Higher education, research and innovation policies, development processes - comparative study on four countries: Germany, Brazil, France, and United States

• Grant number: 13/26999-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: May 01, 2014 - April 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Public Policies
• Principal Investigator: Reginaldo Carmello Corrêa de Moraes
• Grantee: Reginaldo Carmello Corrêa de Moraes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Adalberto Mantovani Martiniano de Azevedo ; Carla Regina Mota Alonso Diéguez ; Karen Fernandez Costa ; Luiza Carnicero de Castro ; Maita de Paula e Silva ; Pedro Chadarevian

Abstract

The project studies experiences of Knowledge Policies of selected countries: United States, Brazil, Germany and France. We call "knowledge policies" the public policies geared to production, acquisition, dissemination and use of scientific and technological knowledge. Their central cores are the policies of education and scientific and technological research.The proposed study should incorporate the following aspects:a) relationships between the Policies of Knowledge and the development models that they assume or imply;b) relations between the Policies of Knowledge and determinants of educational nature (demographics, occupational structure, technological and economic changes, political institutions, cultural patterns, geopolitics, etc.);c) relationship between the general shape of the Policies of knowledge and, specifically, the higher educational system of those countries;d) relationships between educational systems and scientific-technological innovation systems, in the strict sense: agents of basic and applied research, the development of products and processes. The work is a confluence of three thematic axes-development, innovation and education. In a way, this triad is something similar to a broad concept of "National System of Innovation" (SNI).Starting from the triad and inserted in this broad field, the project has, however, a stronger core: the higher education system. In a seminal text, Kenneth Arrow had mentioned the public sector of research, mainly universities, as a ' reservoir of knowledge '. Later scholars seem nuance this qualification: universities are reservoirs of competences. Thus, there are countries where innovative research and with decisive impact on socio-economic and productive world is developed in the industry. But the University is the place in which the competences are mobilized, trained, and where they constitute its ethos and its protocols. A fundamental element for the research is the role of the University as a source of fundamental knowledge and, occasionally, of relevant industrial technology. There's a literature that points to the efforts of various Governments in order to strengthen the link between universities and the industrial innovation. The ' outputs ' of universities tend to be so summarized: the information technology (which can increase the efficiency of the P & D enterprises); development of tools and equipments; the skills and training, embedded in the students, teachers, researchers; the networks of scientists and technologists that facilitate the dissemination of the new ideas; the prototypes for new products and processes. This project aims to explore with more emphasis on a niche - the role of the University to develop national innovation systems.So, in the studies of countries, particular attention is given to the following levels:-the higher education system, in its institutional diversity, its history and its structure.-the academic research system.Beside the Brazilian case, three countries, in particular, seem more relevant, because to some extent they embody distinct patterns of this connection: United States, France, and Germany. In these countries, Germany shows a model of University that crossed the continent inspiring the United States academic leaders. These, in turn, reinvented the German model and gave it a peculiar design. The French model of higher education, on the other hand, has an entirely different design, nationally unified. The relationship between educational institutions and research facilities is also different in those countries, ending up in three distinct and influential models. (AU)