INTRODUCTION

Strong innovation is a characteristic of high-growth areas. This means that a country’s increased competitiveness is linked to its capacity for innovation, which can only be achieved through investments in science and technology (ALMEIDA, 2008; RESENDE, GIBSON, and JARRETT, 2013). The vast majority of research and development (R&D) in Brazil is conducted by public science, technology, and innovation institutions (also known as ICTs in Portuguese), which include public universities and research institutes supported by government grants (ANDRADE et al., 2017).

This scenario is consistent with a global trend in which governments typically support the risky research, whether applied or basic, and such support has frequently been the source of the most radical, game-changing types of innovation (JUGEND et al., 2018).

In addition, the diffusion of knowledge from universities to the industry has emerged as an important third mission of universities, besides teaching and researching, crucial to support national competitiveness and economic growth (BAGLIERI, BALDI, and TUCCI, 2018).

However, data on science, technology and innovation national indicators demonstrate the divergence between scientific publications and patent numbers. From 2010 and 2014, Brazilian researcher number increases 39.9%, which support the 63,126 scientific articles published in scientific journals indexed by Thomson/ISI and Scopus. Conversely, in this same period, the National Institute of Industrial Property (acronym in Portuguese as INPI), which represents Brazilian patent office, has conceded 3,502 patents from Brazilian resident applications (MCTIC, 2017). Even considering that the average time for granting patents in Brazil is too long (seven years on average, according to QUERIDO, LAGE, and VASCONCELLOS, 2011) and that not all published study is patentable, nevertheless those indicators emphasize that Brazil remains challenged to increase the conversion of science and technology into innovation (ANDRADE et al., 2017).

As a result, there is a gap between new technologies generated in the university environment and new products developed (NPD) available to society, indicating a lack of becoming inventions in innovations. This rationale led us to the following research question: “What barriers have been blocking the path from Brazilian public university inventions crossing laboratory borders to society, turning into innovation”?

To answer our research question, we outlined a plan of interviews to consult at least one actor of each part of the innovation network in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro environment, using the snowball sampling, i.e., we started with a small number of initial contacts (seeds), who fit our research criteria and were invited to the interviews. The agreeable interviewees were then asked to recommend other contacts who fit the research criteria and who potentially might also be willing participants, who then in turn recommend other potential participants (HECKATHORN and CAMERON, 2017; PARKER, SCOTT, and GEDDES, 2019).

We then perform a content analysis. After that, inspired by grounded theory steps, we included an initial and an axial coding that enable a relation of categories in order to identify their conditions, phenomena, context, actions, and consequences. Our results provide a set of guidelines, based on the considerations analyzed. Culture differences are the most important factor to consider, followed by lack of knowledge, so the guidelines indicate the structuring of technology transfer processes, integrating laws, norms, and Brazilian culture, and taking advantage of the complementary capacities of people and institutions connected.

Our paper contributes to the knowledge in technology transfer theory by identifying the main barriers to turn an invention into innovation in the public university environment, listing the key features of this process and proposing guidelines to manage it. Thereby, the paper is structured as follows. The next section presents the concepts applied to synthesize the literature on invention and innovation in the Global South and Brazilian firms and technology transfer. Following this is the description of the methodology used to conduct the study. The results and analysis are discussed and finally, final findings are presented, accompanied by a future research agenda.

CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

From invention to innovation in the Global South and Brazilian firms

The path from invention to innovation is tricky. Previous research defines invention as an original solution derived from knowledge of a need or want and knowledge of the technical required to meet the referred need or demand (SCHMOOKLER, 1966; UTTERBACK, 1971). In turn, innovation is defined by different authors as the invention implemented and brought to market, in the case of a new product and first use in a production process, or in the case of process innovation (UTTERBACK, 1971; DOSI, 1988; CHESBROUGH, 2012).

In the Global South context, innovation literature assumes that scarcity is a normal condition, but even when financial, material, and human resources are scarce, innovation can and does arise. According to Pansera (2018), that phenomenon stamps the concept of frugal innovation, an extremely and relevant kind of technology promotion for improve the living conditions of the poor of the world.

Despite the notion of developing innovation to reduce poverty is not fresh (please see SCHUMACHER, 1973), what is novel about the debate is two fundamental premises: (i) resource scarcity is the root cause of poverty; hence, frugal innovation could help alleviate it; and (ii) frugal innovation offers a “triple bottom line” strategy that can generate social, environmental, and economic benefits. From this perspective, frugal innovation could be a path for the development of innovation in Brazil. But instead, the reality is significantly different.

Research acknowledges that variables external to an organization, such as the context of sectors and the national innovation system in which it is located, influence issues related to innovation (JUGEND et al., 2018). In the case of the Brazilian firms, they are usually thought to be unable to innovate due to challenges in managing technology. In fact, industrialization plans in the 1970s focused on replacing imports and boosting technology transfer from industrialized countries to developing countries, particularly in Latin America and Asia, by know-how and setting up multinational companies. These methods were widely criticized for being unable to break the technological dependence of economies that were intended (NAGANO, STEFANOVITZ, and VICK, 2014).

On an empirical level, it lacks data on Brazilian companies’ innovative strategies. This gap is gradually closing as a result of sector or regional assessments or case studies that allow us to better comprehend business practices (NAGANO, STEFANOVITZ, and VICK, 2014; VICK, NAGANO, and POPADIUK, 2015; RIBEIRO and NAGANO, 2018, 2023; CASTRO, NAGANO, and RIBEIRO, 2019), but they are not enough. Furthermore, there is a widespread feature of Brazilian firms that not operate with frugal or new product development (NPD) via radical innovation. Instead, operate with incremental innovation being more innovative in terms of process innovation, design adjustments, and product adequacy to local market conditions (ROZENFELD et al., 2006; JUGEND et al., 2018).

Brazilian government has adapted the legislation to facilitate commercial agreements involving public universities and private firms, following the concept of the triple helix. Triple helix proposes built chains, including the government, to produce new knowledge and innovations (more detail can be found in ETZKOWITZ and LEYDESDORFF, 1995). Thus, legal structure for innovation, amendment federal Constitution and regulating for innovation law have recently been sanctioned. In addition, the National Innovation Policy was created to granted innovation programs in order to foment the university-industry relationship (ANDRADE et al., 2017).

However, despite these legal changes and previous grants, Brazil’s position on the Global Index of Innovation (GII) has declined from 47^th in 2011 to 69^th in 2017 (DUTTA, LANVIN, and WUNSCH-VINCENT, 2017). According to Esteves and Fieldman (2016), Brazil invests a higher percentage of its GDP in R&D activities when compared to other Latin American economies, but it performs poorly in comparison to developed countries. Investigating what barriers have been blocking the path from Brazilian public university inventions crossing laboratory borders to society, turning into innovation may provide insights to the knowledge in technology transfer theory.

Technology transfer

In general, despite several policies, rules, and legislative structure and constraints, research and development (R&D) institutions are increasing industrial competitiveness and, consequently, increasing their positive impact on society through technology transfer processes (RESENDE, GIBSON, and JARRETT, 2013; BAGLIERI, BALDI, and TUCCI, 2018).

Technology transfer (TT) is the process of transferring skills, knowledge, technologies, manufacturing methods and facilities between governments/universities and other R&D institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wide range of users who can develop and exploit the technology through new products, processes, applications, materials, and services. TT may be understood as a simple exchange, a technique’s transfer or even a change of ownership, or yet a process which has composed by the invention, patent, licensing, commercial use and, finally, royalties (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018).

Considering differences between the institutions involved on TT process, Baglieri, Baldi, and Tucci (2018) identified four types of technology transfer business models: (i) catalyst business model focuses on scientific leadership in the international arena, maximizing their incomes through licensing their disruptive innovations instead of maximizing the number of patents obtained or the number of startups created per year; (ii) smart bazaar intends to generate and openly disseminate science at large, since they perceive their responsibility to respond to human needs; (iii) traditional shop which activities are mainly focused on building patents portfolio, following an intellectual property rights culture, that can be used both for licensing and startup creation; and, (iv) orchestrator of local buzz recognizes the relevance of exploiting new scientific and technological opportunities to boost local economic development.

Universities also has the potential to enhance TT. For example, universities generate development and growth opportunities on a direct way, centering on academic entrepreneurial initiatives, such as firm formation by alumni and staff (spinouts or spinoffs) (LAHORGUE, 2005; MCADAM et al., 2012). Transferring science and technology from academic environments to the market involves some challenges since the various strategies and processes are difficult to configure, to follow, and to manage. Moreover, technological innovation is fast, continuous, and involving high levels of uncertainty and risk, companies have a lack about how best to innovate and how to work with universities and the universities themselves have a lack about what companies need and when (RESENDE, GIBSON, and JARRETT, 2013; GOOD et al., 2019).

Many universities have established a set of university-affiliated intermediary organizations that are connected by directly supporting TT activities, as technology transfer offices (TTO), science parks, incubators, and university venture funds, which compose an organizational assemblage labeled “technology transfer ecosystem” (GOOD et al., 2019). So, besides a “classical” structure there are a number of different organizational units that could play a pivotal role in linking universities and industry (CHAU, GILMAN, and SERBANICA, 2017).

Accordingly, TTOs are organizations that act as a bridge between university and market environments, protect university proprietary rights in order to generate returns, support pre-commercialization of inventions and support local or regional economic development. Science parks support the development of technology-based firms, while incubators support the formation and development of technology-based startup companies. Finally, university venture funds provide seed and early-stage funds to make investments in academic spinoffs in order to support the commercialization of research results (GOOD et al., 2019).

Considering the needs of the TT process, some research points out the best practices and indicators to monitor the performance of TTOs. Resende, Gibson, and Jarrett (2013), for example, propose as best practices a structuring containing the strategic objectives, structures and processes mapped, and facilitators, procedures and rules aligned with strategic objectives. Bozeman, Rimes, and Youtie (2015) indicate as effectiveness measures the following criteria: (i) “out-the-door” criteria, that indicates if the technology was really transferred; (ii) market and political impact, that evaluates if the technology transfer efforts lead to regional economic development and result in some political benefits; (iii) opportunity cost, which evaluates the impact of TT on alternative uses of the resources; (iv) scientific and technical human capital, which appraise if TT activities lead to an increment in capacity to perform and use research; and (v) public value, which asses if the TT enhance collective good, broad and societally shared values.

METHODOLOGY

For the purposes of this paper, we outlined a plan of interviews to consult at least one actor of each part of the innovation network in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro environment, using the snowball method to engage the interviewees. The referred method was select because it allows the use of reference chains, very useful for searching issues that require the knowledge of people belonging to a specific group or indicated by this group.

Therefore, we created a semi-structured script (please see the Appendix to have an overview of the questionnaire) seeking to identify the interviewees, registering the role of the interviewee in the innovation network, his or her name, e-mail, area and level of research, if applicable, product or invention developed during the research or the list of their activities and the form in which all activities are developed in the entity to which they belong. In the end, the script asked: ‘which barriers block the generation of innovation in Brazilian public universities environment in their opinion’. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed using the Nvivo Transcription application.

After data collection, we carried out a content analysis (please see BARDIN, 2011 for a detailed outline), in with the barriers pointed by the interviewees in their answers were explored in order to identify and select key themes, to apply a barrier category that was used to classify the content. Following, inspired by grounded theory steps (which more detail can be found in VERGARA, 2005; CHARMAZ, 2006), we included an initial and an axial coding, that enabled a relation of categories, in order to provide an emerged barriers theory, by the classification as conditions, phenomenon, context, actions and consequences. We posteriorly provide a set of guidelines, based on previous theory about the process of transforming invention into innovation.

Data collection

Firstly, we generated a list of innovation network actors. Due to physical and budgetary limitations, the actors firstly selected were from the innovation environment of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. After that, the small-scale semi-structured interview form was developed.

During the interviews, conducted in person, interviewees suggested other individuals to be consulted, both inside and outside of university. In fact, the interviewees suggested these few names outside the university considering that these individuals had the knowledge and/or experience in research and technology transfer topics, which may contribute to the results of the present research.

For this reason, people from The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), in Rio de Janeiro and Federal District, from University of São João Del Rei, in Minas Gerais and from private sector in Rio de Janeiro were also interviewed.

At same point, an interviewee suggested the inclusion of his business partner on the interviewed list, considering the huge experience of him in Jheronimus Academy in the Netherlands as Professor (MSc), Ph.D. student and senior member of an accelerator, and the huge experience in Brazil, as entrepreneur and investor. This last interview was conducted in Rio de Janeiro, during his visit to the city. Box 1 shows the list of interviewees.

Box 1
Interviewees and their respective characteristics
Source: Elaborated by the authors.

RESULTS

Next, we present the results of our investigation: innovation in Brazil; Brazilian public universities environment; content analysis based on the information gathered, initial coding and axial coding inspired by the grounded theory steps. Referred data came from interviews with four (4) senior managers, seven (7) senior professionals, two (2) professors, eleven (11) startup entrepreneurs, and two (2) Ph.D. students-inventors.

Innovation in Brazil

Brazil is a Global South country that concentrates basic, applied, and experimental/developmental research in public organizations known as Scientific, Technological and Innovation Institutions (in Portuguese, Instituição Científica, Tecnológica e de Inovação - ICTs) (LAHORGUE, 2005; ALMEIDA, 2008; SILVA NETO et al., 2013).

Brazilian laws and legal structures pertaining to innovation have been improved in recent years in order to support this reality and foster innovation. This enhancement began with the Foundations Law (BRASIL, 1994), which deals with the relationships between ICTs and support foundations, with the goal of establishing contracts and agreements with other organizations, including the private sector.

Next, the Industrial Property Law (BRASIL, 1996) has been drafted, providing and endorsing all rules to patent application and innovation protection. Following, the Innovation Law (BRASIL, 2004) was structured. The referred law explicit the differences between invention and innovation, define the terms “creation” as an invention and “innovation” as the introduction of novelty or improvement in the productive or social environment, and allow greater interactions between the university and industry.

To supplement the legal framework, the Law of Good (BRASIL, 2005) was approved, to ensure tax incentives for firms that were investing in innovation. Recently, the Government, through the Law N. 13.243/2016 (BRASIL, 2016) and Decree N. 9.283/2018 (BRASIL, 2018) sanctioned both structuring and regimentation for Innovation Law (BRASIL, 1994, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2016, 2018).

In practical terms, Brazil has a National Science, Technology, and Innovation System, which is composed by three levels of actors. Politicians’ actors are in charge of define funds and grants value for the system operationalization. The funding agencies define the application, evaluate the rules and provide the grants to the third level actors. Finally, the ICTs, mainly public universities, are responsible for apply the grants in R&D and innovation generation activities (ANDRADE et al., 2017).

Therefore, based on the national system and legal structure, the Brazilian innovation environment has undergone some modifications. Following the global trend of turning universities into more entrepreneurial institutions, by supporting and encouraging the generation of startups and spinoffs (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018), technology parks and incubators were implemented. Moreover, universities have established organizational mechanisms to transfer knowledge and technology to industries (ALMEIDA, 2008), as the support foundations and Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs).

Brazilian public universities environment

Several actors form the innovation environment of Brazilian public universities, also called ICTs. These actors include students and teachers who conduct research that contributes to science (basic research) and, in many cases, also generates inventions (applied research). Other actor are the foundations. They aim to administer contracts and financial income mostly from research services providing and technology co-development between the university and private or public firms (LAHORGUE, 2005).

The technology parks, on the other hand, were established to encourage the development of research spinoffs that could be turned into small businesses. Initial difficulties in establishing these initiatives, such as a lack of resources, a lack of venture capital, and a lack of academic leaders, have forced a 15-year delay in their feasibility.

Nowadays, technology parks embody small and big firms in shared environments, whose objective is to generate interaction between the university and the resident firms, as well as the interaction between the firms among themselves. However, there are few cases of success interaction (LAHORGUE, 2005; ABDI, 2007; ALMEIDA, 2008).

Actors called Incubators are bottom-up small structures developed to support startups and spinoffs generation. Despite the fact that most incubators have ties with universities, they could be found in other institutions, both public and private, not necessarily fostering the formation of technology-based firms (LAHORGUE, 2005; ALMEIDA, 2008).

TTOs in Brazil are known as Technological Innovation Nuclei (acronym in Portuguese as NIT) and are referred to an “agency”, “office” (LAHORGUE, 2005), or “center” (ALMEIDA, 2008). Their goals are to manage university innovation policy. As a result, they are in charge of monitoring the development process from research to innovation and promoting between universities and firms. To that end, NITs should engage in the following activities: intellectual property protection; management of patent licensing and technology transfer (TT) agreements; promotion of interaction between universities and firms; and assistance to researchers in fundraising for innovation (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018).

Brazilian TTOs (or NITs) are small in terms of their full-time equivalent staff and a significant proportion of the people working in TTOs are temporary staff - either students or professionals - who receive stipends and, as a result, cannot stay in the TTO for longer than two or three years (LAHORGUE, 2005).

Consequently, despite the existence of these TTOs or NITs, the universities still have a portfolio of patents available to firms that seek to license for commercial use. In fact, the TT process is not established yet, it means, there is no clear and defined process, and the valuation of new technologies stage does not have a valid methodology (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018). Thus, in this research, we do not consider Brazilian NITs real TTOs but patent manager agencies.

In this scenario, the R&D financial resources invested until the first half of 2010 decade were mostly used for the publication of papers in qualified journals. Just a few of that research has been turned into technology patents (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018). In these cases, universities are responsible for meeting the costs related to many granted patents, which are unable to reach the market (QUERIDO, LAGE, and VASCONCELLOS, 2011) as they have not undergone a process of evaluating the feasibility of transfer to the market, not reaching the expected return (VEIGA, 2019). Another factor to consider is that government financial support does not always occur (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018), which has a direct impact on the entire Brazilian public innovation environment.

Content analysis

Following the content analysis of all interviewees’ responses, we classified the barriers into five categories: culture differences, lack of knowledge, rules and policies, business model, and costs. Box2contains a detailed breakdown of all the barriers mentioned.

Box 2
Groups of barriers pointed out by interviewees
Source: Elaborated by the authors.

Box 2
continuation

Box 2
continuation

Based on Box 2, obtained through the content analysis, we observe that the group classified as “culture differences” has the largest number of problems raised, totaling 16 barriers, which represent 39% of the issues. The “lack of knowledge” group has 11 barriers, accounting for 27% of the total, while “rules and policies” group has 9 barriers, accounting for 22%. The “business model” group represents 4 barriers and “cost” group has one, equivalent to 10% and 2%, respectively.

These findings are supported by additional research conducted in Brazil. Chais, Ganzer, and Olea (2018) findings, for example, demonstrated weakness and strengths in universities-industry interaction and Technology Transfer process, highlighting as a weakness the bureaucracy, the lack on innovation culture and the lack experience of both university and industry on working together. As strengths, they mentioned the importance of combining theory with practice and the impact that new technologies may active in regional economies.

After, initial and axial coding was conducted, in which we seek links between categories visible (Box 3). Finally, we structured considerations about the data, following the narrative: (A) conditions lead to (B) phenomenon, which arises in a (C) context that leads to (D) actions and then to (E) consequences (BIANCHI and IKEDA, 2008).

Box 3
Initial Coding
* BM - Business Model; CD - Cultural Differences; CO - Costs; LoK - Lack of Knowledge; R&P - Rules and Policies. Source: Elaborated by the authors.

Box 3
continuation

Box 3
continuation

Box 3
continuation

Box 3
continuation

Some considerations could be pointed through the data analysis. The industrialization plans conducted in Latin America, that focused on replacing imports and boosting technology transfer from industrialized countries (NAGANO, STEFANOVITZ, and VICK, 2014) represented a strong mark to the Brazilian private sector and its deployments reflect in the Brazilian innovation environment. As showed by the data, one condition (A) in this scenario is that even large companies in Brazil are not concerned with R&D; their focus is on product improvements. Ribeiro and Nagano (2018) point that developing countries have a low level of research and development (R&D) advancement in companies.

Through the Government side, the passing of the Innovation Law in 2004 has become one of the most important milestones in promoting technological innovation in Brazil (RIBEIRO and NAGANO, 2018). However, another condition is that the Government processes are still long and time-consuming leading impacts on market timing.

Added to those conditions, we have some phenomena (B) as: there is no searches (neither by companies or researchers) for unprotected products in Brazil that could be developed and commercialized through cooperation between small businesses and universities. Also, the university has no focus on product development; in many cases, it looks for basic than applied research, which lead those cultural differences between university and industry, and between technical and businesspeople still represent barriers. Following, we have as context (C) that Brazilian companies do not absorb Ph.Ds. in their R&D areas, and only few private companies support and recognize stricto sensu graduate courses. In addition, (D) researchers publish papers and end the research. As consequence (E), besides the Brazilian legal structures, remain the lack of knowledge about laws and interaction possibilities between university and private companies. For this reason, also remain the belief in a risk of a ‘public knowledge privatization’ in partnerships between companies and universities. The university focus is still on technical feasibility, not on market demand; there is a lack of knowledge regarding a licensed patent is more worth than published papers in evaluation, besides evaluation not evaluate technology transfers. Finally, no one knows how to operationalize the sanctioned laws, which creates legal insecurity and, consequently, inertia.

The lack of cooperation between actors and the lack of knowledge about the partnership’s possibilities remain, generating as consequence problems to attend market timing, problems to find a bridge to the market, impact on financial returns expectations, different types of risks, including the risk to loss opportunities to improve the Brazilian innovation growth.

At this point, we could find some considerations which are detailed in Box 4.

Box 4
Considerations and guidelines
Source: Elaborated by the authors.

As shown, we have lacks from government, universities, and the private sector, enhanced by cooperation gaps between the referred actors. Considering that in an environment with many actors involved, cooperation is a primary factor, it is important to strengthen these actors’ relationship networks to bring innovations to the market.

Besides, as reaching the market is a difficult path, structuring a sequence of phases through a process value chain seems to be a way of structuring the actions of the actors, which, once connected, could promote all the necessary activities once their capabilities are complementary. Also, the regulation of laws and the promotion of other types of TT as licensing emerge as guidelines.

DISCUSSION

The evidence from Brazilian public universities environment builds on and extends the existing literature’s understanding of technology transfer. One of the characteristics indicates that the path from invention to innovation goes through a technological maturity scale, since the invention will only be considered innovation when commercialized and made available to society. Roberts (2007), Kim and Rhee (2018) support such finding, pointing that innovation as a multi-stage, multi-person, complex process, involving multiple actors who play specialized roles.

Secondly, the path from invention to innovation could be bridged by several processes and activities, aligned to Brazilian laws, rules and culture. Based on the Salerno et al. (2015) and Chen, Liu, and Zhu (2018) findings, we assume that present innovation is a multistage sequential process, i.e., a system of interdependent activities, that has traditionally been understood as a predefined sequence of phases.

Furthermore, we include Albuquerque (2012), which indicate the need to formalize processes in models, to provide structure to the work and, on the other hand, maintain the flexibility, maintaining the ability to respond to new and unforeseen situations. Hansen and Birkinshaw’s (2007) completing the rationale presenting this sequence of phases as a value chain, rather like Michael Porter’s value chain for transforming raw materials into finished goods.

Thereby, such activities could be composed based on new product development (NPD) practices (JABBOUR and SANTOS, 2007; CHUM, 2010) contributing to improving the real mission of Brazilian public universities in terms of their role for the well-being of society (DEUS, BATTISTELLE, and SILVA, 2016).

In sequence, there are several actors involved in innovation generation especially if the innovation originates from an invention made in a university research laboratory. In this way, innovation occurs through a relationship network between these various actors, connecting people and institutions with complementary capacities, capable of developing all activities requested for each stage of the technological maturity scale. Corroborating, Kim and Rhee (2018) point out that technological innovation, that is, the innovation obtained from inventions developed in university environments, requires collaboration between inventors and other professionals with complementary knowledge, as well as the management of knowledge limits and the integration of specialized tasks.

According to Cunningham et al. (2019), in Germany, all employees and Professors need to announce all inventions to the university, hence do not possess the property rights of their own invention. In this context, the university is free to transfer the technology, with commercializing purposes, as licensing, and in turn must compensate the inventor sharing at least 30 percent of the revenues obtained with the invention, the same average of percentage used in Brazil.

However, current network actors in Brazil are not operating in an integrated way. It means that despite the existence of an increasing number of researchers in the country, the Brazilian legal improvements and budgetary initiatives, and the existence of entities and actors in academic innovation environment, it is possible to perceive that there is no integration. Roberts (2007) indicates that technological innovation can alter the competitive status of firms and nations, but its purposeful management is complex, involving the effective integration of people, organizational processes, and plans. Belitski, Aginskaja, and Marozau (2019) complement pointing that beside the TTOs activities include collect information on their partners, manage contracts and IP protection, there is a lack which involves the evaluation and the involvement with the invention, in other to decide whether it is viable or patentable.

Finally, despite the global trend of turning universities into more entrepreneurial institutions, by supporting and encouraging the generation of startups and spinoffs (CHAIS, GANZER, and OLEA, 2018) many Brazilian researchers have no interest in creating startups or running a business. Belitski, Aginskaja, and Marozau (2019) argue that scientists have been unaware of the implications of the commercialization, including ways to find customers or interested companies to initiate a negotiation, and how to commercialize their research or future products.

In the current national innovation environment, we have several incubators and technological parks located within the university campus, and in addition, the emergence of several pre-acceleration and acceleration programs, some of them financed by national development agencies. Such initiatives, however, essentially seek financial support or conceptual training and mentoring, so that the development of innovation can be carried out by the inventors themselves. That is, there are programs designed to support spinoffs and startups in forging their own path to innovation. This type of initiative is extremely beneficial to the country, but it fails to address the reality of many researchers, particularly those with a sole commitment to the university who lack the necessary licenses and interests to create spinoffs and startups, generating a niche of innovation generation possibilities unattended.

FINAL REMARKS

Our paper identifies barriers on the pathway between inventions to innovations in Brazilian public universities environment. Based on content analysis, we found a list of barriers mentioned by the interviewees involved in innovation generation, including representative of public universities, national technology transfer entity, private sector, and an actor of an international university.

Our findings suggest that culture differences are the most important factor to consider. In other words, there is a barrier between universities and the private sector, which affects not only researchers and ICTs, who are responsible for the discoveries and inventions, but also private firms and society, as they lack access to innovative products that could improve people’s lives, the country’s economic development, and the sustainability of the planet.

The NITs mostly maintain a passive posture, remaining “patent showcases” and waiting possible interested partners appear to start a negotiation. Thereby, the universities absorb patent annuity costs for a period of 15 or 20 years, without any financial returns. In cases in which the NITs start a negotiation, cultural barriers appear again, as university and private sector do not have the same language and in some cases encounter conflicts of interest, because the inventions could need to be needs further development to prove its economic viability.

On the other hand, Brazilian private firms have low interest in innovation, which is mostly produced in their headquarters, usually located outside Brazil. Brazilian operation is limited to import the parts and assemble. In many cases, the headquarters maintain part of the technology as confidential. Scale up is also a very critical step, because the invention does not always present the same characteristics on laboratory and large scales. Thereby, scale up can require a set of equipment and resources, which is not always available to the developers.

Furthermore, lack of knowledge emerged. In this context, incubators, accelerators, and their respective programs act firstly as evaluators, selecting the best startup firms or research groups, and secondly as instructors and mentors. Only researchers who can already structure - minimally - a business plan and a pitch can participate of these programs. It turns out another gap: researchers are highly qualified in their respective fields but have no qualifications to develop business and business plans.

Training and acting in business areas may take up valuable time that could be better spent if they continue to generate new discoveries. For this reason, many researchers have no interest in developing and running businesses because they are interested in continuing their research in their own areas. Moreover, while business management trainings are useful for gaining knowledge about a variety of business needs, it is hard to believe that such brief trainings are sufficient for developing good business plans.

Taking into account all the data collected and analyzed around the barriers, we can point out that the path from invention to innovation could be taken by structuring the processes and phases of various technology transfer solutions, through a value chain, which details and defines the activities of the network of actors, integrating laws, norms and Brazilian culture, and taking advantage of the complementary capabilities of these people and institutions. In order to manage this network, governance rules could be developed for all types of TT models, including licensing.

One potential source of bias stems from the fact that the research was primarily conducted at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and that information was gathered through individual interviews. Future research may examine at innovation actors from other Brazilian public universities and also public universities from the Global South that are struggling to deal with barriers on the path from invention to innovation. Likewise, future research could provide further solutions to reduce or minimize the barriers identified by network actors in order for inventions to cross the laboratory-to-society boundary. Finally, we believe that avenues for future research may include focus group with more actors interacting in this issue.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the availability of all individuals interviewed in this study.

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Notes

Author notes