and research centers received support for 5 to 6 years long projects, time deemed
necessary for the creation of groups of graduate students.
- well-known scientists were dissuaded to lend their names just to fatten the
curriculum of projects. Those who gave their names had to be involved. With this, it became
easier for young scientists to take the leadership of important projects.
- scientists and engineers were sent systematically to short courses abroad, in selected
fields. Typically, their courses lasted two months, but they received four months fellowships.
During their courses, their had to negotiate with their professors for training internships in
European firms, to absorb technology.
- An excellent researcher had difficulties linking to the productive sector. He received
a grant to organize monthly lunches with business leaders, to discuss questions related to the
eira.
1993)
secondary,
;ation. The
o industry,
. Although
n the sheer
versities in
ltiplication
ments and
ision work
systematic
ngineering
documents (handbooks, standards, technical manuals for craft and skilled workers)
needed for general use in industry and education. These activities already take place in
some universities, but are usually considered of low prestige, and inimical to academic
excellence. It does not have to be so. High quality research centers can attract more
resources, increase their relevance and involve more people through extension activities.
Institutions with little to offer in terms of research can gather strength and recognition,
and provide their students with significant opportunities for practical training. Since most
of these activities can be paid for by users, they do not require much in additional
resources, but there should be means to provide rewards, incentives and recognition for
this type of work.
Teaching of science and technology. Academic departmemts in universities should
take more responsibility for undergraduate education. The current departmental structure
tends to leave undergraduate career programs without intellectual leadership, and
undergraduate teaching is often seen as a burden by professors engaged in graduate
education and research. Incentives should be created to stimulate researchers to get
involved with undergraduate education, by writing textbooks, bringing undergraduates to
their research projects, and participating in the upgrading of their course programs.
Fellowships for undergraduates ("bolsas de iniciacao cientifica") should be expanded,
and successful involvement in undergraduate education should be added as a criterion for
CAPES in its evaluation of graduate programs.
General education. Most undergraduate education in Brazil, as elsewhere, is in fields
like administration, languages, social sciences and the humanities. They can be
considered "general education" course programs, since they have little knowledge
specificity, and are supposed to provide the students a broad spectrum of cultural, social
and historical disciplines. There is a tendency to see these "soft" fields as a waste of time
and resources, under the assumption that they are not directly relevant to the production
of goods. However, general skills, social and cultural abilities are central components of
modern economies and societies, characterized by intense flows of information and
communication, the continuous expansion of services and a shifting social and economic
environment. The situation of neglect should be reversed, with the graduate and research
sector taking responsibility for improving the quality of secondary and undergraduate
general education, through direct involvement in the production of good quality
textbooks, the development of curricula and new teaching methods. Here again, adequate
procedures should be devised to make these activities more rewarding and prestigious
than they have been so far.
Distance learning. Modern technologies for distance learning have not been adopted
in Brazil except in some isolated experiences in basic education. A systematic effort
should be made to incorporate the international experience, and a few universities should
be stimulated to begin pilot projects using the newly available instruments, from
computers to electronic mail.
. Infrastructure for information and knowledge dissemination.
New and systematic procedures to incorporate technology into the industrial process
should be developed, with strong emphasis on the development and dissemination of
norms and standards, information, and procedures for technological transfer and quality
improvement. Brazil has several institutions created for these tasks, such as the National
Institute of Metrology, the National Institute of Intellectual Property and the Brazilian
Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (IBICT). These institutions,
however, have lived in a no-man's land between the researcher in academic institutions
and the productive sector, both of which were either protected from external competition,
or linked directly to their own sources of information and technology outside the country.
Without closer interaction with the users of their services, these institutions tended to
become rigid and bureaucratic, weakening still further their links with the scientific and
productive sectors.
To reduce this problem, users should play a much stronger role in the definition of the
goals and practices of these institutions. A well organized and properly funded
knowledge infrastructure is necessary to assure the easy access of scientists to libraries
and data collections in the country and abroad. Significant advances have ocurred in the
last few years, through the gradual generalization of access to Internet and similar
networks for Brazilian universities and research groups, and the development of
computerized library catalogs in some of the main universities. Now it is necessary to
make these links more widely used, more effective and more transparent to the individual
researcher, and to establish means to bring the documents and data to the scientist's
working place. A coherent policy for creating, maintaining and expanding these
information resources is needed, and should rely on the competence developed by
FAPESP, the National Laboratory of Computer Science Research (LNCC), the Institute
of Applied and Pure Mathematics (IMP A), and other groups that have built and
developed the current facilities.
. Institutional reform.
For these policies to be carried on, governmental agencies for S&T policy should
become smaller, more flexible and more efficient. The Brazilian agencies for science and
technology are considered more efficient, and less plagued with problems of political
patronage and bureaucratic formalism, than most of Brazil's civil service. However, with
a few exceptions, the general evaluation of the main government agencies is not very
positive. CNPq has grown to be a large bureaucracy, going from 1,502 employees in
1988 to 2.527 in 1992, about half of them without a university degree (Barbieri, 1993,
table 2). Its administrative expenditures have varied enormously throughout the years,
and most of its resources are now given to fellowships. Researchers and fellows applying
for its resources complain constantly about the difficulties in getting information and
receiving their fellowships and grant money on time. The agency could never establish a
competent information system about its own activities, and there is little or no follow-up
of the results of its investments in research and graduate education. FINEP also increased
its bureaucracy to about 700 employees, while its resources shrank (Frischtak, coord,
1993). There are no established dates for submission of projects and proposals nor public
announcement of awards. Without systematic peer review, there is no information on
how decisions are made. In both cases, the problems were compounded by budgetary
uncertainties. The agencies do not know how much money they will have at any given
time, and their decisions are often based on expectations that are not fulfilled. Finally,
these agencies have not established adequate procedures to receive proposals in constant
values and protect their grants from inflation. The consequence is that, when a project is
finally approved, its value is significantly lower than when it was presented, and still
lower when the money is received and spent.
Table 3: CNPq, Budget according to main lines of activity, 1980-1992. Millions of
US$ofl992(a)
Year
Fellows
hips
Grants
(b)
Institute
s
Adminis
tration
Other
(c)
Total
1980
42,252.3
23,166.3
26,233.9
40,598.9
4,243.2
136,494.6
1981
46,567.7
21,815.5
29,557.7
41,837.5
2,420.1
142,198.5
1982
72,396.3
37,793.5
34,489.4
35,032.4
2,265.8
181,977.4
1983
68,137.6
28,106.6
26,949.6
28,769.8
3,194.6
155,158.2
1984
61,400.8
21,521.1
23,092.8
37,682.4
5,034.5
148,731.6
1985
88,153.1
41,517.0
33,141.5
33,631.7
5,212.8
201,656.1
1986
94,630.1
50,996.2
35,497.9
27,931.3
7,552.3
216,607.8
1987
184,069.
4
48,886.4
57,739.4
63,729.7
4,416.3
358,841.2
1988
238,004.
4
46,552.1
49,322.2
47,281.9
4,415.3
385,575.9
1989
236,143.
1
33,570.1
85,569.2
48,693.0
22,732.4
426,707.8
1990
178,339.
5
41,672.8
50,529.1
36,513.3
14,684.5
321,739.2
1991
232,440.
4
19,884.0
30,838.3
26,361.2
14,907.9
324,431.8
1992
193,820.
4
7,635.8
30,655.5
17,362.2
10,603.2
260,077.1
(a) compensated for inflation according to the General Price Index of Fundacao
Getulio Vargas, and converted to dollar according to the mean exchange rates of
1992.
(b) includes special projects
(c) includes debt service payments, fringe benefits to emplolyees (for food, nursery,
and transportation), persons working for other government agencies.
Source: CNPq, Informe Estatistico, Brasilia, 4(2), Abril, 1993, p. 13.
In contrast, FAPESP, in the state of Sao Paulo, and CAPES, at the Ministry of
Education, are perceived as success cases. FAPESP works almost exclusively through
peer review, its administration is very small, communication with applicants is very
efficient, its grants are fully corrected for inflation, and has well-designed follow-up
procedures for its grants and fellowships (box 16). CAPES suffers some of the difficulties
of being within the Ministry of Education, but has an established tradition of peer review
assessments. Its leadership has been always recruited among persons of good academic
standing, and its bureaucracy remains small.
The FAPESP model
The "FAPESP" model is characterized by three main aspects. First is the source of its
resources. Initially, FAPESP was granted 0.5% of Sao Paulo's state revenues. The 1969 state
Constitution increased this legal percentage to 1%, less 25% of the trade tax ("imposto de
circulacao de mercadorias") which is transferred by the state to the municipalities; and it
determined that the resources to be calculated each month, and transferred in the following
month. To this basic source one should add the revenues of FAPESP's capital investments,
which allows the agency to spend more that what it gets from the government in a given
period.
The second aspect is related to its relative independence from political fluctuations.
FAPESP is governed by a council of 12 members with fixed six year mandates, which is
responsible for its administrative, scientific and patrimonial policies. Six members are
designated by the state governor, and the other six are also chosen by the governor from lists
submitted by the state's public universities and research institutes. The president and vice-
president of the council are also appointed by the governor. In practice, all names are
suggested to the governor by the scientific community.
The third aspect is that most of the resources go to individual researchers working in
the state of Sao Paulo, and only rarely to institutions. Proposals are submitted to FAPESP and
pvnlnatpH h\/ npprc Thpir iHpntitipc nrp nnt Vnnwn tn flip nnnlirant and tlipir rprnmmpnHntinnc
astitutional
s of policy,
r its direct
osition for
ministry of
patronage,
cal support
the sector:
irch grants,
dards, and
institutions
il Fund for
Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT), administered by FINEP. Whether
these resources should be managed by FINEP, CNPq or by a new institution should be
examined as part of a broad review of the roles, jurisdiction and competencies of the
existing agencies.
- Financing agencies should be organized as independent, state owned corporations,
and free of formalistic and bureaucratic constraints. They should be placed under strict
limitations regarding the percentage of their resources they can spend on administration,
and should be supervised by high-level councils with the participation of scientists,
educators, entrepreneurs and government officers. They should rely on external advise
for their decisions, and their bureaucracy should be limited to the minimum.
_ Research institutions and public universities should not be run as sections of the
civil service. They need to have the flexibility to set priorities, seek resources from
different public and private agencies, and establish their own personnel policies. While
this is not changed, there is always the alternative of developing hybrid institutions with
flexible mechanisms coexisting with more rigid procedures (the Brazilian academic
community has some experience in this). Universities should develop appropriate settings
for interdisciplinary work in new fields such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence
(Carvalho, 1993; Silva, 1993).
No research institution receiving public support, and no government program
providing grants, fellowships, institutional support or other resources to the S&T sector,
should be exempt from clear and well-defined procedures of peer evaluation, combined,
when necessary, with other types of economic and strategic assessments. Peer review
procedures should be strengthened by the federal government, made free from pressures
of regional, professional and institutional interest groups, and acquire a strong
international dimension. For instance, research proposals could be easily distributed to
international referees through electronic mail.
_ It should be the task of the Ministry of Science and Technology to stimulate such
reforms in other branches of the federal government. The Ministry of Education should
have a particularly important role in maintaining the quality and the autonomy of the
research groups in the federal universities.
_ It should be also the task of the Ministry of Science and Technology, in cooperation
with the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs, to keep the channels open for
international cooperation between Brazil, international agencies and institutions, and the
international scientific community. The World Bank, the International Development
Bank and the United Nations Development Program have played important roles in
providing resources for capital investment, research support and institutional
development of Brazilian institutions. This presence should be maintained not only
because of the resources involved, but because of what they bring in terms of
international perspectives and competence. In the future, such agencies could be very
helpful in a process of institutional reform. As a rule, cooperation among scientists,
research institutions and private foundations in different countries is established directly,
and need the support, but not the interference, of governmental agencies.
. Goal-oriented projects
The broad changes suggested in this document do not preclude the adoption of well-
identified projects linking science, technology and the productive sector, aimed at the
strengthening of specific fields and orientations in the natural and social sciences, the
establishment of instruments for S&T diffusion and education, and others. Proposals of
this kind are present in the background studies commissioned for this study, and will
emerge as a matter of course whenever decisions have to be made about the allocation of
scarce resources, the beginning of new lines of work, and the phasing out of others. It is
necessary to develop a list of main areas of established competence and social relevance
to be the focus of future investments; to identify areas that should be phased out, or
reduced; and special weaknesses and competencies in need of strengthening and support.
Two very broad principles should preside this policy-making process:
_ It would be inappropriate to assume that science and technology would develop and
increase its usefulness in a peripheral region if left alone to respond to market
mechanisms of economic and scientific competition. The distribution of science and
technology, as it is well known, is very lopsided in any given field and region, and the
current expansion of communications and trade is leading to further concentration of
knowledge, competence and technical resources. Policies are needed for general and
technical education, for bringing flexibility and introducing accountability in public-
supported institutions of higher education, research and development, and for introducing
standards of quality. The trend toward concentration cannot be stopped by policies of
isolation and self-sufficiency, or subsidies to second-class institutions and research
groups. But it is not a zero-sum situation. As the world gets more integrated, information
circulates, and the knowledge basis increases, there are new opportunities to be grasped.
For this, they have to be properly perceived and understood, and adequate investments in
education should exist.
_ Brazil has had some experience of integrated programs covering specific areas of
interest, such as tropical diseases, natural resources, energy and computer sciences.
PADCT has followed a similar pattern, by choosing a few, selected areas for support, and
assigning a given fraction of its resources to them. An integrated program would have,
ideally, resources for combined activities of basic and applied research, graduate
education and training. For the fields chosen for such programs, the benefits seem
obvious, since their resources are guaranteed, and the links between basic and applied
research and education can be made more coherent (box 17). There are, however, three
pitfalls for such programs, which should be avoided. First, they run the risk of isolation.
As with any applied project, integrated programs need to have clearly identified and
active partners outside the research and education sector - be they the health ministry, the
electronics industry or public utility companies. In fields that are economically relevant,
they should be linked to specific industrial policies, and the participation of relevant
business leaders. When this pattern is not present, the results of the integrated project are
not used, and the effort can be wasted. Second, there is always the temptation to
distribute the R&D resources arbitrarily among programs, creating unwarranted
imbalances. Third, self-contained programs are prone to shun peer review evaluations
and give excessive protection to a few institutions and research groups, disregarding
excelence in favor of selected subjects or problems. If these difficulties are considered _
if there are clearly identifiable partners in government and industry, if there are no
arbitrary block assignations of resources, and if peer review procedures are kept in place
__ integrated programs can be important and forceful instruments for improving the
country's S&T capabilities.
A goal-oriented project: Strategic Development of Computer Science
The strategic development of computer science project (DESI) is supported by the research
National Research Council, through its division of special projects, and the United Nations
Development Program. It combines research projects proposed by members of the scientific ° °
community with a broad project aimed to develop a national software industry for export and a
national infrastructure for communication and computer applications.
The project is divided in three programs, the National Research Network (RNP), the
Multi-institutional thematic program (PROTEM) and the software program (PROTEX). RNP
is a computational infrastructure aimed to create a network linking all scientific and research
institutions in Brazil with each other and with the rest of the world. PROTEM was initiated by
the National Research Council's advisory committee in computer science to create, for their
plurality of activities, from basic to applied science, from graduate education to extension
work and teacher training. They should be also stimulated to diversify their sources of
money, from government to private companies, nonprofit foundations and paying clients
and students. Specialization will take place, is necessary, and should grow through a
combination of external incentives and internal drive. Scientific research and
development, to remain alive, should take place in a highly nternationalized and
competitive environment for resources, prestige and recognition; and the leading
scientists should be also entrepreneurs of this knowledge enterprise.
Papers commissioned for this study:
a) General papers :
Branscomb, L., 1993 _ U.S. Science and Technology Policy: Issues for the 1990s. - Lewis
M. Branscomb, Director, Science Technology and Public Policy, Center for
Science and International Affairs, Harvard University.
Brisolla, S., 1993 Indicadores Quantitativos de Ciencia e Tecnologia no Brasil - Sandra
Brisolla, Nucleo de Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica, Universidade Estadual de
Campinas, Sao Paulo.
Castro, C. M. and Oliveira, J. B., 1992 _ Os Recursos Humanos para a Ciencia e
Tecnologia - Claudio de Moura Castro e Joao Batista Araujo e Oliveira,
International Labor Organization (presently at the World Bank)
Feme, G., 1993 _ Science & Technology in the New World Order - Georges Feme,
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris.
Guimaraes, E. A., 1993 - A Politica Cientifica e Tecnologica e as Necessidades do Setor
Produtivo. Eduardo Augusto Guimaraes, Instituto de Economia Industrial,
Universida de Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
Schott, T., 1993 _ Performance, Specialization and International Integration of Science
in Brazil: Changes and Comparisons with Other Latin American Countries and
Israel - Thomas Schott, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh.
Skolnikoff, E., 1993 _ U.S. Science and Technology Policy: the Effects of a Changing
International Environment - Eugene B. Skolnikoff, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Boston.
b) basic and applied sciences:
Azevedo, J., 1993 _ A Pesquisa Agropecudria no Brasil - Joao Lucio Azevedo, Escola de
Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz, Universidade de Sao Paulo.
Carneiro Junior, S. 1993 _ O Estado atual e potencialidades do Ensino de ps-graduaqao
e da Pesquisa em Engenharia no Brasil - Sandoval Carneiro Junior, Coordenacao
dos Programas de Ps-Graduacao em Engenharia (COPPE), Universidade Federal
do Rio de Janeiro.
Carvalho, A., 1993 _ Biotecnologia, Antnio Paes de Carvalho, Institute de Biofisica da
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Fundacao Bio-Rio.
Cavagnari, G., 1993 _ P & D Militar: Situaqao, Avaliaqdo e Perspectivas, Geraldo L.
Cavagnari, Nucleo de Estudos Estrategicos, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
Cordani, U, 1993 Geociencias. Umberto Cordani, Institute de Geociencias,
Universidade de Sao Paulo.
Dietrich, S., 1993 _ Botanica, Genetica e Zoologia. - Snia M C. Dietrich, Institute de
Botanica, Secretaria do Meio Ambiente do Estado de Sao Paulo.
Lucena, C, 1993 - A situaqao atual e o potencial da area de computaqao no Brasil,
Carlos J. P. de Lucena, Departamento de Informatica, Pontificia Universidade
Catlica do Rio de Janeiro
Paiva, A. 1993 - Physiological Sciences. Antnio C. M. Paiva, Institute de Biofisica,
Escola Paulista de Medicina.
Ramos, O. L., 1993 - rea da Saude - Oswaldo Luiz Ramos, Escola Paulista de medicina
Reis, F., 1993 _A Avaliaqdo das Ciencias Socials. Fabio Wanderley Reis, Universidade
Federal de Minas Gerais
Rezende, S., 1993 _ Avaliaqdo da rea e Proposiqoes Para a Fisica no Brasil - Sergio
Rezende, Departamento de Fisica, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Riveros, J., 1993 Uma Visao Atual da Quimica no Brasil, Jose M. Riveros,
Universidade de Sao Paulo
Silva, W. S., 1993 _A Pesquisa em Inteligencia Artificial, seus Antecedentes Intelectuais
e suas Caracteristicas Locais, Walzi Sampaio da Silva, Universidade Federal
Fluminense.
c) technology and industry
Castro, N, A., 1993 _ Impactos Sociais das Mudanqas Tecnologicas: Organizaqdo
Industrial e Mercado de Trabalho. Nadya Araujo Castro, Universidade Federal da
Bahia e CEBRAP.
Goldemberg, J., 1993 _ Tecnologia, Politica Energetica e Meio Ambiente. Jose
Goldemberg, Universidade de Sao Paulo.
Kupfer, D., 1993 _ Politica de Qualidade no Inicio da Decada de 90 - David Kupfer,
Institute de Economia Industrial, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
Pereira, L., 1993 _ Sistema de Propriedade Industrial no Contexto Internacional, Lia
Vails Pereira, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Tigre, P., 1993 _ Liberalizaqao e Capacitaqdo Tecnologica: o caso da informdtica ps-
reserva de mercado no Brasil - Paulo Bastos Tigre, Instituto de Economia
Industrial, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
Verulm, R. 1993 _ O Setor de Bens de Capital no Brasil. Roberto Verulm, Faculdade de
Economia e Administracao, Universidade de Sao Paulo.
d) institutional aspects:
Barbieri, J., 1993 _ Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico -
Jose Carlos Barbieri, Fundacao Getulio Vargas.
Campanario, J. and Serra, N., 1993 _ Sistema Estadual de Ciencia e Tecnologia (Sao
Paulo), Milton A. Campanario and Neusa Serra.
Erber, F. and Amaral, L., 1993 _ Os centros de Pesquisa das Empresas Estatais: um
estudo de tres casos, Fabio S. Erber, BNDES e FEA/USP; e Leda U. Amaral,
Eletrobras.
Guimaraes, R., 1993a _ FNDCT - Uma Nova Missdo, Reinaldo Guimaraes, Universidade
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Stemmer, C, 1993 _ Programa de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico -
PADCT, Caspar Erich Stemmer, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
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