Renato Peixoto Dagnino, Léa Maria Leme Strini Velho

Descrição
INTRODUCTION :
This PAPER looks at the evolution of the relations established berween the
Brazilian university and the productive sector as stimulated, directly or indirectly,
by governmem plans and policies from the 70's up to the present days.
The University of Campinas (hencefonh UNlCAMP) is a particularly
privileged subject for a study such as this for a number of reasons. Firstly, ir is a
quite recent university which was thought of and established in the beginning of
the 70's to be differem from what existed in the country. The central idea we
want to develop is that behind this project was the intention to build a research
university which could anricipare the future and potenrial technological demands
of the productive sector. Secondly, it carne imo being in the period when
government plans stressed the overall objective of technological autonomy, and
the prospects were favourable for the country to become a significant player in
the internationl arena.
The paper argues that the nature and features of the relations between the
universiry and the productive sector have changed drarnatically in the last three
decades as a consequence of the changes in the national environment under
, which UNlCAMP was created.
The environment envisaged a particular role to be played by the university
and thus not only influenced the choices concerning fields of science, specialties
and qualification of researchers bur also shaped its relations with the productive
sector. The central idea developed here is that, due to the dramatic changes in the
external and national -political and economic- contexts in this period, the
evolution of the relationships between the university and the productive sector is
in a «counter movement» to the trends observed in the advanced countries. In
Brazil, we argue, such changes considerably downgraded the university role as a
knowledge supplier to industrial technology development.
The paper first presents a rough sketch of the industrialization by import
substitution model adopted in Latin America and highlights the role played by
local R+D. Ir also points out specific features of the Brazilian case so that the
context in which UNICAMP was creared can be better understood. This is
followed by two sections which attempt to characterize rhe evolution of
UNICAMP's relationships with the productive sector as the country reoriented
its developmem model.
The article finishes by setting up a desirable social scenario for the country
in the near future and by suggesting ways in which the Brazilian university could
restrucrure its decision-making processes and its research-priority-setting
mechanisms in order to play a more significam role in the social and economic
development of the nation
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