Please cite this paper as: Paraná’s Regional Steering Committee (2010), “The State of Paraná, Brazil: Self-Evaluation Report”, OECD Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development, IMHE, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/24/53/45420606.pdf OECD Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development The State of Paraná, Brazil SELF-EVALUATION REPORT Prepared by Cássio ROLIM and Maurício SERRA Directorate for Education Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) This report was prepared by the State of Paraná’s Regional Steering Committee in collaboration with a number of higher education institutions in the State of Paraná as an input to the OECD Review of Higher Education in Regional and City Development. It was prepared in response to guidelines provided by the OECD to all participating regions. The guidelines encouraged constructive and critical evaluation of the policies, practices and strategies in HEIs’ regional engagement. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the State of Paraná’s Regional Steering Committee, the OECD or its Member countries. OECD Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development SELF EVALUATION REPORT STATE OF PARANA, BRAZIL CÁSSIO ROLIM MAURICIO SERRA Directorate for Education Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) PROJECT MANAGEMENT PARANÁ STATE Regional Steering Comite Zaki Akel Sobrinho Rector of the Federal University of Paraná, UFPR Rodrigo da Rocha Loures President of the Federation of Industries of the State of Paraná, FIEP Juraci Barbosa Sobrinho President of the Agencia Curitiba de Desenvolvimento S.A. Jefferson Nogarolli President of SEBRAE-PR Carlos Eduardo Cantarelli Rector of the Technological Federal University of Paraná, UTFPR Lygia Lumina Pupatto Secretary of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the State of Paraná Jonel Chede President of Pró Paraná Wrana Panizzi Vice-President of the Nacional Council for Scientific and Technological Development, CNPq Working Group Cássio Frederico Camargo Rolim Regional Coordinator - Federal University of Paraná Mauricio Aguiar Serra Regional Vice-Coordinator - Federal University of Paraná Armando João Dalla Costa Federal University of Paraná Rogerio Allon Duenhas Federal University of Paraná Gabriela Vichi Abel de Almeida Federal University of Paraná Luiz Philippe dos Santos Ramos Federal University of Paraná Supporting Group at UFPR Fábio Henrique de Aquino Freitas; Gabriel Cardeal Tomazzia; Mariana Paula Alves Nogueira Coordinators at the Higher Education Institutions Angelo Legat (UEPG); Claudia Madruga Cunha (UFPR); Fernando Franco Netto (UNICENTRO); Luiz Márcio Espinosa (PUC-PR); Maria da Piedade Araújo (UNIOESTE); Paulo André de Camargo Beltrão (UTFPR); Paulo de Tarso Chaves (UFPR); Sergio Scheer (UFPR); Regional Coordinator Cássio Frederico Camargo Rolim Federal University of Paraná PROJECT MANAGEMENT OECD/IMHE Direção do Projeto Richard Yelland Division Head (OECD, EDU/IMHE), Jaana Puukka (Project Leader, OECD, EDU/IMHE) Ernesto Flores OECD, EDU/IMHE Peer Review Team: Ernesto FLORES (OECD/IMHE Secretariat) Philip WADE (former OECD Secretariat, FR/US) José-Ginés MORA (University of London/University of Valencia, ES) Carlos Roberto AZZONI (University of São Paulo, BR) Salvador MALO (Mexican Competitiveness Institute, MX) OECD Project – State of Parana Self-Evaluation Report FOREWORD Higher education has been identified as the main engine of social, cultural and economic development of countries and, principally, regions. In the context of an economy increasingly open to global competition, countries and regions with the greatest success are those in which there is a predominance of products and knowledge-intensive services, which are results of many different forms of innovation. However, these characteristics are consequences of an intense process of interaction among social actors that results in a permanent construction of a set of institutions that favor, when they act in a systemic way, innovation. There is a growing recognition that this potential is more easily mobilized in the regional context. When this set of institutions has an effective and ongoing interaction that allows the increase of regional competitiveness, it is called the Regional Innovation System. Among these institutions, the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) stand out from the rest. In fact, they build human capital and broaden the social and cultural environment that enables innovation. This task, in addition to teaching and research, has been named the third role of universities and has a magnitude larger than the old concept of university outreach. The completion of these tasks is not easy. There are many obstacles to the engagement of universities in the development process of regions in which they are present. Some of them are more concerned with issues related to universal knowledge, with topics of national interest, and graduating students for the national market. These universities are those that are just in the regions. On the other hand, there are universities that also deal with universal and national issues and, at the same time, are also concerned with the specific issues of their regions, do research issues related to the economic activities of regions, graduate skilled students for labor markets of their regions and are partners of other regional actors. These are the universities of the region. In order to overcome challenge of being in or of the region, HEIs and other regional actors have to make a major effort. Both of them will have to overcome their own difficulties to be able to improve the interaction. This project aims to deepen the existing cooperation between HEIs in Paraná and other regional actors with the purpose of promoting the development of the Paraná state. Insofar as the development process is necessarily based on the expansion of knowledge and innovation, this project will be another step towards the transformation of Paraná in a Region of Innovation. In fact, this project is the continuation of a larger project that focuses on the role of universities in relation to the support they provide to the development of the Paraná state. The project pays attention to the improvement of their performance take into consideration the internal and external obstacles to universities to implement it. Pioneered in Brazil, this research relies on the collaboration of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) through its project Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development under the responsibility of IMHE (Programme on Institutional Management on Higher Education). The first time that Paraná took part in the OECD project, the research was undertaken during the 2004-2007 period with 14 regions of 12 countries, being Paraná the only region of a non-OECD member nation to become part. The region analyzed was the Northern Paraná, which was mainly embraced by the Londrina-Maringá axis. In this second involvement with the OECD project (2008-2010), we are taking into consideration the entire state of Parana. Besides Paraná, 14 regions became part of the OECD project: the State of Victoria (Australia); the City of Berlin (Germany); the Region of Lombardy (Italy); the State of Sonora and the State of Vera Cruz (Mexico); the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Region of Rotterdam (Netherlands); the Autonomous Region i OECD Project – State of Parana Self-Evaluation Report of Andalusia and the Autonomous Region of Catalonia (Spain); the Paso del Norte Region (USA-Mexico); the Southern Arizona (USA); Bío Bío Region (Chile); the Galilee region (Israel); and the State of Penang (Malaysia). Following the methodology proposed by the OECD, the main issues under investigation are the contribution of researches undertaken in HEIs to regional innovation; the contribution of education to increase capacity and meet the regional labor market; the contribution to social development and the environment; and the leadership role and partnership of HEIs in the regional community. The program is also designed to be a learning project and a training project of cooperation between regional actors. Part of this research had already been done in the first project, when the HEIs of Northern Paraná, principally the state universities of Londrina and Maringa, were analyzed. The experience showed the complexity of the innovation process and that the overlap of influences and interactions goes beyond the local level. It also showed that this is an ongoing process of construction that undergoes determinations outside Paraná. Having in mind this learning process, there is no doubt that the transformation of Paraná in a Region of Innovation will be only possible if you consider the state of Paraná as a whole, taking into account the private and public institutions (at all government levels). This report is the result of a partnership among several institutions in the state of Parana. They are committed to building a development project for Paraná in which innovation and knowledge have a major role and HEIs are seen as the instrument of transformation. In fact, this partnership was built gradually. Initially it was established between the Federal University of Parana (UFPR) and the Federation of Industries of the State of Paraná (FIEP). After formalizing that partnership, the Curitiba Agency for Development, representing the municipality of Curitiba, and the Brazilian Service for the Support Micro and Small Enterprises