To succeed in a consumer market as competitive as today's, companies have been seeking increasingly efficient ways to reach consumers. Some aim to offer products with great cost/benefit, others invest heavily in advertising, but some seek to develop innovative products and services that meet consumers' needs in a different way. However, the choice for innovation requires the extensive use of a variety of resources, especially financial and intellectual. Therefore, a company that finds smart ways to apply these resources ends up gaining a considerable competitive advantage. In this context, the formation of specific partnerships that combine both knowledge and financial resources has proven to be an interesting way to increase innovation success rates.
Brazilian public funding agencies have considerably improved their support instruments for innovation that favor the tripartite institutional arrangement of company-university-government. This arrangement, commonly found in funding instruments in Europe and the United States, facilitates the development of new products and businesses, as it favors the convergence of knowledge generated in research institutions with the efficiency and market vision of companies.
In Brazil, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) operates the Technological Fund (FUNTEC), a program aimed at connecting companies and Science and Technology Institutes, providing financial support for projects aligned with national science, technology, and innovation policies. An important requirement of this specific program is the market launch of the partnership project's results.
Recently, new programs operated jointly by FINEP and BNDES, called INOVA, have also encouraged the formation of arrangements between universities and companies in the development of innovative projects. One of the first steps in the merit analysis phase of projects submitted to these calls is their ability to induce the formation of research and development consortia, where various institutions join the executing companies and universities of the project, aiming to favor the use of complementary skills in its development.
State research support foundations (FAPs) also have various instruments to encourage technological development, which co-finance projects carried out in cooperation between universities and companies. An example of this instrument is the PITE (Program for Supporting Research in Partnership for Technological Innovation) from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
Moving to the global scenario, another impactful funding tool for Open Innovation is Research, Development, and Innovation (P&D&I) consortia. The Framework Programs, controlled by the European Commission, provide various forms of support for P&D&I, such as traditional funding for basic and applied research and postgraduate scholarships, and also offer funding lines for international consortia for research. This modality finances projects on a wide range of topics, with the participation of institutions located in different countries.
In a global scenario favorable to large investments in innovation, such as the approximately €80 billion expected for the new European program (2014-2020), and the R$ 30 billion allocated to innovation by the federal government until 2014, certainly making use of funding instruments for P,D&I, whether national or international, is an excellent alternative for companies to increase their investments in higher-risk and more innovative projects, being an important pathway to success in a dynamic, competitive, and globalized market.
Tulio Zozolotto is a chemist, graduated from the University of São Paulo - USP. He currently works in the area of Innovation Promotion.
Contact: tuliozozolotto@natura.net
References:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/index_en.cfm
http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm
http://www.finep.gov.br/pagina.asp?pag=programas_inovaenergia
