What is AKNA? Social utility of Scientific and Technological Knowledge: challenges for Latin American Countries

HERNÁN THOMAS; PABLO KREIMER

Copenhague

Conferencia; The 4th Triple Helix Conference; 2002

Copenhagen Bussines School / Lund University / Chalmers University of Technology

Along 60?s and 70?s, critics coincided to point out the ?scarce social utility? of the scientific and technological knowledge generated in Latin America. They suggested that while qualified scientific research had been achieved in some centers of excellence, producing several Nobel prize winners in sciences, their global aim was addressed to basic science programmes, without any concern to their practical application. From the mid 80?s, a growing number of initiatives explicitly aimed to redirect research activities can be detected in several countries in the region (Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina). Science and Technology (and Innovation) policies began to be articulated in medium and long term programmes addressed to the creation and consolidation of ?national innovation systems?. Between the research and development institutes and the productive firms different ?interface? institutions were set up: technological parks, enterprise incubators, technological linkage units in public universities and R&D institutes. New funding mechanisms were complementary established. They were conceived as a carrot and stick system, aiming two goals: to push research towards the resolution of technical problems on productive activities, and to provide financial support to innovation on technologies and production inside local firms. On the other hand, the increase in the number of researchers exacerbated the jostling for access to funding. In practice, the new scenario effectively meant the development of economic coercion. Given the difficulty of access to public funds, the market appeared as a potential alternative source of funding for scientific and technological activities. The local R&D institutions were restructured (in successive organisational re-engineering operations) in an attempt to adapt to potential commercial demands and optimise articulation with the knowledge users. The increasing pressure to produce commercially valuable knowledge was internalised by the knowledge producers, either as rhetoric designed merely for legitimisation, or as a substantial change in practices: most of the knowledge produced is defined as ?applicable? . But despite the efforts of scientists and technologists, the concern of policy-makers, the various initiatives implemented in the R&D institutions, and the changes in conceptualisations and discourse, this ?applicable? knowledge has not, with exceptions limited to a few specific areas, found ultimate application. We have given the name Applicable Knowledge Not Applied (AKNA) to the specific, and apparently paradoxical, phenomenon of the production of scientific and technological knowledge considered applicable that does not give rise to production or product process innovations, nor contribute to the solution of social or environmental problems. A solution to the AKNA problem is a key issue in the development strategies of the peripheral countries. Chronic problems of grinding poverty, the health and educational shortfall, social and economic underdevelopment, the technical production gap still persist, and in fact they have been intensified along 90?s. The AKNA phenomenon seems to extend homogeneously over the region. Despite the multiple changes on the scenario, the old questions still stand. What is the social utility of scientific and technological research in Latin America? Why is locally generated knowledge not applied?