The Brazilian Congress at the Frontier of Innovation a Report on Parliamentary Study Missions on Innovation Policies to the United States and the United Kingdom
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The Brazilian Congress at the Frontier of Innovation A report on parliamentary study missions on innovation policies to the United States and the United Kingdom Washington, Cambridge, London, San Diego 2011 • 2012 • 2013 [ 1 ] WOODROW WILSON CENTER Designated Appointee of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES President from within the Federal Government CHAIRMAN Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, Thomas R. Nides, Vice Chairman, Morgan Stanley Export-Import Bank of the United States VICE CHAIRMAN Sander R. Gerber, Chairman and CEO, Hudson Brazil Institute Bay Capital Management LP Advisory Council DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT AND CEO CHAIR Jane Harman Hon. Anthony Harrington, Chairman of the Management Committee, Albright PRIVATE CITIZEN MEMBERS Stonebridge Group John T. Casteen, III, University Professor, Professor of English, President Emeritus, MEMBERS University of Virginia Charles Cobb, Jr., Senior Managing Director and Dr. Leslie Bethell, Emeritus Professor, CEO, Cobb Partners Ltd. University of London Thelma Duggin, President, AnBryce Foundation Dr. Luis Bitencourt, Professor, National Barry S. Jackson, Managing Director, The Defense University Lindsey Group and Strategic Advisor, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Mr. Antonio Britto, Executive President, Nathalie Rayes, U.S. National Public Relations Interfarma Director, Grupo Salinas; Executive Director, Hon. Luigi Einaudi, President, San Giacomo Fundación Azteca America Charitable Trust Jane Watson Stetson, Chair, Partners for Community Wellness at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Dr. Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva, Editor, Medical Center Revista Politica Externa PUBLIC MEMBERS Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy, Senior Fellow, The United Nations Foundation James H. Billington, The Librarian of Congress John Kerry, Secretary, U.S. Department of State Dr. Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Professor, Universidade de São Paulo Institution Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education The Following Companies are Corporate David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, Members of the Advisory Council National Archives and Records Administration AES, ALCOA, ALCOA Foundation, AMGEN, William Adams, Chairman, National Endowment AMYRIS, BUNGE, CHEVRON, COCA-COLA, for the Humanities COTEMINAS, CUMMINS, EMBRAER, Sylvia Mathews Burnwell, Secretary, U.S. GERDAU, MERCK, RAIZEN Department of Health and Human Services [ 2 ] Washington, Cambridge, London, San Diego 2011 – 2012 – 2013 The Brazilian Congress at the Frontier of Innovation A report on parliamentary study missions on innovation policies to the United States and the United Kingdom Organized by Paulo Sotero with Michael Darden and Anna Carolina Cardenas Institutional support [ 3 ] [ 4 ] BRAZILIAN CONGRESSIONAL STUDY MISSIONS ON INNOVATION Foreword t is not due to the lack of talented people that Brazil performs poorly in innovation for an economy of its size. The country has produced Ifirst-tier scientists for more than a century. Oswaldo Cruz and Carlos Chagas are early examples. In recent decades, Brazilian scientists, including a growing number of women, have gained significant space among major universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. The number of Brazilians scientists who stand out abroad for their entrepre- neurial capacity has been on the rise. The country has an abundance of academics, business executives and government officials at various levels who are aware of the essential role that technological and innovation policy plays in economic and social pro- gress. They have written extensively about the topic and called attention to the country’s need to invest in innovation by fostering an environment where companies, universities, investors, lawmakers, and regulatory agen- cies work together to increase the efficiency of the economy as well as the value of the national wealth by applying new knowledge in high value production chains, processes and services demanded by the market. Carlos Américo Pacheco, dean of ITA (Technological Institute of Aeronautics) and former executive secretary of the Ministry of Science and Techno- logy, and Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and former dean at Unicamp, have been leading participants in this effort, along with University of São Paulo’s so- ciologist Glauco Arbix, current president of FINEP, the federal agency for innovation, and former head of IPEA, Brazil’s federal Institute of Applied Economic Research, in the first government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In 2010, Arbix and his colleagues at USP’s Innovation and Com- petitiveness Observatory carried out a detailed comparative study on the [ 5 ] evolving institutional frameworks of innovation policies and strategies in the United States, France, Finland, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Japan. The study was conducted under the auspices of the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development and amply debated. Therefore, Brazil’s poor performance in innovation is not caused by a lack of knowledge on competitiveness issues or a lack of knowledge of what needs to be done. It is not, therefore, for lack of knowledge of the competitiveness issues or of what needs to be done that Brazil has had a poor performance in innovation. The problem is both cultural and political. Aware of this, the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars accepted the challenge posed by Interfarma back in 2010 to organize an- nual missions of Brazilian congressmen interested in studying public po- licies and practices that support and encourage innovation in the United States and Europe. The initiative was built on a series of six seminars the Institute hosted in 2008 and 2009 in partnership with the São Paulo stra- tegic consultancy Prospectiva. The series, held in both Washington, D.C. and São Paulo convened American and Brazilian experts, including Arbix, Pacheco and Brito Cruz. A thorough summary of the lectures and debates – Innovation in Brazil: public policies and business strategies – prepared by the political scientist Ricardo Sennes, a director at Prospectiva, was publi- shed online both in Portuguese and English. Thirty-two house representatives and senators, including majority and minority leaders and presidents of parliamentary committees with juris- diction over areas that are relevant to innovation, have participated in three academic conferences held between 2011 and 2013 at the Wilson Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the London King’s College Bra- zil Institute, and the Institute of the Americas, headquartered at the Uni- versity of California San Diego. The State Department received the first mission. Brazilian ambassadors in Washington, Mauro Vieira, and London, Roberto Jaguaribe, hosted the congressmen in their respective official re- sidences, and the consul general in Los Angeles, Bruno Bath, contributed to the work in San Diego. Participating members of the Brazilian Congress attended around forty lectures about the complex array of themes and public policies that affect the innovation policies and strategies on both sides of the Atlantic. Lively [ 6 ] debates followed each session. At the end of the session at MIT in 2012, one of the members of the Brazilian congressional delegation acknow- ledged the value of the mission after hearing an ironic thank you note addressed to the group by MIT’s Anthony Knapp for preparing excellent scientists in its public universities and sending them to Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts, to do applied research that they find little opportunity to do in Brazil. “This discussion has helped us understand our role in Congress to help to create a more appropriate environment for innovation in Brazil.” Another congressman made a revealing comment about the effects of his participation in the first mission. “These talks opened my mind to the complex issues of innovation,” he said during a breakfast with Interfarma’s executive president Antônio Britto. The three parliamentary missions were preceded by seminars for trade journalists and followed by visits to phar- maceutical laboratories of member companies organized by Interfarma. This volume showcases a selection of the lectures, as well as testimo- nials of researchers and entrepreneurial scientists who work in the thri- ving space situated on the border between the two areas that are vital for innovation in the post-industrial world. They contribute to discoveries in universities’ and research centers’ laboratories and the practical application of such knowledge by companies and venture capitalists willing to invest in them to produce solutions for real day-to-day problems and add value to the marketplace. Effects of innovation can be seen in a myriad of devices and applications that resulted from advancements in information techno- logy, the life sciences, and marketing strategies that have been transforming the way people organize their lives, interact, work, and have fun in all cor- ners of an increasingly integrated planet. The volume is organized thematically in three parts. After a histori- cal overview of innovation in the United States by Wilson Center Senior Scholar Kent Hughes, the volume focuses on the various topics of the policy debate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. The second part consists of edited transcripts of the sessions held in 2013 at the University of California San Diego, in partnership with the Institute of the Americas. It offers a detailed narrative of the transformation