Accelerating Innovation in Brazil

After several years of focusing on monetary and fiscal policy at the macro-level, and creating a more stable and predictable economic environment for industry, Brazil embarked over the last several years on a large-scale effort to address structural issues around building innovation capabilities with the country. In the face of increased global competition, particularly from Asia, many Brazilian workers and industries are at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to capturing higher skilled and value-added work that can translate into higher productivity and a higher standard of living. This competitive disadvantage has been exacerbated by the country’s current economic and political crisis. Given recent headwinds, the innovation agenda is more important than ever to Brazil and to the Brazilian government’s effort to support and drive economic growth.

In its collaboration with SENAI, MIT’s IPC builds on two decades of research on national and regional systems of innovation around the world. In this program of research we have collaborated with governments and private organizations responsible for promoting innovation in a wide range of countries, including Taiwan, China, Finland, the United Kingdom, Norway and Japan. Important goals of this work have been the following:

• Understand the sources of variation in national and local systems of innovation;
• In particular, to seek practical insights into how the role of research and educational institutions can be enhanced in these different contexts.

The IPC’s research agenda with SENAI on Brazil’s innovation ecosystem focuses on three primary areas of research:

1. National and regional institutional context for innovation;
2. Industrial organization and structure, including global value chains with an initial focus on three industries: biopharma, information and communication technology (ICT) and oil and gas;
3. The ISIs individually and collectively as part of the network of innovation institutes across the country.
   The IPC holds a spring and fall seminar series on the topic of innovation with one semester focused on Brazil.