TRIPLE HELIX noms.pmd

O-111JUMPSTARTING THE TRIPLE HELIX IN A BACKWARD REGION:THE CASE OF THE NUCLEOUS FOR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN THESTATE UNIVERSITY OF CEARÁTeresa Lenice Nogueira da Gama Mota, The Secretariat of Science, Technology and Higher Education of The State ofCeará, BrazilDavid Rosenthal, The Nucleous For Technological Innovation, State University of Ceará, BrazilThe Triple Helix approach assigns to Universities the role of main driver in the process of innovation, by assuming that:a) That's where, as outcome of basic and applied research, relevant new scientific knowledge tend to emerge, which,b) within favorable conditions and adequate incentives, provided by Government,c) will eventually embody into new and/or better goods and services produced by firms - pushed by their striving for profit, withinthe competition driven market - thus leading to continuous rises in society's income and living conditions, i.e., economicdevelopment.In the so-called developing countries - especially those characterized by backward regions, as Brazil - research has shown thatthe relative weigh of the Model's basic elements may shift, with Government taking responsibility for helping universities (and/or the productive sector) to overcome structurally imbedded deficiencies or limitations.The state of Ceará is located in Northeast Brazil, a region which, for both historical and geographical reasons, remained for along time in underdevelopment conditions, and only very recently began to modernize. Therefore, its production sector is rathersluggish; local government faces both serious social problems and a chronicle dearth of resources to solve them; universitiesare deficient, in terms of faculty training, laboratories and research financing; and interaction with the production sector is verylow.Obviously, Ceará belongs in a wider national context - and, as generally known, Brazil has been achieving, over recent decades,expressive growth rates, and establishing both a dynamic productive sector and a respectable system of universities andresearch institutions. Since recently, Brazilian Government began implementing an assertive policy, directed at fostering thecountry's technological capabilities and, specially, at enhancing the rhythm of innovations' generation by the productive system.Such policies translate a growing acceptance of the basic postulates of the Triple Helix model on the importance of innovationas engine of economic development, and on the role played by interactions between University, Firm and Government, asdeterminant of a country's innovative capabilities.But they reflect also the realization that, despite the level of development achieved, Brazil's economic system keeps ondisplaying some specific features which distinguish it from developed economies, such as the high share, in the Gross DomesticProduct, of technologically mature sectors, and the very limited (or almost inexistent) presence of national firms in the mosttechnology intensive (and more prone to innovate) sectors. And thereby, the perception of the need for an assertive and proactiveactuation by the "government helix", both at devising and awarding more effective inducements to the "firms' helix" innovativepush, and at creating incentive mechanisms directed at academic communities - which integrate the "university helix" - tofurther economic utilization of new knowledge resulting form research activities.It is within the context of these latter mechanisms that fits the law-established determination, issued to all the country's highereducation institutions, to set up, in their organizational structure, a Nucleus for Technological Innovation (NTI), intended atintroducing and disseminating, among the academic community, the culture of intellectual property rights's protection, and theireconomic utilization, either through entrepreneurship, technology licensing or consultancy to the production sector. As it couldbe expected, this mechanism was devised with an eye on the advanced scientific-technological system existing in the developedregions of the country - but, since the legislation has a nation wide application, it has begun being implemented also, withvariable levels of rhythm and success, in all other regions.This paper discusses the process of implementation of the NTI of the State University of Ceará - a higher education institutionowned and managed by the state government. It aims at drawing the lessons from the introduction of new concepts and degreesof awareness on a university's functions, as perceived by its faculty, research teams and management staff, as well as by thelocal production system and the very society it is inserted in.The main goal is to assess that process at the light of the basic concepts of the TR model, validating the assumption that, underconditions of underdevelopment, it may befit the State a more prominent role, as the strongest propulsion power-endowed helix.Its actions might liberate and boost university's intrinsic potential to contribute to elevating the innovative capacity of society, bymeans of advancing the performance of two complementary functions: creation and incubation of new high technology-basedfirms, and diffusion of available "conventional" technological knowledge throughout the more traditional sectors of the localproductive system.Madrid, October 20, 21 & 22 - 2010241