Report of a Workshop

Science, Technology, and Innovation Hemispheric Policy Development to Increase Competitiveness in the Productive Sector

November 17-19, 2003

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Figure 1.                Workshop Summary

Figure 2.                Research and Experimental Development Expenses (RED)

Figure 3.                Productive Sector Participation (%) in the RED Expenses

Figure 4.                Elements for an Hemispheric Policy

Figure 5.                The Workshop Process

Acknowledgements

The Office of Science and Technology of the Organization of American States (OAS) wishes to thank all delegates and experts who took part in the Workshop, for sharing their thoughts and their vision of science and technology as a lever for the development of the nations in the Hemisphere, as well as for their contributions through valuable documents that enriched the informative and conceptual basis of the Workshop.

The Office also wishes to set down its special recognition to the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of República de Argentina, whose staff so warmly and effectively helped in the organization and the development of the Workshop.

Alice Abreu

Director

Office of Science and Technology

Organization of the American States

Presentation

In open and highly competitive economies, survival of the productive sector cannot continue to be based on the comparative advantages that in the past gave it its strength. In global economies, the productive sector can survive only by competing by means of quality, novelty and a diversity of products and services that can only be generated through innovation and continuous technological change.

With each passing day, Society reaps the benefits of a growing flow of new products – medicines, vaccines, advanced materials, communication technologies, instruments, processed foods and agricultural products – originated, more and more, from advanced science and technology. It is worth noting that most of the world commerce is based on manufactured products with a high technological content. The presence of science and technology in our daily lives is growing, inevitable, and cannot be denied. It is very surprising that leaders – both political and business – should undervalue the importance of science and technology programs given that they are vital to a sustainable competitiveness that will ensure the medium range survival of the productive sector.

Governments of the nations of the Hemisphere have begun to express their concern in making out of science, technology, and innovation, an instrument to improve the competitive position of the Productive Sector in an international context. This should contribute to an improvement in the quality of life and to the fight against extreme poverty in their societies. This process implies not only isolated national efforts, but rather a new approach to inter-American cooperation.

The Organization of the American States has understood these concerns. It has based on them a project, “Development of Hemispheric Policies for Science, Technology and Innovation”. Its purpose is to show the Ministers of Science and Technology of the region, possible ways for giving an impulse to science, technology, innovation and improvement, through mechanisms that, in addition to strengthening national capabilities, do so in a new way of interaction and cooperation between countries. With this new concept, cooperation extends to include, not only the scientific and technological research and the metrology organizations, but also the other actors. Businessmen, government agents, organizations and communities are all of them involved in the processes of innovation and improvement, and their participation is crucial for a development based on sustainable competitiveness, conceived –as integral and dynamic.

The process for the preparation of the policies that will be presented to the ministers in November 2004, is based on four areas:

• Competitiveness of the Productive Sector

• Scientific and Technological Development in the Americas

• Science and Technology for Social Development

• Popularization of Science and Technology

A first Workshop dealt with Competitiveness in the Productive Sector. It began with presentations of programs, experiences in consulting and technical assistance, cases of successful enterprises; all of these closely identified with the productive sector. There was a later period of dialogue and reflection among a varied group of experts, entrepreneurs, independent consultants, officials from governments and cooperation agencies, group of a multidisciplinary character as are science and technology programs. The case studies were helpful in framing the concepts and the theories that were presented based on the success criteria of the cases under study. Out of the richness from the diversity of areas, knowledge, experiences and facts, a platform emerged to facilitate identification of the policies and instruments required to strengthen the Productive Sector. 

This document presents recommendations resulting from the Workshop “Science, Technology and Innovation Hemispheric Development to Increase Competitiveness in the Productive Sector”. The Workshop was carried out November 17, 18 and 19, 2003 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Secretariat for Education, Science and Technology of the host country and the Office of Science and Technology of the American States (OAS) were in charge of its organization.

There were representatives and experts from eleven countries of the Western hemisphere and two international cooperation agencies. The Workshop consisted of the presentation of innovation programs and diverse national experiences in supporting the productive sector, as well as the presentation of success cases. The Workshop included presentations of innovation programs and varied national experiences in support of the productive sector, as well as successful cases of businesses in several member countries of the OAS. There was also an analysis of the role of government, productive sector enterprises and the research institutes in related fields. This was integrated in a working framework for the Workshop with the resulting recommendations here detailed.

A synthesis was done of the recommendations in order to reach a set of policy instruments that, according to the participants, can help to improve national, regional and hemispheric competitiveness through an integrated impulse to science, technology, quality and innovation. The document includes:

• An Executive Summary. It compiles the recommendations of the Workshop.

• Background and Context. Summarizing some of the perceptions of participants on the state of quality, innovation and competitiveness of the productive sector, and showing some of the directing forces that demand a new framework of instruments.

• Mission and Vision of a new Hemispheric Policy on Science, Technology and Innovation.

• A Framework for Competitiveness of the Productive Sector. Detailed recommendations derived from the presentations, dialogue and synthesis of the successful case histories of innovation.

The final section of the document describes the process followed in the Workshop and additional useful information.

January, 2004

Executive Summary

Background and Context

In this new era, it is generally accepted that competitiveness is the direct responsibility of enterprises, not of governments. It is also well known that there can be no social and economic development without technological development, and that the lack of technological development is a weakness deeply adverse for the less developed countries in our region. During the current transition towards the Knowledge Society, the science and technology systems in the region are thus under strong pressures arising out of this situation where directing forces prevail, such as:

• An exponential increase of knowledge as a central ingredient in the competitiveness of the productive sector.

• Changes in the innovation model, where science and technology are integrated into complex processes of  exponential generation of knowledge and of value for the production of goods and services.

• The integration of the innovation process with the accelerated dynamics of market globalization, a fact that requires scientific and technological alignment with the entrepreneur activities.

• Turbulence associated to the globalization process and its effects —economic, political, and technological— which require a long term vision supported by “shield” policies, protection without protectionism,  of innovation processes, and of science and technology policies.

Except a few cases, all science and technology systems in the region were created during the last half of the XX century. In most of them, emphasis was placed on the development of basic sciences, with lesser efforts toward knowledge application and industrial research; in general, their focus was to stimulate the “supply” of scientific knowledge. Thus, their best accomplishments were in promoting the creation of physical and institutional infrastructure, the expansion of human capital and, in some cases, the decentralization of their activities.  

Consequently, efforts directed to innovation did not have a similar development.  During the seventies, most efforts addressed the development of technical information and industrial liaison services, without evolving into more integral services supporting technological development and innovation in the productive sector.

These systems are experiencing the challenge of adapting to the new era. They need to integrate into the market dynamics, helping to increase the competitiveness of the productive sector with emphasis on the countries’ Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (PYMEs). The science and technology systems of the countries in the region should now be geared not only to the problems of the productive sector, but also to promote deep structural transformations based on new policies to promote innovation.

Some countries have already begun these structural transformations. They seek to integrate the knowledge “supply” and “demand” in a virtuous circle, stimulated by strategies that go from the transformation of the legal framework and the creation of diverse financially decentralized mechanisms, to the exploration of new approaches towards the linkage between the productive sector and the scientific and technological research institutions through advanced ways of collaboration. New efforts can be identified, that seek to generate the necessary experiences for a change of paradigm, in order to develop a new platform for innovation in the productive sector.

From the discussions of the Workshop, the following issues emerge:

• There is a great imbalance in the evolution of national science, technology, and innovation systems, and a lack of participation by the productive sector in their development.

• Successful cases of innovation that contain valuable experiences should be considered in strategic design and incentives for policy elaboration to promote the productive sector.

• The need for supporting quality through the improvement of integrated systems.

• There must be a favorable environment for the promotion of new mechanisms of inter-American cooperation.

• The opportunity to develop a new generation of tools to support the productive sector, that will allow the countries to take a “quantum leap” in the field of innovation.

    Blueprint for Transformation

The above points explicitly to the opportunity and the need for designing and putting into effect a new Hemispheric Policy in Science, Technology and Innovation, taking as a starting point an Inter-American collaboration network oriented toward raising competitiveness and making it sustainable in the productive sector.

This is an invitation to explore and develop new approaches for cooperation in the Hemisphere, approaches that go beyond the traditional models in Science and Technology such as the promotion of knowledge disassembled from supply, and to sponsor a new framework for innovation seen as an integrated effort.

Workshop participants identified four areas of policy that can be aligned to give coherence to cooperative efforts. These areas have profound paradigmatic implications, and they imply qualitative changes in current ways of thinking and acting:

• Recognition of the role of science, technology and innovation in competitiveness.  It is essential that the stakeholders, businesses, governments and institutions of research and development, support the productive sector – acknowledge that science, technology and innovation are essential to raise productive sector competitiveness.    

• Rethinking the innovation model. Part of the transformation strategy is to substitute the fragmented, lineal and sequential models dominant over previous decades, for integrated innovation models that stimulate linkage and simultaneous interaction between stakeholders throughout the entire innovation cycle. The convergence of the process of productive innovation with the role of governments in promotion and support is fundamental.

• Quality for Competitiveness.   Business competitiveness is based on the quality of the products, and this quality is a direct result of measurement capabilities.  Metrology is the science of measurement, and good measurement capabilities allow enterprises to provide goods and services that comply with international standards and specifications - key elements to compete, access, and participate in foreign markets. Measurement capability in the enterprise is directly related to the technological development of the country. It is fundamental for any country to develop a national measurement infrastructure that will support the competitiveness of its enterprises. 

• Alignment of efforts with the market.  Science and Technology efforts must have a clearer focus, they must enrich their fields of endeavor, and synchronize their dynamics with those of a changing market. This means that innovation, science and technology, metrology, and quality systems, must be integrated into the efforts of trade aperture that will have to be faced by the countries over the coming decade.

These policy areas can be accomplished through the development of a diversified and integral set of policy instruments able to strengthen national transformation of the innovation processes, and to facilitate experiments with new forms of international cooperation.

During the Workshop, the following relevant instruments were identified:

• Flexible financial instruments. Timely, diversified and decentralized, such as funds, soft loans, and venture capital.

• Fiscal and tax incentives.  Implying recuperation, through taxes, of part of the innovation costs.

• Teaching and training human capital for the productive sector. Expanding teaching of professionals trained in technological and legal issues. Strengthening the interaction between business and the academic sector, and promoting the generation and flow of knowledge from one sector to the other.

• Strengthening of integrated Metrology Systems.  This includes standardization, accreditation, inspection, and quality assurance for conformity evaluation. The promotion of inter-American networks, that will allow countries with limited resources to enter the innovation cycle.

• Promotion of association and cooperativism. To promote the intra and multinational interaction of the diverse agents. The promotion of collaborative schemes, such as networks, clusters, and strengthening of guilds through innovation efforts.

• Development of the national institutional infrastructure.  Seeking complementary ties among the member States’ institutions and enterprises. The promotion of adaptable and flexible institutions, capable of creating networks in order to generate and articulate the knowledge required by the enterprises.

• Monitoring, identification, and transfer of technology. To promote the monitoring of technological development trends leading to new innovation fields. Likewise, to develop the ability to identify, select, and transfer technology to the productive sector.

• Institutional reforms. The need for a deep change that will point to the development of adequate State participation. To stimulate the leadership and network integration of scientific and technological centers. 

• Intellectual Property. To promote processes geared towards product exports, as well as to stimulate and provide patent registration by entrepreneurs and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (PYMEs)

These instruments require two levels of design and application:

• National. The national instruments of science and technology and of promotion of productivity, quality and innovation that involve the productive sector (public and private), the government sector, and the institutions and organizations called upon to carry on related activities – scientific research, technological development, and technological services (such as metrology, standardization, accreditation, inspection and certification, training, organizational development, technical and economic information).

• International cooperation. The exchange of experiences and the integration of inter-American collaboration networks among the American nations are essential elements to accelerate the transformation. This requires exploring new forms of collaboration and complementation between institutions and the productive sector of the member countries, as is the case of networks and conformity evaluation systems, dissemination of knowledge, exchange of human capital, and strategic project innovation in common productive activities. 

It is fundamental to reflect on the governments’ role. It has to do with the transition towards a new innovative culture, the creation of market opportunities, the stimulation for creating virtuous links among science and technology and the productive sector, the identification of strategic issues, elimination of restrictions and facilitation of processes. Trade agreements shall create equal opportunities for market access and integration from their inception, the search for sustainable competitiveness of the productive sector through quality, innovation, and science and technology. Without quality it is impossible to attain competitiveness in trade.

Figure 1.  Synthesis of the Workshop

1. Background and Context

In recent years, the science and technology systems of the countries in the region have been unable to speed up their dynamics to go hand in hand with the knowledge-based growth of the economy. One of the behaviors showing large differences is that of expenditures and sources of financing. The following figure gives information for the year 2000 on these topics.

Figure  2: Expenditures on Research and Experimental Development (RED)

Source: Indicators of the RICyT network, available at http://www.ricyt.org/     

             http://www.science.oas.org/ricyt

This table illustrates the virtuous (or vicious according to the point of view) circle between economic activity and investments in Research and Experimental Development (RED). It shows the impact of scale economies that result in countries of lesser economic activity carrying out marginal RED actions. It also shows how in the countries with the highest economic development – United States, Canada and Brazil - the productive sector carries out most of the RED activities. This trend can be observed since 1990 as shown in the next figure.

In addition to aspects related to financing, it is important to list the following:

·

• There are experiences of diverse ways of financing that can be used regionally. Such is the case of the Funds operating in Brazil, Mexico and Chile.

• There are successful cases of innovation. Most of these have come about through interest of the producers and impelled by their capacity for association and collaboration.

• There have been considerable efforts of coordination among the metrology, certification and accreditation organizations of the region. This has contributed to the recognition that these are essential practices for productive sector competitiveness.

• Technological centers, in line with the demand, can contribute with experiences that nowadays are valuable. Their role can be seen as integrators of the knowledge required by business to solve technological problems and to integrate systemic competitiveness strategies.  

• Scientific production has grown exponentially as against institutional infrastructure where growth in the number of centers has been linear. In recent years, scientific productivity has been self-reinforcing.

• The region shows a heterogeneous human capital development. This is true both in quantitative and qualitative terms for scientists and technologists. Examples of this are Brazil, where each year there are 6 thousand new doctors while in Mexico there are one thousand. Academic training does not emphasize complementing formal education with stages of the scientists in enterprises of the productive sector.

• There is a growing need to go from comparative advantages to competitive advantages. This requires a cultural change, particularly at the management level of enterprises.

• ·

• Low productivity and lack of strategic thinking is still a deficiency of the agro-industrial sector, as is the case in the dairy products industry of Mexico and Central America. This can mean opportunities for regional collaboration projects.

In the Hemisphere, around 90% of the economic activity and of the generation of jobs is attributable to small and medium sized industries, known as PYMEs. Any effort to develop competitiveness of the productive sector has to take the PYMEs into account. The effort is complex given the number and the diversity of businesses and also because this effort must take them from comparative advantages – labor, resources, natural resources – to the development of competitive advantages – technology, knowledge, management, quality, productivity and creativity - , that is to a business culture based on quality and on scientific and technological innovation. And what is more, this transformation must come about in the midst of a transition to the knowledge era, dominated by forces coming from many expanding trends such as:

• Transition to businesses based on knowledge that rapidly becomes the main competitive advantage of the productive sector.

• The need to find formulas for an equilibrium between competitiveness and new forms of collaboration as the basic behavior for the generation of competitive advantages.

• Turbulence of this transition requires a wider time horizon so that the prevailing uncertainty and ambiguity can be managed. Particularly considering political changes and the changing economic environment resulting from globalization.

• The need for alignment of efforts in science, technology and innovation to both existing and emerging markets.

These directing forces drive towards a new innovation culture, based on networked and collaborative processes. They imply a deep change in ways of thinking and acting for innovation.

2.  Mission and Vision of a Hemispheric Policy

The mission of a Hemispheric Policy for Science, Technology and Innovation should be to increase, in a sustainable way, competitiveness of the productive sector, developing new capabilities through the value generated by new knowledge coming from innovation processes that are systemic, dynamic and integrated in the productive processes. 

This means the search for an experimental model for innovation, based on the interaction between science and technology, the processes for improving quality, market strategies, and a new platform of policy instruments that can lever, through strategic stimuli, the development of linkages and new behaviors conducive to innovation and competitiveness. 

The design, development and application of policy instruments – national and of inter American cooperation – is a basic process to reach this new model of innovation in a market context. Governments have the key role of making this process sufficiently smooth by concentration of their actions. The purpose is to be able to rely on a set of renovated and evolutionary policy instruments for innovation on a hemispheric scale and with important impacts.

• An increase in competitive advantages of the PYMEs.

• Cooperation has generated collaboration structures that promote and sustain efforts of association to make possible the creation of clusters and of scale economies without loss of individual flexibility.

• Experimentation, continuous improvement and innovation, are integrated processes.

• Policies evolve and they form a virtuous loop with the innovation process which, in turn, is continuously rethought. 

3.  Blueprint for Transformation

The Workshop identified basic elements for the design of hemispheric science, technology and innovation policy instruments They have been described above and they are immersed in turbulent environments – national and international – with which they are in constant interaction as shown in the following figure. The rest of this section will go into the details that were shown during the Workshop.

Recognition of Innovation, Science and Technology

Innovation, science and technology are concepts that must become part of the new corporation culture in the XXI Century so that businessmen, without distinction of size, field and context of their productive activities may be able to compete in the new world context. In past decades, quality, continuous improvement and certification were amply adopted by many productive organizations; it is now fundamental to recognize that innovation is a competitive advantage that must be developed because its function is to allow businesses to switch over to the knowledge era. It must also be recognized that innovation cannot be separated from science and technology.

Governments too, must renew their perceptions. It is not only a science and technology system that must be propelled by actions sometimes fragmented; it is imperative to impel an innovation system with a leadership style oriented to integration of the process. This implies new attitudes, forms of organization and the promotion of policies of higher collaboration.

Research and technological development centers must revised and widen their models of support to the productive sector, to integrate them into a wider process. Their efforts of scientific research and human development must be complementary to a new, wider and deeper perception of the innovation process. They will have to redefine objectives, functions and services to improve their interaction with the productive sector and to have innovation become their new context.

Recognition of the role of science, technology and innovation in the competitiveness of the productive sector must be supported in several ways. The Workshop identified several such as the following:

• Sensitization. Programs addressed to the actors in the innovation process.

• Popularization. Programs for the diffusion of innovation concepts in the communities related to productive activities. Science and technology must be better understood so they can be better utilized in the innovation process.

• Pertinence. It is necessary to stimulate pertinence of science and technology with the demands of the productive sector.

• Perception and Measurement of results, through feedback and monitoring systems (such as polls and interviews).

• Appropriation.  Development of the capability of enterprises to master the operation and, eventually, the improvement of transferred technologies.

Rethinking Innovation

It is not sufficient for innovation to be a model shared by the productive, government and scientific and technological research sectors.  The model must evolve as a result of common learning and the need of constantly adapting it to the turbulence originated from transition and from the market.

During the last two decades, innovation models have been changing from a sequential process of generating new products and services with an impact on the economy and on society, to a network model, continuously generating new performances based on simultaneous processes of generation of knowledge, utility and value.

Partly, developing competitive advantages in the productive sector consists of having access to an innovation model adjusted to the times, making it its own and putting it in practice. It is a model that includes not only science and technology but, and this is more important, its critical relations with the process of value generation.

The Workshop identified some elements that form the basis for this recasting of the innovation model:

• Competitiveness and innovation are causally linked, forming a virtuous loop.

• Research and Experimental Development (RED) must be pertinent with the innovation strategy of the sector.

• Transfer is a fundamental process, a critical relationship between RED and the sector. It is a link if the generation of value.

• Interaction between actors is a behavior central to innovation.

• Competitiveness of the productive sector is reinforced by centers for conformity evaluation (metrology, accreditation certification).

• Measurement systems, SIM (the Inter-American Metrology System)

• A binding strategy includes creating innovation networks and networks of mobile proactive entities to stimulate the demand for knowledge.

• Virtual innovation centers, for different productive sectors

• A new innovation culture (systemic, collaborative, with wider time horizons).

• Development of new institutional leaderships (such as INTA, in Argentina).

• Technological monitoring, intellectual property.

• Management of knowledge and of learning, creation of new knowledge, ways of social learning.

• Human capital business – academia: joint teaching of human resources (master and Ph.D.) and training.

• Technical assistance, scholarships, stages and exchanges.

• Promotion of “Business incubators” designed under the new innovation model

• Training by competencies.

• Business technological missions.

• Evaluation, follow-up, competitiveness indicators that include those related to genera.

Quality for Competitiveness

Quality is an emerging property of a system (business, productive sector, country) that depends on individuals, enterprises and the environment acting on their own, as well as on the interactions between them. Interactions, however, have exert a stronger leverage for quality improvement, due to the interdependence and to the synergy generated whenever interactions share purposes, goals, meanings, time horizons and methods.

We are all of us aware of the risks and opportunities presented by globalization and how difficult the transition is; but to survive and grow under globalization it is mandatory to learn and put into practice better ways of managing businesses. Today, education and the abilities of managers and workers are the main competitive resource but, if this is to be valid in the countries of the region, a transformation is required because in this new economic era the current prevailing managerial style has ceased to be functional. Most businesses continue to be based mainly on a mechanical concept where people are considered as living instruments whose main job is to follow orders.

The current concept of quality is related to: a service frame of mind, training and development of individuals, collaborative work, the statistical control of processes, client satisfaction and, as a result, higher productivity, better competitive positioning, higher returns and, in time, the creation of more and more jobs.  It is no longer a matter of simple adjustments, of a list of things to do, of obtaining certifications; it is a different way of thinking the enterprise, people who work in it, clients, suppliers, environment, decision-making methods and the type of leadership required from high executives. To become engaged in quality implies a structural change and is thus a difficult and long process. 

The competitiveness of a business relies on the quality of its products and this in turn is a function of its measuring capabilities. We then enter the field of metrology, the science of measurements, and its mastery allows enterprises to provide goods and services that comply with international specifications or standards which are a requirement when competing and getting access to wider markets. Measurement capability is in direct relationship with the technological level of the enterprise and that of the country. It is fundamental for the countries to develop a national infrastructure for measurements, able to support competitiveness management by their enterprises. 

Integrated quality systems have a dual role. On the one hand, enterprises can export quality products, goods and services. On the other hand, by controlling imported products and goods, “bad quality” cannot be imported that is, products that do not comply with national standards and regulations. As more markets open and expand on the basis of products with a higher scientific and technology content, advanced metrology is needed more and more. For the nations of the region to develop or share it will be a road to advanced scientific and technological knowledge. 

By engaging in quality, business must accept that it is engaged in development, not growth only, because this last is but a consequence. Utilities for shareholders are a legitimate concern that must be satisfied, but it is no longer the main purpose. The ideal is to be more and more competent in the sense of a growing capacity to satisfy the legitimate wishes and aspirations of all interest groups. 

Alignment of Efforts with the Market

The economic context is under constant change and deregulation. Amidst this turbulence, the productive sector must develop and sustain competitiveness based on value generation through improvement and innovation. This implies adjusting its perception and strategic thinking to the new dynamics and complexities.

Under this framework, the role of government is redefined as a facilitator for the process of opening markets, shielding innovation processes, and promoting new market opportunities.

The Workshop identified some of the most important policy instruments as the following:

• Collaborative approach (among countries) for access to international funds.

• Cooperation between emerging countries to promote access to markets. An example of this is the European Economic Union.

• Promotion by the State of demand (market).

• Improvement of the infrastructure (airports, ports, roads).

• Strategies for product diversification from a technological platform (such as fish culture  —salmon and other species —, viniculture —diverse wines — and  floriculture).

• Commercial agreements OMC/WTO promoting national interest.

Instruments for Policy

To increase competitiveness through innovation and continuous improvement is a constant process that requires levers, stimuli, eliminating restrictions and a flow of resources. It requires a general leverage where national efforts can be reinforced with cooperation between the nations of the American continent.

This leverage is an integral process of policy instruments design. A new concept where policies are no longer limited to government action, but rather also to the productive sector and international agencies

On the perception of the innovation, the design of policies must be a continuous process, striving to increase effectiveness and mechanisms for support and follow-up in order to reduce the cycle of impact.

The Workshop recommended that the continuous design of policies must be a continuous effort of Government, the Productive Sector (public and private), the RED Organizations, and the international agencies. The following aspects were emphasized

• Flexible financing instruments. Timely, diversified and decentralized such as Funds, Bland Loans and Risk Capital. It is important to consider the innovation cycle and the preparation cycle of the policy instruments (renovation, updating, continuity). An exhaustive review should be made of regional experiences related to financing instruments such as funds, trusts, private local investments, bland loans, risk capital, capital for co-investments, multilateral agreements.

• Fiscal and tax stimuli. Implying partial innovation cost recovery through taxes. 

• Human capital for the productive sector. Academic and technical training of human resources is basic for competitiveness of the productive sector. There should be more centers for engineers, intermediate technicians and technical experts with legal knowledge to be able to analyze the possibility of patenting and other related subjects of interest to the productive sector. There should also be a strengthening of interactions between enterprises and the academic sector, and the promotion of a both ways flow of knowledge. Also, exchanges between countries, technological centers and the productive sector.  

• Strengthening integrated metrology systems. Including standardization, accreditation, inspections, quality certification, conformity evaluation. An impulse to the creation of inter-American networks that can leverage those countries with lesser resources for innovation.

• Promotion of association and cooperativism. To promote intra and multinational interactivity between the agents. To promote ways of guild collaboration and strengthening through innovation efforts. Integrating experiences in alliances, clusters, exchanges in and between countries, and other forms of collaboration between enterprises, governments, research and technology centers, associations and guilds. Development of national institutional infrastructure striving for complementation between organizations and enterprises in the member countries. Promotion of flexible and adaptable organizations, capable of integrating networks to generate and articulate the knowledge required by enterprises.

• Technology monitoring, identification and transfer. To promote follow-up of development of technological trends that lead to new innovation fields. Also, to develop capacity to identify, select and transfer technology to the productive sector.

• Institutional changes. The need for a deep change pointing to the development of a proper state participation. Stimulation of an integrating, networks promoting leadership of the scientific and technological centers

• Intellectual Property. Intellectual property is basic to promote processes oriented to exporting products and services, and as part of this process there must be support, stimulation and facilitation for registering patents by national entrepreneurs and PYMEs.

4.  About the Workshop

The Workshop was carried out according to the schema shown in the following figure.

• A first part was a group of presentations on concepts and experiences in national science and technology programs and the experiences of national metrology centers in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

• A second part was a set of “success cases” from countries such as Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Barbados, and Jamaica.

• The third part was a dialogue based on the experiences of the cases.

• Finally, in the fourth part, recommendations were synthetized, commented and enriched. 

Figure 5: Development of the Workshop

ANNEXES

Participants

Aaldo Biondolillo, President TEMPUS ALBA SA, Argentina

Enrique Campos, Mexico

Salvador Echeverría, Director, Servicios Tecnológicos, CENAM, México

Karl-christian Göthner, PTB, Alemania

Susan Heller, NIST, USA

Bernardo Herrera, Executive Director, Centro Tecnológico de Metalurgia, Colombia

Arturo Inda, Mexico

Joao Jornada, Director, Metrología Científica, INMETRO, Brasil

Cristian Lagos, Programs Director, FONCEF-CONICYT, Chile

Huntley Manhertz, Jamaica

Jorge Martínez, Professor, Universidad de la República, Uruguay

Ronald Meléndez, Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Costa Rica

Evando Mirra, President, CGEE, Brasil

Martín Piñeiro, Director, Grupo CEO, Argentina

Ranjit Singh, Department Head and Special Presentator, UWI, Trinidad

Joaquín Valdez, Metrology and Quality Manager, INTI, Argentina

Ernesto Vélez, President Executive Council, ASCOFLORES, Colombia

Silvia Bidart,President IT Strategy, Argentina, BID Observer

Rodolfo Briozzo, Ministry of Economy, Argentina

Mercedes Inés Carazo de Cabellos, National Coordinator Network of Technological Innovation Centers, Production Ministry, Peru

Carlos Cheppi, Vice-president, INTA, Argentina

Ttulio del Bono, Secretary for Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Argentina

Agueda Menvielle, Director International Relations, SECyT, Argentina

Armando Bertranou, Director FONCyT, Argentina

Marta Borda, Director FONTAR, Argentina

Eduardo Trigo, Scientific Advisor, SECYT, Argentina

Mónica Silenzi, Multilateral Coordinator, SECyT, Argentina.

Oscar Galante, Coordinator for Special Programs and Projects, SECyT, Argentina.

Alice Abreu, Director, OCyT de la OEA

Oscar Harasic, Principal Specialist, OCyT, OEA

Daniel Villariño, Principal Specialist, OCyT, OEA

Héctor Herrera, Principal Specialist, OCyT, OEA

María Celina Conte,  Specialist, OCyT, OEA

Documentation

Consideraciones generales sobre el papel de la ciencia, tecnología y la promoción de la innovación en el desarrollo de competitividad en el sector agroalimentario

Martín Piñeiro (Argentina)

El rol del INTI en la infraestructura tecnológica del sistema de calidad en Argentina

Joaquín Valdez (Argentina)

Scientific Metrology for productive Sector

Joao Jornada (Brasil)

Discusión sobre Políticas e Instrumentos para su Implementación

Salvador Echeverría (Mexico)

La integración de esfuerzos para lograr la competitividad del sector productivo. Gestión del Conocimiento, reto para Costa Rica

Ronald Meléndez (Costa Rica)

El Rol de las Agencias de Cooperación Internacional en Apoyo a la Competitividad del Sector Productivo.

Karl-Christian Göthner (Alemania)

Success Cases

Acuacultura en Chile. Situación Actual y Nuevos Desarrollos

Cristian Lagos (Chile)

Caso Caribe. Exportación de Especias (Nuez Moscada y la Industria de Especias en Grenada)

Ranjit Singh (Trinidad)

Producción y Exportación de Flores en Colombia

Ernesto Velez (Colombia)

Caso Vinos  de Argentina

El Problema del Vino en Mendoza, Crisis y Soluciones

Aldo Biondolillo (Argentina)

Industria Forestal Uruguaya. Mesa de Madera

Jorge Martínez Garreiro (Uruguay)

El Caso Wakers-Wood. Agroindustria de Jamaica

Huntley Manhertz (Jamaica)

Overview of NIST Programs Parte 1  parte 2

Dr. Susan F. Heller-Zeisler (Estados Unidos)

All these documents can be accessed at the Virtual Forum, made available through Internet by the OAS to all participants.

Additional documents are available on the Internet at the OAS Office of Science and Technology site. (http://www.science.oas.org/espanol/publica.htm in Spanish and http://www.science.oas.org/english/publica_en.htm in English):

Arturo Inda Cunningham, 1999, El Mapa Una guía para el mejoramiento de la calidad en la pequeña y mediana empresa, basada en el método de W. Edwards Deming, Washington: OEA.

Arturo Inda Cunningham, 2000, Optimización de Rendimiento y Aseguramiento de Inocuidad en la Industria de Quesería: Una guía para la pequeña y mediana empresa, Washington: OEA.

Oscar R. Harasic and Rocío Marbán, 1999, National Laboratories of Metrology in the Western Hemisphere: Their role in economic and social development, Quality Progress, March, pp. 59–65.

Rocío M. Marbán y Julio A. Pellecer C., 2002, Metrología para no–Metrólogos, Washington: OEA.

Rocío M. Marbán y Julio A. Pellecer C., 2000, Gestión de la Calidad en Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas, Washington: OEA.

Additional documents:

I. Campos, N., Ziviani, Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicaciones: Estudo  de um caso de Interacao Universidade-Empresa. In: Seminario de Teletráfego das Empresas so Sistema Telebras, 4, 1990, Brasilia, 1990. p. 15-21.

C. Claris, Ministry of Agriculture, Nutmeg Industry www.spiceclassifieds.com/articles/?results=1article=279. 2003

A. El-Hohandes, y Sammy, Nutmeg By-Products and the suggested Improvements in the Processing of Nutmeg and Mace. Faculty of Engineering, UWI, Trinidad. 1966

Global Commercial Services for the spice Industry. Falling Nutmeg prices causes Spice Island to cut its growth rate. www.spizes.com/index.asp. 2003

L. G., Johnson, The High-technology connection: Academic/Industrial Cooperation for Economic Growth. Washington, DC: Association for the study of higher education, 1984.

Evando Mirra Paula e Silva, O Processo de Interacao Universidade-Empresa: Algumas reflexiones sobre a experiencia da UFMG. In: Seminário Nacional sobre Interação da Universidade como o sector produtivo, 1991, São Paulo.

G. Morgan, Imágenes de la Organización, México: Alfaomega. Translation from the original edition: Images of organization, Sage Publications Inc. De Beverly Hills, California.

R. Rosenbloom, W Spencer, Engines of Innovation: US Industrial Research at the End of an Era, compiled by Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1996.

R. H. Singh, L. Rankine, S. Birla, Pension Planning for Farmers of the Grenada Cooperative Nutmeg Association. Volume One: Background & Philosophy. May 1992

M. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe, San Francisco: Berret-Koehler Publishers.