Indicadores de produção científica e tecnológica na interação universidade-empresa

Abstract

Federal institutions of higher education in Brasil have had traditionally as their basic attributions teaching and research activities. Most of these institutions reach results that, in quality and in numbers, indicate performances of high level, comparatively to international standards, in personnels formation as well as in scientific production. Because of the fact that knowledge is assuming a strategic role in the development of countries, these institutions have been asked to incorporate to their consolidated attributions the participation in the economic and social development of the environment in which they are acting. Consequently knowledge developed in the academic environment, in particular that related to technology, has been receiving great attention, since it is expected to offer an answer to regional problems. The Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), has been stablishing partnerships with industries in order to develop technology. This process in spite of its controversial character, has proven to be an important and successful avenue. Science and technology activities developed and their results can be represented by indicators that contitute an important tool for their evaluation and for the stablishment of strategic plans. In this way, the university, as most institutions, registers its activities and builds indicators that are used in its dayly activities. These indicators contemplate in a relatively satisfatory way the scientific activity of the university which is represented, fundamentally, by the publication of results in the form of bibliographical production. On the other side, the activities of tecnology creation, as well as their results, are not reflected in the normally used indicators. The present work analyses three cases of interaction of the UFMG with the industrial sector to understand how each part participates in the process of technology creation and to evaluate how those activities were represented in the traditional productivity indicators of the university. In this study we discuss existing forms of representation of the activities of creation of technology so that they can be more easily visualized, in order to contribute to the improvement of academic prodution indicators, which are used to fundament strategic decisions, to support evaluation, and to show in a transparent way the university contribution on the field of knowlege production.