EDITORIAL
The scientific-technological knowledge as well as the resulting innovation are social benefits, able to produce sustainable development by improving the country's productivity and competitiveness and by contributing to the enhancement of life quality, by means of the acceleration of job offering and qualification and of the opportunity democratization.
An innovative professional environment is fostered by a nation's advanced science and by the local capacity of forming top human resources, even if the latter activity is predominantly concentrated in the universities. There are few short cuts for knowledge production without encouraging innovation in companies.
On the other hand, the entrepreneurial perspective of the use of knowledge as a source of economic wealth is fundamental so that the technology and innovation demands have their processes of induction, adaptation and implementation spurred, thus contributing for the potential applications of the science produced, whether they result from entrepreneurial demands or the necessity of public policies.
It is more and more necessary to integrate the science, technology and innovation - Sc, T & I - policy into the industrial policy so that companies are encouraged to incorporate innovation in their productive process, the most efficient way of increasing their global competitiveness.
The idea of using the innovation tools to solve all kinds of problems greatly contributes to face both social and commercial and entrepreneurial demands by producing a favorable dynamics in which the greater the use of Sc, T & I, the greater the competitiveness, which, in turn, enhances development, tax collection, the capacity of state and private investments in science, which itself generates more technology and innovation, closing, then, a virtuous cycle.
There is certainly a long way to go. Anyway, important steps have been given in the right direction in the last decade, both by different governments and in different governmental levels.
Nowadays there are clear signs that entrepreneurs are gradually incorporating the innovation concept into their investment projects.
So, innovation in society and in the business sector tends to be more and more fundamental to measure the present level of each country or region and especially useful to show future possibilities and effective development potentials.
The Brazilian scientific production, measured by the number of articles indexed in the Thomson Reuters international data base - ISI, showed that Brazil changed from the 15th to the 13th position in the published article world ranking, surpassing long scientific tradition countries, such as Russia and the Netherlands.
The fact of the matter is that nowadays the Brazilian scientific community has more than 200 thousands members, at least 80 thousand with a PhD degree.
The increase in the number of researchers and published scientific articles results from an almost half century continuous effort on the part of the Brazilian society.
The basic sciences and especially chemistry have a lot to share and celebrate in what concerns this recent and unquestionably successful history.
Likewise, it is up to scientists, including chemists, to cooperate in the fulfillment of this new starting stage, that is, to be equally competent to transfer the produced knowledge to the business sector and to society in general.
The 4th National Conference on Science,Technology and Innovation, to be held in Brasilia, from May 26th to 28th, 2010, will provide a special opportunity for this and other relevant themes to be discussed, presenting important signals for the future of Brazil.
Ronaldo Mota (Full Professor UFSM)
Technological Development and Innovation Secretary
of the Brazilian Science and Technology Ministry
Innovation in society and the basic sciences in the 4th NCSTI - National conference on science,technology and innovation
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
21 May 2010 -
Date of issue
2010
