General Objectives of the Workshop
The recent global economic crisis and its consequences created a new setting from which one can draw some conclusions. First, it was confirmed the perception that the localization of the most dynamic parts of the global economy was changing. Nowadays, the idea that some non-OECD countries -like China, India or Brazil- play an important role in boosting investment, production and consumption is widely accepted. Second, the increasing evidence of environmental limits to economic growth points to the exhaustion of the productive paradigm based on the intensive exploitation of natural resources, especially non-renewable ones. These structural changes stress the relevance of improving the financial regulations, as well as they show the first signals of a new productive paradigm, based on a low carbon economy.
This context implies new challenges for the Brazilian productive structure and Brazilian productive policies. During the last three decades, Brazil experienced several changes in its productive dynamics. In particular, since the nineties, the relative share of the manufacturing industry on GDP was reduced. The Brazilian industry entered into an early specialization process characterized by a negligible share of technological intensive activities in the value added of the economy. Together, a weakening of the more dynamic industrial-chains and an increase in imports of critical inputs for the industrial production signaled a gradual hollowing out of the industrial tissue.
Nowadays, the Brazilian economy presents two simultaneous trends. On the one hand, there is a robust growth of the domestic market, which is related to the success of the social inclusion policies of the 2000s. On other hand, Brazilian´s trade balance has rapidly deteriorated. that is not even more severe due to the high prices of Brazilian commodities which supply the Chinese market. These trends pose at least two questions regarding the development of Brazilian economy:
(i) Do the favorable conditions for natural resources exports imply a robust trend or do they reflect a temporary movement?
(ii) Does the Asiatic demand indicate a possibly sustainable situation?
Another relevant trend during the last decades is the stagnation - or even decrease - of the technological intensity in the Brazilian industry, in spite of the continuous support to science and technology activities. In fact, during the last decade, it has been observed a significant change in public policies, which an increasing emphasis on the importance of innovation. More precisely, since 2004, two sets of policies -Industrial, Technology and Foreign Trade Policy and the Productive Development Policy – were anchored in the promotion of innovation activities.
However, the new policy framework has not yet been able to reverse the technological stagnation. In the present economic and political context, one of the main challenges to the Brazilian economy can be summarized in the following question: Which public policies can transform the ongoing growth into structural change? The opportunities brought about by the dynamism of the internal market, by the priorities conferred to the fight against poverty and by the environmental challenge have a relevant role to play as part of such policies? As the successes observed at international level, particularly in China, suggest, innovation geared towards the needs of the internal market, local infrastructure, social and environmental priorities have become the backbone of industrial and innovation policies.
More than five years after the revival of the industrial policies it is necessary to analyze their impact within a general discussion about the public policy role in a development strategy based on knowledge and induced by innovation.
Drawing on such ideas, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Ministry of Science and Technology established the research project: “Observatório de Políticas de Produção e Inovação no Brasil” (Observatory of Innovation and Production Policies in Brazil). Its main objective is to analyze the innovation policies in those areas defined as strategic by recent public policies: biotechnology, nanotechnology, health complex, new energy sources, ICTs, defense complex and, petroleum and sub-salt.
With the purpose of widening the debate, the International Workshop: “Strategic Innovation Policies and Structural Changes in a context of growth and crises” has been organized to foster a discussion on the role of the strategic policies and on the need to assess them from a perspective of long-term structural change.
The general premise to guide the discussion is that the current situation could be regarded as an opportunity for structural change in Brazil. Nevertheless, this opportunity will not arise as a natural consequence of economic growth, based on the exportation of commodities to the Asian markets. Structural change requires policies explicitly devoted to encourage high value added economic activities and increasing terms of trade; while also, supporting a sustainable development path, which includes improving the quality of life, especially of those segments traditionally excluded in the Brazilian society.
We hope that the International Workshop will be an open space to discuss the preliminary results of the Project, with both policy makers, entrepreneurs and national and foreign researchers.
Realização:
