Abstract
PurposeThe establishment of partnerships between companies, government and universities aims to enhance innovation and the technological development of institutions. The biotechnology sector has grown in recent years mainly driven by its cooperative business model. Compared to other countries, this sector is slowly advancing in Brazil, with delays in science, technology and innovation, especially in the private sector. This paper aims to examine, through social network analysis, the collaborative networks between institutions that filed patents in biotechnology – medicinal preparations from plants – whose inventions had Brazil as the priority country.Design/methodology/approachThe study of technological cooperation using patent documents is a reliable approach as they serve as good indicators of the interactions between organizations that focus on innovation and development of new product. Social network analysis of cooperation networks helps to understand the connections between patent assignees, and how they establish relationships.FindingsResults show that public universities are the institutions that most deposit patents, as well as those that co-operate the most, especially Universidade of Campinas. The study also reveals the critical role of Research Support Agencies in stimulating research and technological development, which result in new technologies.Originality/valueThe study applied the social network analysis to provide an overview of the interactions among Brazilian institutions with the purpose of helping in decision-making and inciting public policies to leverage the biotechnology sector.
Highlights
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2008), innovative potential depends on how knowledge progresses and on the structure of connections of each country’s National Innovation System (NIS)
The study addressed the analysis of technological collaboration networks that resulted in patents in biotechnology related to drugs and cosmetics containing products of plant origin and their derivatives (IPC classes A61K 36/10 to International Patent Classification (IPC) A61K 36/9068), whose invention has Brazil as the priority country, that is, the first country where patents were filed
Results showed that of the 466 INPADOCs, 378 applied for protection only in Brazil, 69 were filed internationally through Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and 8 were filed in the USA
Summary
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2008), innovative potential depends on how knowledge progresses and on the structure of connections of each country’s National Innovation System (NIS) In this regard, the importance of establishing partnerships between companies, government and universities, aiming to enhance technological innovation, has been discussed and emphasized over the years in studies that address NIS (Freeman, 1995; Nelson and Rosenberg, 1993; Lundvall, 1992), open innovation (OI; Chesbrough, 2003) and, more recently, the joint-product orientation (Foray and Lissoni, 2010). This model requires organizations to open their borders to enable innovations from internal and external combinations of resources, in view of two main objectives: to absorb external assets and to allow the licensing of the internal means that the firm will not use, avoiding the loss of investments already made (Chesbrough, 2003)
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