Academia and patents at information and communications technology in South-America productivity

Abstract

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) the investment in general education and skills for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) are important for ranking measures. On the other hand, higher education is typically related to country development. Here both views were included to analyze productivity. ICT skills in higher education and research institutions were addressed with the research output by different countries, considering ITU rankings from 20 to 105. The motivation of the present exploration of research in ICT was done considering to education and development expenditure, patents and general ICT in South-America (SA) to support domestic innovation and productivity. Different exponential trends were found in research output and not significant regression of the patents in the different countries explored. Colombia has shown the greatest increase in the number of Patents and Research output in ICT, although Brazil, Peru and Chile have better economy growth. But, not clear multilinear regression of the three factors was found for SA countries across years. Therefore, according to ITU data available a drop in ICT rankings from South-American countries were found, meaning some problems in the policies and effort made by them in the last decade. Finally, education and productivity were discussed based on the different results explored and the conflicting policies towards innovation and industrial property ICT. Along this work, a discussion was done around the reasons why ICT sector had not improved, neither the ICT education nor the problems at innovation rates in patents.