Since Adam Smith discussed the role of
scientific research in economic growth in the second half of the 18th
century, many changes in academic content, as well as changes in the way
nations have passed to see science have occurred and continue to happen. In the
second half of the 20th century, notably in the years 1990, disciplines of the
so-called natural sciences linked with data processing technologies gave rise
to new possibilities for scientific research could give unfolding to the
creation of wealth. Emerging countries have structured Science and Technology
systems and consequent consolidation of human capital training programs with sufficient improvement to meet social
demands and paradigmatic of the New society called modern, and currently
postmodern, the first, identified with the Industrial Revolution and with the
ideals of enlightenment, devised the promotion of progress through the
incorporation of rationality principles, and the last, is conceived as cultural
condition characterized by constant change in the pursuit of progress, that is,
a process in which constant change became the Status Quo.
Universities have created the environment to
think and breathe modernity, either in the social sense or when there is a need
for the application of technologies. Scientific research, in this type of
environment, assumes a critical role, because it is the path through which
nations are suited to the pressing competitive atmosphere of postmodernity. In
this environment, characteristic competitive markets and capital accumulation
are indispensable, and the means of production operate the search for profits
forcing the industrial system to offer innovations that are the result of
targeted scientific research.
Many C & T systems are sampled worldwide,
but only a few economies have managed to have a more marketable notion of
scientific search. There are very robust systems with the concentration of
high-capacity scientists and working in translational research groups - the USA
with about 1.3 million researchers and China with about 1.7 million
researchers, are Important examples (CNPq source). However, there are efforts in developing
countries that deserve prominence, as appears to be the case of Brazil and
South Korea, where the C & T systems are still in consolidation. In Brazil,
the system has not yet reached full maturity. Though their results demonstrated
evolution, they still do not fully repay the investment already made.
The SCImago Research Group (2017) produced the
classification of countries with scientific production between 1996 and 2017,
where the USA appear first (H-index 2077), South Korea in twelfth Place
(H-index 576) and Brazil in fifteenth place (H-index 489). These figures
indicate that Brazilian production is among the first twenty most important
impact indexes. However, between Brazil and the USA, there is a strong
discrepancy, confirming that the H-index band shreds of evidence discoveries of
cause and effect relationships that allow wider applicability, that is, answers
more general questions.
SCImago Research Group still showed that 98% of
Brazilian institutions producing scientific knowledge are below the averages of
global citations, so the Brazilian leadership is still shy or nonexistent.
In an environment of economic competitiveness
among nations, Brazilian indices define a concept of fragility. Our ability to
generate economic development using the C & T Tools is incipient. This
seems partly explained because of the budgetary instability for C & T; but
when we look at the numbers of doctors formally inserted in institutions by
area, we see some obliquities. In a universe of 140,000 doctors in the
Brazilian institutions, the Humanities add up 34,136 doctors (24.3%), being the
largest group of doctors in the national C & T system, while the
engineering corresponds to 18,700 doctors (13.3%) (National Council for
Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq source). In 2016, according to
information from the Lattes Platform (CNPq), 900 doctoral titles were granted
for engineering, and critical modalities such as transport engineer formed only
12 doctors, energy engineering formed 18 doctors, to name a few, while
humanities formed 2,080 doctors in the same period. With this panorama, one can
understand why Brazilian scientific researches have a low scientific and
economic impact. Perhaps this is the motivator of the budgetary oscillations
for this sector. A C & T system that resents engineers fatally will have
timid economic reflexes, considering that the transposition of the bench scale
to the industrial scale demands more doctors engineers than experts in
humanities, without no longer consider the importance of this latter, but
considering the construction of economically useful knowledge, that is, the
economic strength of innovations. What we want to understand is that the
National Knowledge Base, with clear deficits in Sectors of Human capital, doesn’t
ensure fundamentally all Solutions companies need to ensure their
competitiveness.
Universities versus
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Between 2000 and 2010, according to Menezes
Filho et al (2016), enrolments in Brazilian higher education courses increased
by 102%, while the number of graduates included an increase of 135% in the same
period. The authors attribute growth as a consequence of the expansion of
higher education institutions (HEI), especially the private ones. The same
authors affirm that universities can streamline regional economies for several
reasons: (i) resource injection and generation of jobs in the local economy,
(ii) increase in the qualification and productivity of workers and (iii)
increase demand for Highly skilled workers (professors and researchers).
Logically, investments in education mean savings in Human capital.
There are studies in the literature that
indicate that there are returns of investment in education. In Brazil, the
initial studies are from Langoni (1974), where generous rates of return of
investments in terms of human capital and wages are shown. Mincer (1974)
aggregates the natural logarithm of labor income to years of schooling,
indicating a positive correlation between schooling and income in different
countries, including Brazil.
On the other hand, studies have indicated that
higher education levels are correlated with crime reduction (Lochner and
Moretti, 2001) , control of fertility rates and improvement in quality of
Health (Grossman, 2006), increase of political maturity (Glaeser, Ponzetto and
Shleiffer, 2006) and a decrease in social discrepancies (Gradstein and Justman,
2002), proving that education produces social results that go far beyond the
individual, producing gains for the welfare Collective bargaining.
Barbosa Filho & Pessoa (2008) undertake an
effort in the line of estimation of the internal rate of return of education in
Brazil by stages of teaching. They also find high rates of return for all
stages, suggesting that even though an increase in enrolment and completion
rates can be verified, the relative scarcity of human capital remains existing.
The authors point out that though does not have the highest rate of return (due
to the high costs), higher education is the stage with the highest prizes for
the graduates.
From the person, the gain delivered by
universities is lasting, providing better wages, improving skills to enable
technological growth, a fact that will represent value aggregation to consumer
goods with a reverberation to the economic sector. As savings in human capital
grows, investment in education is expected to be overcome by economic return.
The short and medium-term effects arising from
the presence of universities in the municipalities are extremely significant
since young graduates undertake new businesses that, in turn, create an
environment of more investments, generating an economic atmosphere that tends
to consolidate. Even those young people who prefer a formal job produce a
positive economic effect. Barbosa et al. (2015) estimate these effects by
admitting that there are always gains for municipal economies.
Today's Brazil houses a significant number of
universities and, according to the mapping made by the World Higher Education
Database (whed/ www.whed.net) only the USA has a greater amount of
Universities. The direct impact of the number of universities takes place on
the abundance of money circulating where they are deployed. The concentration
of universities with better performances in the south and southeast Brazilian regions
(Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE, 2009), for example,
produces greater weight in the native gross domestic product (GDP) of the
regions mentioned above. This means that universities are not enough, but they
need to be large universities discerning regional vocations. In the case of
Brazilian regions with more discreet contributions to national GDP,
universities installed there, as a rule, produce important social
modifications, however, the absence of a Layer of entrepreneurship in its
curricular grids could generate less social dependence of the state, besides
allowing greater scientific-social protagonism.
On the other hand, despite the importance of
higher education in terms of offering and increasing qualification in social
capital, there seems to be, generally, a distance between the current demands
of the sector and updating the structural grids of the courses taught. In most
of the educational and research institutions, the content discussed in the
classrooms is not in line with the researchers conducted in the University
laboratories themselves and neither is lined with the desires of the productive
sector. In this sense, a consented espionage agreement between universities and
industries it would be ideal. Universities spy that the technological
bottlenecks are demanding academic assistance and industries would spy if the
content taught to satisfy the constant transformations in the productive
sector, inducing updates. Technological Parks could help, since they produce immediate
approximation between the two universes, facilitating private investment in C
& T. Such a situation is the reality in the English educational system, to
cite an example.
In the case of graduate programs, we could
discuss how to produce training more focused on the expectations of the
productive sector. Besides, there is a need for more appropriate involvement in
the paradigmatic issues of world interest, that is, scientific issues related
to the security of the planet. Even programs with strong specificity should
have a look at the large and complex questions that need translational
responses. Such bias would increment the return on investments in higher
densities.
In November 2016, André Cabette Fábio published
an article in the Nexus newspaper (www.nexojornal.com.br) where it discusses
the impact of universities on economic growth. Among the data displayed, one
draws attention to what it represents: calculations generated in the United
Kingdom (www.eprints.lse.ac.uk/67680/) realize that..."If new universities
were deployed for each of the ten regions, this would increase the national
income by 0.7%. Which means gains of £11bn (R$46 billion). A value is much
higher than government spending, which would be £1.61 billion (R $6.7 billion).
"
Scientific diplomacy
Innovations in information technologies at the
beginning of the 21st century brought facilities in the use of massive amounts
of data. Thus, a new trend concerning scientific and economic management seems
to be imposed. The formation of national and international networks facilitated
cooperation, and in the scientific context, networks can give rise to intrinsic
competitions, with the generation of eventual conflicts of interest, even if
they have been created for cooperation. The tendency, in these cases, is to
seek mediation which can be attended by a science diplomat.
The process of science diplomacy has been
established in several fields, but the notion that covers the term and the
concept shows to be a field of studies for Interactions peaceful related to
Knowledge production, using science as a tool for the benefit of mankind, and
can be promulgated by scientists or scientific Enterprises (Davis and Patman,
2015; Tonami, 2016). However, it was President Eisenhower who covered the way
for mankind to establish international spaces during the second half of the
20th century when it promoted the agreement today known with the Antarctic
Treaty. There he established the concept of international spaces, which has
been important to also delimit Scientific Diplomacy (Berkman, 2011).
Rice (2014) advocates that: Effective use of scientific advice in diplomacy
requires international policymakers to have a minimum level of scientific
literacy and requires scientists to communicate their work in an accessible and
intelligible, context-sensitive way. Broader political.
It is therefore clear that this mediation must
occur in a fluid communication environment, where diplomats and scientists
demonstrate the cross -Knowledge of the respective work area. Such an arrangement
will allow the use of the so-called soft power, which may contribute to
building relationships international bilateral or multilateral with long-term
benefits to soften any conflicts in relationship networks, as Dolan (2012).
The question of technological innovation goes
beyond the scientific environment because it can hesitate in sovereignty
limits. However, scientific diplomacy will make it easier for each country to
meet its goals, share talents, and create new ideas and resources. Thus, according
to Flink et al. (2010), three groups of objectives can be pursued: access,
promotion, and influence. Consequently, there are a variety of actors who
require diplomatic expertise to organize strategies to promote cooperation.
Arroz (2014) concludes that: More and more scientific diplomacy in
collaboration with science and technology is decided to collaborate to attract
the best students, researchers, and companies from all over the world. This
intention could make the country more competitive by improving its reputation
and making it more attractive for investment.
Conformation of networks exceeds isolations and
may influence in the use of scientific diplomacy to assist in the talent
attraction, financial resources, and political cooperation, helping to
disseminate partners on the international scenario. “Associated with science
there are norms such as rationality, deliberation, universalism[...]
"(Arroz, 2014).
Looking back at the scientific environment in
the Amazon region, we must think about the formation of scientists with an
international dimension and that know establish bonds through diplomacy.
Considering that 60% of the area of Amazonian
is in Brazilian territory, thinking about sustainable development requires the
establishment of a scientific-diplomatic network, to be able to ideate
continental planning. Any developmental action, individually planned by
Amazonian countries, and without joint discussion of the objectives, could
result in losses, especially concerning health environmental. For this reason,
South American integration is essential to ensure that we have a sustainable
future, and this notion goes through innovative and participative planning.
South American cooperation agreements can
accelerate achievements in science and technology with their respective
economic repercussions. One of the European countries that have taken the lead
in the green economy is Germany (Christian Lutz et al., 2017), and for this
reason, a teuto-amazonian approach should be of interest, particularly
important for the economic model of the Manaus free zone. Such a partnership
could to converge into a new perspective on the aggregation of value to
biodiversity, clean energy, in addition to providing an atmosphere of
innovation to local education and research institutions, improving, including
the governance of natural heritage, in addition to enabling access to promising
markets for innovation and development.
In this sense, the Brazilian Government should
initiate actions to seek intermediations that allow, for example, the
construction of transnational universities in the Brazilian Amazon. Obviously,
the South American environment to cooperate in science and technology is still
embryonic, but, it would be strongly recommended that they be made for the
integration of human and scientific capital into the formulation of
international policies for education, in order to form a continental
educational system, similar to what is in the European Community, especially
for the development of strategic partnerships aimed at reducing eventual
environmental disasters by virtue of the individual priorities of the
countries. In the case of the Brazilian Amazon, Fonseca(2017) suggested the
creation of three new universities, one in the region of the tri-border Brazil,
Peru and Bolivia, another in the region of Tefé in the middle Solimões river,
and one last in the lower Amazon in the region of Parintins. If these
universities were conceived with a transnational character, they would be
necessary for important discussions on development and innovation, particularly
in crucial matters such as transport, energy, communications, mining and green
economy. However, there are other ways of fostering partnerships, such as the
creation of international graduate courses with validity for the countries
involved, as well as research and education involving one or more institutions
of the Brazil and one or more foreign institutions within a country or region.
Scientific cooperation agreements brokered by
diplomacy should be the next step in the search for new frontiers and ways to
develop the Amazonian, favouring political and economic benefits, involving
academics and diplomats to generate a continental science, as foreseen by
Neureiter (2012), with a view to shaping the current generation and the next to
the innovative translational scientific work, which provides for the formation
of groups of transnational research.
Currently, international scientific cooperation
is in the responsibility of universities, but requires even greater
governmental attention, since scientific diplomacy will guide the strategies of
transfers of technologies which, in some cases, require limits, considering
that efficient technologies are not only political tools, but can be inflection
points for wealth creation. It's important to remember that for South America,
continental cooperation between emerging nations can open opportunities to face
challenges and increment connectivity for competition in the global economy
(Sweet, 2015). In This sense, scientific diplomacy is prominent and virtually
transformative. Support for the development of consortia for international
communication is crucial, especially for developing countries, so, scientific
diplomacy can help to acquire common perceptions of problems and opportunities,
that is, a way to relate global thinking to regional action, through the
leverage of its scientific portfolios, infrastructure sharing, training of a
globally engaged workforce and especially opportunities to scan the horizons to
anticipate emergency development issues.
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