Cooperação universidade/empresa na pos-graduação: contribuição para a aprendizagem, a gestão do conhecimento e a inovação na industria mineira

Abstract

The technological innovation has been one of the principal agents of economical and social changes in the developed countries. The experience has been showing that the most innovative companies are those that demonstrate larger competence to manage and incorporate new knowledge in their products and services. The potential partners of the companies in the technology development are the research institutes, the universities, the suppliers and customers and the other companies. This research was developed with the purpose of evaluating the cooperation between universities and companies to improve the human resources at post-graduation level. The evaluation focalized the cooperation as an instrument to enhance the learning capacity and the innovation in the companies, taking in consideration the most recent contributions on the nature of knowledge, innovation, knowledge management and organizational learning. The behavior of the companies participating in the University/Enterprise Cooperation Program of Minas Gerais was analyzed to verify how these companies are investing in innovation and learning as essential factors for their development and competitiveness. For evaluation purpose some of the results were grouped together in three characteristic stages of the process of knowledge management, that are: the creation, sharing and registration of knowledge. Some indicators were compared to the French CIFRE Program that has the same objectives of the Minas Gerais Program. It could be concluded that this Program has been contributing to overcome the technological fragility and the absence of cooperation in the Brazilian innovation system because it increases the inter-connectivity among the several agents of the Science & Technology system, it induces the cooperation as a way to expand and to accelerate the process of joint learning, stimulates the private sector to strengthen the activities in the education, science and technology areas, and it enlarges the participation of Minas Gerais state in these processes. The increase of the investment in the formation of human resources is in agreement with the dynamics of the Knowledge Society that requests a continuous learning along the life, that allows to the individual to follow the technological changes and, above all, to innovate.