research and innovation policies for social inclusion: is there an emerging pattern?
TRANSCRIPT
1
Globelics 2010
8th
International Conference
Making Innovation Work for Society:
Linking, Leveraging and Learning
1 - 3 November 2010
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION POLICIES FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION: IS
THERE AN EMERGING PATTERN?
Name of
Corresponding
Author
Judith Sutz
Title & Position
Dr., Academic Coordinator, University Research Council
Institution & Full
Postal Address
Universidad de la República, Jackson 1303, PC 11.200,
Montevideo, Uruguay
E-mail Address
Globelics
The Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems
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RESEARCH AND INNOVATION POLICIES FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION:
IS THERE AN EMERGING PATTERN?
Paper submitted to the GLOBELICS Conference 2010
Rodrigo Arocena and Judith Sutz
Universidad de la República, Uruguay
Abstract.- A new pattern for research and innovation policies seems to be emerging,
characterized by its direct relation with pressing social needs. The conjecture is
discussed in connection with academic production and policy initiatives. Such pattern is
presented as a possible answer to the problem of weak knowledge demand in
developing countries. Preliminary examples related with university research are given.
The systemic requirements for these policies to work are stressed.
Key words: development, innovation policies and systems, social policies,
developmental universities
Index:
Introduction: presenting a conjecture
1) Some academic contributions to a new role for research and innovation policies
2) Examples of innovation policies that share inspiration with social policies
3) The new gamut of innovation policies and knowledge demand
4) Linking university research with social policies: a preliminary report of an
Uruguayan attempt
Concluding remarks: on the systemic nature of research and innovation policies seen as
social policies
Introduction: presenting a conjecture
The aim of this paper is to explore the following conjecture: we are witnessing an
emerging pattern of research and innovation policies characterized by the purpose of
putting research and innovation at the direct service of solving all type of problems
affecting marginalized populations. The conjecture refers to a new situation in which
three distinct aspects start combining. The first aspect is that research and innovation
policy agendas include, as a specific and legitimate commitment, the contribution to the
fight against social marginalization. The second aspect is that research and innovation
policy agendas take on board the whole spectrum of social marginalization problems.
The third aspect is that research and innovation policies promote the work directly
connected to the search for solutions to problems of social marginalization.
The fundamental role that science, technology and innovation can play to improve
the quality of life of poor people has been forcefully highlighted since long ago. Two
relatively recent reports make a whole case for this (UNDP, 2001, Juma et al, 2005).
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The message of these texts is that the might of biotechnology, ICTs, nanotechnology,
can be harnessed to deliver pro-development and pro-poor solutions. But at the same
time, the texts recognize that the difficulties are huge, mainly due to the combination of
dominating market considerations and weak global and national public policy
counterweight. The need to embed social policies with technology policies is hinted:
―The first step is for countries to recognize that public health, food and nutrition,
energy, communications and the environment are public policy issues deserving serious
attention through technology policy‖ (UNDP, 2001:114-115). The imperative to find
new-technologies-based-solutions is forcefully put forwards: ―Tapping the potential of
these new technologies will depend on adaptations to the conditions in developing
countries, especially for poor users. Much will depend on innovations—technological,
institutional and entrepreneurial—to create low cost, easy to use devices and to set up
access through public or market centers with affordable products‖ (UNDP, 2001:33).
However, the idea that contributing to social inclusion is a legitimate goal for research
and for innovation, deserving the same level of recognition and support than academic
excellence or business competitiveness, is not yet clearly stated. It is suggested that
incentives of a new type are needed for ―orphan problems‖ not to remain orphans, but
which incentives would those be remains unanswered. The first aspect of our conjecture
is that a specific type of incentives, related to the open legitimization for research and
innovation agendas to include problems of the marginalized, is appearing.
―Orphan problems‖ are well identified problems where: (i) research and innovation
have been recognized as necessary to provide part of the pieces out of which a solution
can be built; (ii) stakeholders strong enough to put the problem in the public agenda are
missing and so effective demand is lacking; (iii) research around these problems is
underfunded and related innovation efforts are weak. The most notorious orphan
problems lie in the realm of health, a notoriety probably derived from their immediate
deathly consequences; among them ―neglected diseases‖, prevalent in developing
countries, are the most widespread. Medicines and vaccines in particular, so frequently
inexistent or unaffordable for these diseases, have become the target of different
organizations. WHO and Doctors without Borders have provided identification and
voice; non for profit private initiatives like PATH (Program for Alternative
Technologies in Health) articulate various actors involved in designing solutions; big
global charities provide research and innovation funds.
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Neglected diseases have proved to be exceedingly complex, and in several cases
research and innovation have been unable yet to deliver their part for the solution. This
difficulty is not only related to the health problems of 90% of the world population;
several problems of 10% of the world population, even if receiving 90% of all research
efforts, remain unsolved due to their complexity. The point at stake is that the neglected
diseases have reached a legitimate place in research and innovation agendas: they are by
far cognitively less neglected than some years ago. An example of this is the brand new
Center for Technological Development in Health, at the final stage of construction, as
part of the FioCruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. Openly referred to as the ―Neglected
Diseases Institute‖, that Center exhibits a systemic institutional arrangement; its
partners include Brazilian national and federal funding agencies. It is connected with an
international cooperative initiative, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. The five
institutional components of the ―Neglected Diseases Institute‖ are: (i) a non for profit
public-private partnership for malaria treatment; (ii) an American private biotech firm;
(iii) the Brazilian Ministry of Education, to assure the specialized human resources
needed; (iv) the Brazilian Ministry of Health through its R&D for Neglected Diseases
Department, and (v) the Institute of Economics of the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro, through its graduate program on public policy and development strategy.
Several agricultural problems associated with poor rural populations have also a
well established and legitimate place in research and innovation agendas, both at
international and national level. However, not all problems present in developing
countries and affecting deprived populations, even in the realms of health and
agriculture, enjoy this cognitive attention. The second aspect of our conjecture is that a
change is occurring, and that research and innovation agendas are gaining more
legitimization to tackle not only some particular burdens affecting poor people, but
problems belonging to the whole spectrum of social marginalization.
Various structural issues are at the roots of such problems, deeply entrenched with
underdevelopment and inequality. Limited access to education and limited opportunities
to get good quality jobs are perhaps the most outstanding. Beyond them, though, lies the
productive structural heterogeneity, which feeds inequality through diverse
mechanisms. The role that research and innovation plays in the betterment of this
structural heterogeneity has been forcefully put forwards, for the Latin American
situation, in the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean‘s
(ECLAC‘s) literature, since twenty years ago (ECLAC, 1990). In a text released in
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May 2010, with the title ―The hour of equality‖, ECLAC revises extensively how
science, technology and innovation can contribute to make such hour arrive. The main
general message, well on line of that outlined already in 1990 is as follows: ―We must
return to the path of growth, based on the increase of a knowledge-and-innovation-
supported competitiveness, on the strengthening of the institutions and mechanisms that
make possible the diffusion of the benefits of growth to all sectors of the population
(specially the disfavored ones), the sustainable use of natural resources and the caring
for the environment‖ (ECLAC, 2010: 23, our translation). This seems easier said than
done, given that what is missing in the region is the ―ideal combination‖ of a
macroeconomic regime favoring development and a aggressive set of microeconomic
and sectoral policies promoting structural changes based on technical progress. (ibid:
118) There is some good news, though, related to some ideological advances, the most
important of which is the abandonment of the market fundamentalism of the 1980s and
1990s. In particular, some structural principles related to the after Second World War
welfare states have come back, ―hand in hand with practical and theoretical innovations
where the idea of social capital, cohesion and assurance in face of risk reenter the debate
and the design of public policies‖, with a special concern for inequality. (Ibid 192) It is
clear from that text that in ECLAC‘s view research and innovation have a key role in
dealing with inequality and marginalization problems, but the way of playing such role
is rather indirect. No specific problems of the poor are part of the proposed research
and innovation agenda; such problems will be overcome as part of the improvement in
the development process following the removal of the structural barriers to
development. The third part of our conjecture is that a perspective is emerging for
which the direct attack of all types of poverty problems is considered part of what
research and innovation policies have to deal with.
If a combination of the three aspects of the conjecture is to some extent observable,
then the possibility of the slow emergence of an ―inclusive‖ type of innovation systems
can be considered. However, caution is needed. Richard Nelson, who wrote in 1974 an
essay, further transformed into a book, exploring the scope of the ―moon and the
ghetto‖ metaphor, revisited in 2010 his earlier reflections. He asks: ―To what extent
are the kinds of technological innovations society is getting, and not getting, a function
of the innovations systems we have in place? And can we reorient our innovation
systems so that the innovations we get are better directed to meeting society‘s most
pressing needs?‖ (Nelson, 2010). However strong the temptation to give an affirmative
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answer may be, Nelson puts two cautionary concerns to a too rapid optimism. The first
concern is that these problems can be extremely difficult to tackle, so ―those of us
advocating reform of innovation systems need to be careful not to promise success
where success is unlikely‖. The second concern is that redesigning innovation systems
can be quite difficult, because the set of ―institutions and policies that work in one arena
may not work in another‖. These sensible cautions notwithstanding, the conjecture that
there is indeed an emerging consensus among researchers and policy makers that
widens the scope of what research and innovation policies can achieve in terms of social
inclusion is worth exploring. The paper will do that along four sections: section 1 is
related with academic contributions, section 2 with examples of policies, section 3 with
the knowledge demand, and section 4 with university research.
1. Some academic contributions to a new role for research and innovation policies
There is a growing uneasiness among researchers stemming from the difficulties
shown so far by research and innovation policies to contribute to the improvement of
the life‘s conditions of vast parts of the world population. More public funding for
research, more opportunities for young people to build academic careers and more
international networking and exchanges have occurred, even if with very asymmetrical
patterns. The asymmetries that worry the most, however, are not those observable in
terms of input indicators; they are rather those present in terms of social impacts and, at
the very start, in terms of the problems included in the research and innovation agenda.
It is indisputable that asymmetries in funding have strong impacts in all type of other
unbalances. Institutions and researchers tackling with well defined problems of
marginalized populations continue to put the highest priority on getting their efforts
funded appropriately. Institutions and researchers involved mainly with research and
innovation policy, though, are increasingly expressing more qualitative concerns.
In June 2010 ―A New Manifesto‖ was presented by the STEPS Centre (Social,
Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability), based at IDS (Institute
for Development Studies) and SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of
Sussex. The term ―new‖ refers to the ―old‖ manifesto, issued in 1970 by the same
institutions and the same subject, at the United Nations request. This New Manifesto
acknowledges that science, technology and innovation have essential roles to play in
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fulfilling main moral and political imperatives of our time, like poverty reduction and
social justice. However, this will only be possible ―if there is a radical shift in how we
think about innovation‖ (STEPS 2010:2). Part of this radical shift lies in science and
technology working directly for these aims: the text rejects explicitly considering only
indirect ways through which science and technology can contribute to poverty
alleviation, like trickle-down from economic development. Also important is the
recognition and fully exploitation of the diversity of options that always exist to address
problems. For these and other features of the radical shift, people‘s involvement is
essential, particularly marginalized people, providing bottom-up and distributed
initiatives able to capture the attention of the highest levels of policymaking.
People‘s involvement in the building of solutions or improvements of their life
conditions is at the same time necessary and difficult. There are plenty of examples of
how ingenuity in scarcity conditions leads to innovation, able to solve everyday life
problems of great importance. One of the purposes of the Honey Bee network, ―a voice
of creative grassroots innovators and traditional knowledge holders‖, has been precisely
to highlight innovations like these in India. When academic knowledge is needed to
support solutions, though, the whole issue of mutual involvements gets more
complicated. This has been proved true even when such mutual involvements relate
people belonging to similar cultural milieus, like patients and researchers in the same
developed country. Explorations done in The Netherlands, on how to include patients‘
cognitive inputs into biomedical research, conclude that ―patients‘ experiential
knowledge, when translated into explicit demands, ideas or judgments, can contribute to
the relevance and quality of biomedical research‖ (Caron-Flinterman et al, 2005: 2575).
Such approach, though, faces difficulties derived from current biomedical research
practices: ―The majority of patients have difficulties with holding their own when
facing a team of professionals; they easily become overruled by professionals causing
the collaboration to degenerate into tokenism‖ (Caron-Flinterman et al, 2006: 292).
When the people involved in cooperation to solve problems come from very
different backgrounds, like poor farmers and biotechnologists, the communication
difficulties become huge, and the joint governance of the process much more
complicated. The developers of the Interactive Learning Approach, ILA, from the
Athena Institute at the Free University of Amsterdam, have worked for twenty years in
the issue of building effective relationships between modern biotechnology and poor
farmers‘ needs and problems. It is a highly time consuming process, in need of a radical
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revision of the tacit hierarchies of knowledge held by each participant, that cannot work
without mutual trust and common understanding. Following the path of Everett Rogers,
a scholar not frequently cited in the main stream innovation literature, the ILA approach
is concerned with the weak rate of diffusions of innovative solutions intended to solve
the problems of the poor (Bunders et al, 1999). The importance of studies like those of
the Athena institute lies in their focus on cutting-edge science and technology, and how
to turn them into effective tools for improving the quality of life of marginalized people.
In this way they build a bridge between two ineffective extremes: ―high science and
technology is all we need to solve problems‖, or ―high science and technology has
nothing to offer to the problems of the poor‖. They do not promise an easy way
forwards, but they clearly legitimate the building of research and innovation agendas
that envision putting the best academic efforts at the direct service of social
achievements.
From a more macro perspective, researchers at Innogen (Centre for Social and
Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics, UK) have tried to answer the question
of how to make biosciences innovations work for the poor. They have analyzed several
organizational forms in which academic research in diverse branches of
biotechnologies, in agriculture and health, have been developed and embedded in
diffusion practices. Their conclusions emphasize with equal weight the need of sound
R&D in the academic milieu and of well attuned communication channels between the
great variety of institutional and organized actors which participation is needed to
deliver solutions (Chataway et al, 2006 a). This can sound as pure common sense, but it
was not so commonsensical in very recent times. Around ten years ago, the concept of
health systems was centered on health care, leaving aside R&D efforts as part of the
system, and the other way around, R&D policies did not so often focus directly on
health issues, occupied as they were with economic growth issues (Hanlin, 2006). The
idea of an innovation health system, integrating research, innovation and applications
under the same umbrella, is indeed rather new. The importance of the early intervention
of the intended final users of innovations in the searching process has been highlighted
by several Innogen studies; the issue of communication has shown again to be critically
important (Chataway and Smith, 2005). On the research side, this implies that business
as usual not longer holds. Neither totally internally defined agendas nor agendas shaped
by funding agencies priorities per se warrant that the work done will be effective for
development purposes.
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The contribution of these studies to evidence based R&D and innovation policies
concerned with social impacts needs not be stressed. One of its commonsensical
conclusions has to do with the current academic reward system. The way of measuring
academic research excellence is nowadays one important obstacle for putting the might
of knowledge at the service of development. In fact, as Chataway et al put it,
―‗excellence‘ does more than label science as a success or failure but also seeks to
prescribe how research is conducted, organizationally and conceptually‖ (Chataway et
al, 2006 b: 3). Moreover, ―there is a question of whether a measure of scientific
productivity such as the number of peer-reviewed journal articles provides the right
incentives to scientists involved in development research. It is unfortunate for
researchers in organizations in both developing and developed countries that current
peer review mechanisms and research assessment exercises do not provide rewards for
contributions made to development‖ (ibid: 14). This aspect is critical regarding the
emergence of developmental universities as described in section 4. Changing the
academic rewarding system in a way that warrants that sound research will be produced
and that the agenda will take on board development problems is by no means an easy
task; besides, is not clear that the need for such a change raises wide consensus. But it
has become an issue, a part of the intellectual effort to put research and innovation for
developmental purposes in a more systemic light.
The issue of inequality has reached the framework of thought of the ―neo-
schumpeterian‖ community of innovation researchers, or, more broadly, the ―political
economy‖ community of innovation researchers, that includes a wide array of
disciplinary backgrounds. Just to give an example, the GLOBELICS conferences, where
many members of such community meet, have included since Mexico 2008 general
themes related to innovation and inequality. ―Innovation, economic development and
inequality‖ was a conference theme in 2008; in Dakar 2009 the very title of the
conference included the concept of ―inclusive growth‖, and one of its themes was
―Innovation, education, health, inequality and development‖; Malaysia 2010 fosters a
theme on ―Science and technology for the poor‖. Different focuses occupy this new path
for innovation studies. Just to name a few, we have concerns on the distributional
effects of new technologies in developing countries (Cozzens, 2009), worries about the
divorce between innovation policies and social policies (Arocena and Sutz, 2006),
claims that the poor, particularly those poor that live in the least developed countries,
are not taken into account in innovation studies (Lorentzen, 2009), requests that the
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focus of innovative efforts for the poor shift from government actions towards the
enhancement of basic institution of the market economy (Altemburg, 2008). These
focuses are hardly harmonized; some can even be considered as rather antagonistic from
a policy point of view. But all of them contribute to put at the centre of the debate the
need of a specific branch of research and innovation policies that have people in the
margin as their specific target.
A spin-off of the GLOBELICS gathering, the BRICS project, that studies the
national innovation systems of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is
launching a series of books issued from their common efforts. One of them, ―BRICS
and Development Challenges: Inequality and National Innovation Systems‖ (Couto et
al, forthcoming a) is a good example of the new accent in the direct relationships
between inequality and innovation. As a general approach, the book considers
inequality ―in its multi-dimensional character, embracing a phenomenon that goes
beyond the mere income dimension and is manifested through increasingly complex
forms, including, among others, assets, access to basic services, infrastructure, and
knowledge, as well as race, gender, ethnic and geographic dimensions‖ (Couto et al,
forthcoming b: 13). The chapter on Brazil analyzes how inequality, thus conceptualized,
interacts negatively with the actual system of innovation, ―restricting the endogenization
of technological progress and limiting the capacity of acquisition, use and diffusion of
innovations in the country‖; vice versa, ―the dynamic of the Brazilian innovation system
has not contributed to break the vicious circle of inequality‖ (Couto and Podcameni,
forthcoming: 37). This is valid far beyond Brazil; the question of how to break such
vicious circle systemically calls for a deep rethinking of the system of innovation
concept as an analytical tool for policy design and implementation.
In Latin America, the most unequal region of the world, the issue of research,
innovation and inequality has been present among innovation researchers for some time.
The approaches to the issue are indeed diverse, but they have in common the explicit
aim of influencing research and innovation policies, and sometimes social policies as
well, to make innovation work directly to the benefit of marginalized people. For some
scholars the leading term is ―social technologies‖ (Dagnino 2009, Thomas 2009); for
others ―inclusive innovations‖ is preferred (Arocena and Sutz, 2010); a brand new
network involving several Latin American countries with Spanish support has been
launched where the defining concept is ―social cohesion‖. What is discernible in the
way the problem is addressed, all the differences notwithstanding, is that research and
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innovation policies cannot continue as they have always been if the might of knowledge
is to be put at the service of alleviating poverty and inequality. This is a conviction that
is slowly leaking from academic circles into policy circles, a bit everywhere.
2. Examples of innovation policies that share inspiration with social policies
In 2008, the S&T division of the Inter American Bank, IDB, launched a new
program: ―Innovation for an Inclusive Development‖. Conceived as a competitive call
for projects, ―the program will support pilot projects that foster innovation in products,
processes and services to create solutions, both technology-based and non-technology-
based, to improve the living conditions of the vast majority of people living in poverty
in the region.‖ (IDB web page) In the case of innovative solutions for disabilities, a
method of detecting demand for solutions was implemented through a specific website
where the problems‘ descriptions were posted until a date; after the deadline for posting,
a selection was made followed by a request for innovations able to solve the selected
problems.
Under the title ―social innovation‖, ECLAC gives prizes to innovative initiatives,
some technological, some not, that involve communities developing solutions for some
of their more pressing problems. This initiative started in 2004, and each year since then
receives tenths of documented experiences of the sort.
Some institutions have put in practice systematic efforts to build innovative and
technology-based solutions for poor people. The experience of the MIT D-Lab is worth
recalling. Inspired by the relatively new concept of ―user-driven innovations‖, and the
fact that 80 to 90 % of all medical equipment in developing countries is second-hand,
and that 80% of it fails in the first 6 months, a whole series of health-related innovation
intended to be used in poor or remote settings were developed by students and teachers
with the active participation of local communities. The real impacts of the innovation in
situ remain to be seen, but the important point is that ―innovating otherwise‖ with
technical success (at least) is possible. Other important point is the academic legitimacy
that this endeavor has won. Perhaps this has been facilitated by the fact that MIT has
already gained the fame of being among the three most prestigious research universities
in the world; nevertheless, the case has merit as a demonstrating example.
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In Latin America, in terms of public policies, there are some relatively new
experiences that show that the commitment to social inclusion is making its way into
institutions that used to see themselves as side-mindedly technological or research-
oriented. The National Institute for Industrial Technology (INTI), in Argentina, has an
extension unit that works out ways of transferring technologically-related work
opportunities to specific communities. One example relates to machinery and know-
how to produce iron-enriched cookies with hemoglobin coming for the meat industry, a
potentially important initiative, both in terms of employment and for nutrition aims. In
Brazil, the Ministry of Science and Technology has a specific secretariat of S&T for
Social Inclusion, that five years ago gave impulse to the Network of Social
Technologies, an important organization gathering a great variety of public and public
partners in the whole territory. In the last Brazilian national conference on S&T, held in
Brasilia, May 2010, the issue of social inclusion was an explicit point of discussion,
with participation of trade unions, NGOs and social organizations. The issue has gained
momentum through the periodic call for proposals stirred by the financial branch of the
Ministry of S&T, which amounted to three calls in 2009. The problems around which
proposals have been presented include food security, nutrition, and digital inclusion; the
great majority of the proposals came from research institutions, universities, NGOs and
public bodies. In Brazil, it has been reported that some firms have started developing an
innovative strategy to reach poor and marginalized people through the specific design of
affordable products and ―socially-driven‖ modalities of delivery, involving the
community (Couto and Podcameni, forthcoming: 33). Brazil is a country where, at least
in the realm of health, the engagement of this specific public policy and science,
technology and innovation policy is relatively strong. As we have already mentioned,
R&D for neglected diseases is stirred by the Ministry of Health, in close relationship
with different branches of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In Uruguay, the STI National Plan released in 2009 - a sort of general policy guide -
incorporates social inclusion among the strategic objectives of the STI policy. Is this
only lip service without further consequences? It is too soon to know, but the
incorporation per se is not to be easily dismissed. Once social inclusion gains, at least in
paper, the same status than strengthening the scientific country base or reinforcing the
competitiveness of the main productive and export sectors, it is not so esoteric to
propose policies linking innovation policies to social policies. Again, proposals of the
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sort may not make their road immediately, but the mere fact that the STI National Plan
allows them is a not trivial improvement.
3. The new gamut of innovation policies and knowledge demand
The emerging policies we are concerned with in this paper are closely related with
demand side problems. In this section we summarize an approach to such problems
(Arocena and Sutz, 2010). Most developing countries are more or less poor in terms of
access to knowledge and of use of knowledge. In order to be brief, we speak of the
problem of knowledge for development. Our main assertion is that one of its main
causes is the weakness of knowledge demand.
History shows that importing knowledge has always been relevant for development
success but it also shows that the problem of knowledge for development was never
solved only by importing knowledge. Success and failure in development have been and
still are closely related with success and failure in building endogenous advanced
capabilities (see for example Fajnzylber 1984, Lall 1990, Bell 2007). Since production
and use of knowledge are increasingly intertwined, it is increasingly difficult to use
imported knowledge without endogenous generation of knowledge. The last is even
more relevant concerning problems that have solutions that are affordable in rich
countries but are not affordable in poorer contexts, where they require specific research
(Srinivas and Sutz, 2008). Now, when demand for knowledge is weak, in quantity
and/or in quality, it is quite difficult to build endogenous capabilities for creatively
using advanced knowledge.
The role of knowledge demand has been stressed in different periods and contexts
(see for example Porter 1990, Lundvall and Borras 1997, Laperche 2002, RICYT 2008).
Nevertheless, demand seems to have been rather neglected recently (Georghiou, 2007).
But it deserves close attention because, at least in Latin America, the mismatch between
weak endogenous demand for knowledge and privileged foreign supply hampers the
impact of knowledge policies (Cimoli et al, 2009). Such problem was clearly described
long ago (Sabato and Botana, 1968). It still holds and perhaps not only in Latin
America: ―innovation in the developing world is constrained not on the supply side but
in the demand side. That is, it is not the lack of trained scientists and engineers, absence
of R&D labs, or inadequate protection of intellectual propriety that restricts the
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innovations that are needed to restructure low-income economies. Innovation is
undercut instead by lack of demand from its potential users in the real economy –the
entrepreneurs. And the demand for innovation is low in turn because entrepreneurs
perceive new activities to be of low profitability.‖ (Rodrik, 2007: 101) Thus it is not
strange that knowledge supply does not create per se knowledge demand (concerning
India see Bagla 2005). Summing up, in many developing countries market demand for
knowledge is weak, partly at least because entrepreneurs think that on average
innovative activities offer low profits.
Since usual policies for fostering knowledge demand focus on firms, the problem of
knowledge for development seems to require a more diversified set of policies. This
assertion is supported by the Latin American experience, where innovative firms are
still a quite small proportion of all firms and main innovations come through imports of
machinery and equipments, so capacities built through the supply side science and
technology policies are highly underutilized by firms.
Another main reason for focusing on knowledge demand is that quite difficult
aspects of learning processes are directly dependent on the level of such demand.
Learning through studying at higher levels is not easy in developing countries but it is
getting on average steadily stronger (Altbach et al, 2009). Learning through
systematically applying advanced knowledge to problem solving, is more difficult. An
example of the last is ―learning by interacting‖ (Lundvall, 1988) between producers and
users of new products and processes. When complex problems are interactively solved,
not only individuals learn but ―learning communities‖ (Visser, 1999) emerge. The
collective dimension of possessing technical knowledge by firms has been stressed in
general by evolutionary economics (Nelson and Winter, 1982: 63). Learning by solving
is always costly and time consuming. The propensity to search how to solve problems
depends on the perceived rewards of finding solutions to unsolved or not satisfactorily
solved problems. Such propensity is highly dependent on the level of knowledge
demand.
It can be said that, in general, fostering knowledge demand is more difficult than
fostering knowledge supply. In many developing countries at least, the first issue is also
more urgent and specific than the second one. It urgently requires complementing actual
policies with a new set of policies aimed at backing social demand of endogenously
generated knowledge. The emerging policies we are considering in this paper appear as
a possible answer to such request.
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4. Linking university research with social policies: a preliminary report of an
Uruguayan attempt
The concept of ―developmental universities‖ was elaborated as a tool for analyzing
changes in universities from the point of view of development purposes (Arocena,
Gregersen, Sutz, 2004; Sutz, 2005a, b; Arocena, 2004; Arocena and Sutz, 2005a). It is
related with the old but nevertheless still vigorous debate concerning the roles of
universities. What is usually called the ―research university‖ is characterized by the
joint practice of the roles of teaching and research that defines the ―Humboldtian
project‖ (Clark, 1997). Different versions of the ―third role‖ have emerged in different
contexts, for example in the US during the second half of the 19th
century (Rogers,
1995) and in Latin America in the first decades of the 20th
century (Arocena and Sutz,
2005b).
Prevailing approaches to a ―third role‖ of universities identifies it with direct
collaboration with firms. A remarkable example of these approaches is the
―entrepreneurial university‖, presented by Eztkowitz (1990, 1997, 2003) as a
description of a new phenomenon as well as a prescription for policies concerning
higher education.
The ―developmental university‖ is different both as a description and as a
prescription. The approach starts from empirical evidence concerning the contribution
of universities to economic development; it suggests that providing high level teaching,
which requires performing high level research, is at least as important as the direct
involvement of universities in solving problems of immediate interest for firms
(Arocena and Sutz, 2005a). Similar assertions appear often in studies about knowledge
and innovation (see i.e. Nelson and Rosenberg, 1994). Innovation surveys show that
firms tend to confirm them.
The approach is rooted in the assertion that the normative ends of development are
the expansion of freedoms and the betterment of human life. It stresses the relevance of
improving capabilities and upgrading the knowledge content of every useful activity,
especially those related to the attention of social needs. In such context the
developmental university is characterized by the joint practice of three missions:
teaching, research and cooperation for development with other institutions and
16
collective actors. It follows that developmental universities can only exist as active
partners in innovation systems.
Part of the building of a developmental university has to do with the institutional
commitment to put the might of the knowledge and research capacities cultivated at the
university at the service of social inclusion. This implies, as a first step, devising a
scheme for stimulating and supporting initiatives in this direction. This is only a small
first step that must be followed by more difficult ones, like designing a systematic
methodology for detecting social requirements in need of new knowledge and
innovation, organizing this information so the whole university is aware of it,
transforming the academic reward system to strongly back those audacious enough to
engage in these endeavors.
The first attempt to do this at the Universidad de la República, in Uruguay, was in
2003: the University Research Council proposed a call for research projects oriented
towards ―social emergency‖. The reason was the social sequels of the 2002 crisis that
hit the country in an unprecedented manner. It was not easy to get the council
convinced: social commitment of the university yes, but why through research? A timid
compromise was achieved: the call was made but the funds were tinny, allowing for the
support of three projects of the fifty presented.
One of chosen projects, a rigorous economic and nutritional evaluation of the
impacts of a social policy consisting in giving lunch at public schools, was particularly
successful. It was continued to include the whole country through UNICEF funding and
its results were taken by the Primary School Council, which was responsible for the
policy. But perhaps its most remarkable feature was the accumulation of knowledge and
experience to tackle social policies. The same research team was called by the Ministry
of Social Development in 2005 to help in the implementation of the most ambitious
social policy of the new government, a program to reduce poverty and to half indigence
through monetary transfers. This work was awarded an international prize in 2009, the
first PEGNet (Poverty reduction, equity and growth network) Best Practice Award for
effective cooperation between research and practice, granted jointly to the research team
and the Ministry of Social Development in Uruguay (http://www.pegnet.ifw-
kiel.de/activities/events/the-pegnet-best-practice-award).
In 2008, in the midst of an internal push towards university reform, in the tradition
of the Latin American University Reform Movement, the program was re-launched, this
time called Research Oriented towards Social Inclusion. Four differences with the first
17
call are worth noting. The first is that it was heartedly supported by the university as a
whole, and not only by the students, as the first time. The second difference, partly
because of this, is that it was better endowed: previsions were made to back up to 12
projects, finally backing 13. The third difference was that instead of leaving the call
open to any type of problems, three tracks were selected: (i) health, (ii) ICTs and social
inclusion, to allow a follow-up of the ―one laptop per child‖ program that was being
fully implemented in the country, and (iii) problems originated at the territorial level in
two poor neighbourhoods of the capital city, Montevideo. The fourth difference,
stemming from a thorough conceptual revision of the aims of the program, was the
attention paid to demand detection.
The last is a very thorny difficulty: who knows what the problems causing social
exclusion that need new knowledge and innovation as part of its solution are? There is
no single ―ex-ante‖ actor having this information; building such information is a
collective endeavour, for which researchers are not well equipped. If the problems
inside the projects were to reflect not only the perception of the researchers that there
was a problem worth exploring, but the acknowledgment of other social actors that
indeed the problem was a real one, communication channels between researchers and
social actors were needed. But putting researchers and social actors in contact, just like
that, would probably provide long silences and little communication. The encounters
should revolve around something concrete: the Academic Unit of the University
Research Council provided this concreteness by lengthy interviewing different actors in
the three tracks of the program to gather the most pressing knowledge-related demands
they were facing. Counting with this preliminary information a general workshop was
organized, conveying people from different social belongings and researchers. After the
welcome by the President of the Republic, the information was socialized to the 400
participants. The journey continued in three specific workshops, one in each track. Two
months later more than thirty projects were received and evaluated, and those supported
started working.
The 2008 call was indeed an improvement, but at least two problems remained. The
first relates to demand‘s detection and the second to the evaluation process. After
studying the projects of the 2008 call, it was apparent that efforts were made to make
explicit the involvement of different stakeholders in the project. In several cases,
though, such involvement was tenuous. This could have been the result of opportunism
on the part of the researchers, which wanted the project done and had a light contact
18
with the social and policy counterparts only to show compliance with the formalities.
But it could as well be the result of a flaw in the program design. Making sound
contacts with non-academic counterparts, whether to detect demand, to better
understand an already detected problem or to commit policy makers to the
implementation of the solution if founded, is difficult, time consuming, and involves lot
of interactive learning. It was thought that efforts in this direction should be provided
with specific funding, so better full-fledged projects can be harvested in the next call.
The 2009 call implemented this modality, alongside to the ―classic‖ one.
The evaluation problem is common to all research programs involving more than
R&D. The counterparts express their interest and commitment in a written statement,
but to what extent does this statement reflect the importance given to the problem and
its solution by the stakeholder can remain uncertain. To face this question, interviews
with the stakeholders by the program committee and the Academic Unit of the Research
Council have been included as part of the evaluation process.
Almost fifty proposals were presented at the 2009 call, of which ten were ―demand
detecting‖ outlines. As in 2003 and 2008, the best represented area of work in the
program‘s demand was health. Just to give some examples of what enters into this
category, we have proposals to develop cheap artificial skin, to produce a kit to
diagnose streptococcus in women giving birth (poor women are suspected of not being
able to control for this infection during pregnancy), to develop a free software for the
surgery treatment of children‘s resilient epilepsies, and to produce a portable diagnosis
kit not dependent on imported chemical inputs to generalize the measure of plumb
contamination, in children and workers, mandatory by law but hardly enforced due to
implementation difficulties.
If research delivers results, a small step forward will take place. But the issue is
truly systemic, and the will and the real possibilities to implement solutions out of the
research results on the part of public policies, social organization and productive actors
belong to a different sphere. This is why the notion of ―inclusive systems of innovation‖
makes sense; this is why, too, the convergence that our conjecture puts forwards is so
important.
What the Universidad de la República‘s program wanted to achieve is, in part,
getting solutions for problems of social inclusion. But the ultimate aim is far more
difficult and challenging: it is to call into action research-based-solidarity in an
organized way, as a means to call into action innovation-based-solidarity processes.
19
Concluding remarks: on the systemic nature of research and innovation policies
seen as social policies
National Systems of Innovation in developing countries are often less than systemic.
Links between actors are frequently quite weak. One of the causes of such phenomenon
is the weakness of knowledge and innovation demand, particularly the part of such
demand that is addressed to national producers of knowledge. That reflects the reality
that most developing economies are not in fact knowledge-based and innovation-driven.
Consequently, on average entrepreneurs think that new activities are of low
profitability. Since usual demand side innovation policies are addressed to firms, it
follows that such policies necessarily face serious obstacles. Thus, knowledge
capabilities fostered by supply side innovation policies remain underutilized. In turn,
where social needs are pressing, the legitimacy of investing public funds in research and
innovation policies is not easy to defend.
On the other hand, after the failure of the Washington consensus as the dominant
paradigm for development, and especially after the arrival of the great crisis caused by
unfettered financial capitalism, the legitimacy of social policies in the South is again
rising. But the lessons of the past should not be forgotten, and the evidence of the
present should not be neglected: social concerns without a solid knowledge base have a
dubious future, today more than yesterday. Consequently, it is not unnatural to search
for a closer connection between knowledge policies and social policies. That seems to
be happening, as the paper has tried to show, albeit in a preliminary way, by considering
a few academic contributions, policy examples and university attempts.
In order to conclude, it should be stressed that, even at this initial stage of the new
set of policies, it is quite evident that they need to be even more ―systemic‖ than the
previous sets of policies. In fact, a new pattern of research and innovation policies for
social inclusion will emerge only if the systemic imperatives are duly understood and
taken into account. In turn, if that happens, it will probably be a great help for building
Innovation Systems in the South.
20
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