From R&D to innovation: challenges for the Brazilian electricity sector

Abstract

In Brazil, companies operating in the electricity sector must invest at least 1% of their net operating revenues in R&D and energy efficiency programs. This obligation challenges their capacity to manage their research and innovation efforts. As these companies belong to a supplier-dominated sector, they face constraints related to the generation of innovations: often the results of R&D projects are not implemented. This situation reveals not only problems in the sector innovation policy, but also the absence of robust mechanisms to support companies in decisions that can help them generate benefits from research. This work presents a tool developed for the Brazilian electricity companies aiming to characterize and propose solutions to overcome and/or prevent scientific and technology, market and management gaps likely to occur in R&D projects in order to enlarge the appropriation, adoption and diffusion of their results, and the generation of positive impacts.

Keywords:
Innovation; R&D; Management; Gaps; Technology transfer