Seeking for new patterns of development in Brazil: The case of a science park in São Paulo state

This paper consists in a case study of a Science Park at the State of São Paulo, Brazil. We aim to explain how universities, companies and the State are innovating their relationship by getting in touch in the parks, environments created with the proposal of fostering innovation and competitiveness. We start with the idea that the relationship between universities and companies has been changing in Brazil, following an international trend. Universities look forward to add value to their research, mainly by transferring the results to the productive sector. By its turn, the productive sector is increasingly using basic research to get new products or even innovative processes and services. This is a new situation, which some authors call the economy / knowledge society, in which science parks have an important role in promoting Science, Technology, Innovation and Development. The main hypothesis of this paper is that the government plays a key role in the success or failure of technology-based ventures (such as science parks) in Brazil. Policies of Science, Technology and Innovation are a strong stimulator for science parks’ companies become able to bring economic and social impact. The park studied here is a relatively recent Science Park experience in Brazil, which was created under the spectrum of public policies to foster innovation, from the federal and local governments. Our findings sugests that public policies of science, technology and innovation, mainly direct investments in companies and programs that put universities and companies in touch are crucial for the in park companies survival. The methodology is shaped on mixed methods, from which we could evaluate the role of public policies to foster innovation in Brazil.