The university–industry–government relations in Latin America

Abstract

This paper analyses the university–industry–government relations in Latin America from two points of view: a “bottom-up” one that starts from concrete experiences of knowledge user–producer relations, and a “top-down” one that considers the outcomes of the institutionalisation efforts recently developed in the region. The results of the top-down mechanisms have been well below expectations of policy makers, in the sense that the historical low involvement of industry in knowledge and innovation activities — the reversal of which is one of the main goals of such mechanisms — has not substantially improved. The bottom-up experiences, on the other hand, usually exhibit successful results at micro level, but face great difficulties for broadening the impact of the technical solutions found. Some features of the Latin American landscape help explaining this outcome. The point at stake is that the weakness observed in university–industry relations must be challenged under current conditions, the same that are partly responsible for this weakness. A possible way to proceed is building complementarities between these two types of experiences. Some suggestions are made to tackle this issue.