Social Sciences Research And Science Technology And Innovation Policy Making In Latin America PDF Download

Since the pioneer work of Weiss in 1979, the intricacy of the research-policy nexus has given rise to increasingly sophisticated and holistic models to account for the dynamics involved. From an innovation policy perspective, the use of research on innovation in policy-making has not been dealt with in the same integral way. This research project report focuses on the science, technology and innovation (STI) research-policy nexus in Latin America. It is centered on the perception of this nexus by innovation research groups and policymakers (PM) from different Latin American countries; it is empirically grounded on the results of a survey carried out in 2010, which consisted in the conduction of 50 in-depth interviews to researchers and PM from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as to a few selected researchers from developed countries (Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States) to contrast opinions. Interviewed researchers were selected for their leading function in an innovation research group; PM were chosen from the main institutional settings for STI policy in the selected countries. Interviews were conducted with a flexible, semi-structured questionnaire, addressing mainly the following topics: i) Origin, research interests and agenda fixing of the research group; ii) Perception of the influence and use of the group's research outcomes; iii) Relations with other innovation research groups at the national and international levels; iv) Opinion on the innovation policy-making process in the country, its actors, inputs, etc.; v) Obstacles and suggested actions to bridge research and policy. On the PM side, the interviews focused on: i) Main features of the innovation policy-making process in the PM country; iii) Perception of the relevance of innovation research for innovation policy development; and iv) Obstacles and suggested actions to bridge research and policy. An extensive literature review on the social sciences research-policy links was previously carried out to provide the conceptual framework for the field work. A qualitative data analysis program (Atlas.ti) was used to process the empirical information. Overall, interviews to PM show that the role they assign to social sciences research is impressive when compared to their actual use of published research outcomes. But in spite of PM belief that social sciences research should tackle many important innovation related issues, they practically never mentioned the need or convenience to work together with research groups on agenda setting. The empirical work also clearly shows that inputs used in policy-making predominantly relate to knowledge embodied in people: PM rely heavily on outcomes of joint deliberations with researchers, as well as on their personal knowledge and experience. On the researchers' side, not surprisingly our interviewees considered that the impact of their research is not clear-cut; it is mainly intangible, built up through time and through many actors; and it is highly dependent on the particular institutional and political context of the moment. For several innovation researchers, PM have an a priori agenda, relatively immune to research results, in some cases to such an extent that they go on with policies that research outcomes have explicitly shown to be misplaced. However, researchers also acknowledged and illustrated the following types of influence of their work: conceptual (progressively influencing the way of thinking of PM) and 'embodied' (through the movement of persons between the academy and the policy sphere). The empirical work provides evidence that the relationship between research and policy differ across countries (panel question). In this regard, we propose a taxonomy of modes of articulation between research and policy-making in Latin America: - Arm's length mode: the national research community and policy-makers work at a distance. The logic that moves both parties, including the incentive system, precludes a jointly negotiated research agenda. This mode approaches the Venezuelan situation - Connected distance mode: bridges exist between the two communities but no systematic connections, which still results in independent agenda fixing. Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay can be included in this mode, - Hands-on mode: innovation research agenda and policy design are strongly connected. Nexus develop, among others, through: people moving from academia to policy positions and vice versa; joint calls for policy oriented research projects, further debating results and recommendations; specific think tanks, etc. This mode works as a proxy for Brazil, Chile and Cuba. The articulation modes appear to be highly dependent on the specific institutional context as expressed in the corresponding National Innovation System. A main challenge in Latin America is to devise institutional tools to foster more hands-on modes of articulating social sciences research and policy-making in the field of STI; doing so implies changing the innovative context. As concerning research gaps (panel question), the field work together with some other projects results and our own knowledge lead us to propose the following six aspects that STI PM should be thoroughly informed of to design performing policies. They are further developed in the proposed paper: i. Knowledge about the innovative performance of firms and about their absorptive capacities, typically stemming from innovation surveys. ii. Knowledge about the overall capacities of the country, for instance through national or localized innovation systems studies, which in some countries are provided through institutions like STI observatories or national councils of STI. iii. Knowledge about the technological needs of the production sectors and other actors, and of the promotional instruments that these actors would consider useful, so that STI policies can be better tuned with concrete demands. iv. Impact studies of the existing promotional instruments, to enable monitoring and rectifying them. v. Strategic knowledge or foresight on STI. vi. Knowledge about what citizens think value and fear about STI. No single, simple, or linear solution can be put forward to reduce these research gaps and take full advantage of existing research capacities for evidence-based policies in the field of STI. However, there are ways to lower the barriers identified in this study. Among others, researchers could be incentivised to develop policy-relevant projects, where they engage with PM and other stakeholders from an early stage (design) and end up with policy briefings that are understandable and useable in the policy-making sphere to frame, select and/or evaluate policies. In several developed countries, best practices increasingly recognize the importance of knowledge brokerage and other forms of 'boundary work' (think tanks, advisory bodies, etc.) between scientists and PM to overcome the 'two communities problems'. Latin America has a long way to go in this presently underexplored action field. How to strengthen dialogue between social science researchers and PM -especially with a view to agenda fixing in the field of STI- should be a major concern in most Latin American countries.