WARN-Count in xref table is 0 at offset 513920 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
Brief on SME INNOVATION PERFORMANCE 2012/2013 Annual Report of European SMES Chiara Marzocchi, Ronald Ramlogan and Dimitri Gagliardi
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research MBS, the University of Manchester. UK June 2013 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 2 Client: European commission June, 2013 DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this document are those of the project consortium
members and do not represent any official view of the European commission. The responsibility for the content of this report lies with the project consortium
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 3 PROJECT CONSORTIUM MEMBERS
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 4 Contents 1. Introduction...
5 2. SME Innovation Performance...6 3. SME Innovation Performance: final remarks...11 REFERENCES...12
ANNEXES...14 I. Proportion of Product and Process Innovation (enterprises...14 II. TOTAL INNOVATION EXPENDITURES (2010)..15
III. R&d EXPENDITURES †intramural (2010)..16 IV. R&d EXPENDITURES †extramural (2010)..17 INDEX OF TABLES
Table 1: Firms cooperating for innovation-Proportion of product and process innovative enterprises (2010)..6
Table 2: Proportion of total expenditures on innovation by SMES and large firms (2010) 7
Table 3: Proportion of total expenditures in intramural R&d by SMES and large firms 2010)..8
Table 4: Proportion of Total Expenditures in Extramural R&d, SMES and large firms 2010)..9
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 5 1. Introduction
Innovation is arguably one of the main drivers of economic growth and the capacity to innovate among the most important factors enhancing competitiveness on a global scale
Grossman and Helpman 1991, Nelson 1996, Baumol 2002. Such capacity depends on a series of framework conditions which enable firms to pursue the necessary investments
in R&d and enhance the knowledge content of the product and services delivered and hence their productivity
Recent literature suggest that European SMES have increased their share of absolute R&d expenditures but such intensity of R&d expenditures is on average low as SMES
tend to engage in less R&d intensity sectors (Moncada Paternã Castello 2011. Latest analyses reported in the Innovation Union Scoreboard (2013) also highlight that in
general the innovation divide between the Member States is widening, with less innovative countries no longer catching-up with the most innovative countries.
This means that differences in innovation performance in the European union have started to increase signalling a possible start of a process of divergence in Member Statesâ€
innovation performance. In this perspective, it has been observed that the framework conditions for business R&d vary considerably across European countries, with the
Northern European countries holding top positions on many indicators quite systematically (EU Competitiveness Report on SMES 2011
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 6 2. SME Innovation Performance
This section will focus on innovative SMES and will investigate investments associated to innovation; expenditures in R&d both internal and external to the firm;
and proportion of enterprises cooperation active engaging in product and process innovation. The tables and figures below are sourced from Eurostat available aggregates of the last edition of
the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2010. Data represent SMES compared to Large firms. In the present analysis we consider sectors defined as â€oeall Core NACE rev 2
-Private, nonfinancial activities†related to innovation1 The table below (see also Figure 1a in Appendix) shows proportions of product and
process innovative enterprises engaged in cooperation divided by size class. As the table shows, small and medium enterprises cooperate on innovation in about the 34 per cent
of cases (EU-27 average. In 13 countries SMES were innovative and cooperating as much on product and process innovation as large firms.
Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden) featured strongly within that group as well as The netherlands and Germany Table 1:
Firms cooperating for innovation -Proportion of product and process innovative enterprises (2010 COUNTRY SMES LARGE
Austria 0, 4708 0, 5531 Belgium 0, 4747 0, 4692 Bulgaria 0, 142 0, 2031
Cyprus 0, 5515 0, 7257 Czech republic 0, 3301 0, 4134 Germany 0, 4545 0, 5405
Denmark 0, 3059 0, 4023 Estonia 0, 3506 0, 5075 Spain 0, 2721 0, 464
Finland 0, 4143 0, 5105 France 0, 3421 0, 4154 Hungary 0, 1315 0, 2608
Ireland 0, 4557 0, 5199 Italy 0, 4676 0, 4521 Lithuania 0, 1943 0, 3587
Luxembourg 0, 3889 0, 5443 Latvia 0, 1084 0, 2755 Malta 0, 3568 0, 4231
Netherlands 0, 4678 0, 4215 Poland 0, 1591 0, 3363 Portugal 0, 5449 0, 6295
Romania 0, 1703 0, 235 1 All Core NACE activities related to innovation activities (B c, D, E, G46, H, J58, J61, J62, J63, K and M71
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 7 Sweden 0, 3683 0, 4081
Slovenia 0, 4167 0, 5977 Slovakia 0, 2653 0, 3079 United kingdom 0, 2326 0, 1783
EU-15 0, 3904 0, 4418 EU-27 0, 3474 0, 4133 Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR
Overall, recent empirical findings show that the environment for innovation has changed with the importance of new and small firms to the innovation process has increased
However such improvement is balanced by an uneven distribution of small firm innovation between a few highly innovative and high-growth-potential firms and the
great majority of SMES that innovate very little compared to their larger counterparts OECD 2010.
The data suggest that SMES innovate less than large firms across a range of categories including product innovation, process innovation, non-technological
innovation, new to market product innovations and collaboration in innovation activities In the following tables is presented proportions of innovation expenditures by firm size
Innovation expenditure covers a wide array of input associated to innovation activities at the firm level.
As such, they consider all the investments associated to: R&d; acquisition of advanced machinery, equipment and software for innovation;
purchase or licensing of patents and non-patented inventions, know-how and other types of knowledge;
training for innovative activities; design activities for the development of new products; other market activities (such as:
market research, changes to marketing methods and advertising). ) On average (EU-25) the share of SMES innovation spending was 36%of
total expenditures on innovation. In 2010, SMES in Greece and Ireland accounted for around the 50%of total expenditures on innovation.
In 13 countries SMES level of expenditures in innovation was more than the overall sample average (see also
Appendix: Figure 2a Table 2: Proportion of total expenditures on innovation by SMES and large firms (2010
COUNTRY SMES LARGE Austria 0, 34 0, 66 Belgium 0, 33 0, 67 Bulgaria 0, 43 0, 57
Cyprus 0, 48 0, 52 Czech republic 0, 38 0, 62 Germany 0, 16 0, 84
Denmark 0, 21 0, 79 Estonia 0, 67 0, 33 Spain 0, 33 0, 67
Finland 0, 22 0, 78 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013
8 France 0, 33 0, 67 Hungary 0, 20 0, 80 Ireland 0, 49 0, 51
Italy 0, 44 0, 56 Lithuania 0, 41 0, 59 Luxembourg 0, 36 0, 64
Latvia 0, 39 0, 61 Malta 0, 47 0, 53 Netherlands 0, 45 0, 55
Poland 0, 21 0, 79 Portugal 0, 45 0, 55 Romania 0, 25 0, 75
Sweden 0, 28 0, 72 Slovenia 0, 41 0, 59 Slovakia 0, 37 0, 63
Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR In a study employing Community Innovation Survey data over 16 countries, Holzl (2009
found that high-growth SMES are more innovative and that R&d is more important to
high growth SMES in countries closer to the technological frontier The next two tables provide a more specific proxy of the actual expenditures in research
and development at the firm level providing a more direct assessment of the investments purely associated to technological innovation
The tables distinguish between intramural and extramural R&d. The former defined as all creative work undertaken within the enterprise that increases knowledge for developing
new and improved goods or services and processes, and the latter considering the same activities as above,
but performed by other companies, including other businesses within your group, or by public or private research organisations and then purchased by the
enterprise In 2010, the EU-25 average proportion of intramural R&d expenditures by SMES was
around the 35 per cent and the countries with a higher quota of SME investment in
internal R&d awere eleven, among which Lituania (LT) with the highest levels (74 %Poland, Finland and Denmark respectively these countries recorded the lowest amount of
resources invested in internal R&d Table 3: Proportion of total expenditures in intramural R&d by SMES and large firms
2010 COUNTRY SMES LARGE Austria 0, 30 0, 70 Belgium 0, 29 0, 71 Bulgaria 0, 45 0, 55
Cyprus 0, 46 0, 54 Czech republic 0, 51 0, 49 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 9 Denmark 0, 19 0, 81 Estonia 0, 56 0, 44
Spain 0, 41 0, 59 Finland 0, 17 0, 83 France 0, 24 0, 76
Hungary 0, 29 0, 71 Ireland 0, 45 0, 55 Italy 0, 39 0, 61
Lithuania 0, 74 0, 26 Luxembourg 0, 28 0, 72 Latvia 0, 57 0, 43
Malta 0, 66 0, 34 Netherlands 0, 29 0, 71 Poland 0, 15 0, 85
Portugal 0, 34 0, 66 Romania 0, 34 0, 66 Sweden 0, 21 0, 79
Slovenia 0, 30 0, 70 Slovakia 0, 38 0, 62 Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR
Finally, the last table looks at the proportion of R&d expenditures from companies outside the enterprise.
The average level of outsourced investment for SMES was slightly lower than the average internal expenditures:
32 per cent (against 35 per cent suggesting that SMES mildly tend to carry their R&d in house rather than purchasing it
from other firms. Eleven of the considered countries had a level of extramural expenditures higher than average, with Lituania†s SMES (LT) having up to the 86 per
cent of their R&d purchased from other companies Table 4: Proportion of Total Expenditures in
Extramural R&d, SMES and large firms 2010) 2 COUNTRY SMES LARGE Austria 0, 26 0, 74
Belgium 0, 14 0, 86 Bulgaria 0, 39 0, 61 Cyprus 0, 47 0, 53
Czech republic 0, 15 0, 85 Denmark 0, 15 0, 85 Estonia 0, 54 0, 46
Spain 0, 21 0, 79 Finland 0, 20 0, 80 France 0, 34 0, 66
Hungary 0, 05 0, 95 Ireland 0, 27 0, 73 Italy 0, 26 0, 74
Lithuania 0, 86 0, 14 2 All Core NACE activities related to innovation activities (B c, D, E, G46, H, J58, J61, J62, J63, K and M71
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 10 Luxembourg 0, 45 0, 55
Latvia 0, 57 0, 43 Malta 0, 52 0, 48 Netherlands 0, 25 0, 75
Poland 0, 08 0, 92 Portugal 0, 43 0, 57 Romania 0, 14 0, 86
Sweden 0, 18 0, 82 Slovenia 0, 43 0, 57 Slovakia 0, 41 0, 59
Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR Although increasing institutional efforts to harmonize data for the understanding of the
relationship between innovation and SMES performance, comparative exercises at the EU level still provide controversial results because of sampling selection issues (Criscuolo et
Al. 2010), and for the difficulty to separate the effect of context dependent factors (such
as firm†s age, or type of innovation or culture context) in the analysis (Rosenbush Et al
2011 However, recent literature on the relationship between R&d intensity and productivity found that firm size and R&d intensity,
along with investment in equipment, enhances the likelihood of having both process and product innovation. Both these kinds of
innovation have a positive impact on firm's productivity, especially process innovation Among SMES, larger and older firms seem to be less productive.
Finally, product innovation seems to have a positive impact on firms'labour productivity (Hall Et al
2009). ) These results hold across four large EU economies with a high SMES intensity such as Italy, France, Germany, Spain and UK (Griffith et al. 2006
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 11 3. SME Innovation Performance:
final remarks In the previous section we looked at key innovation inputs such as broad investments
associated to innovation and expenditures in R&d; and at the innovation output in terms of the proportion of enterprises engaging in product and process innovation
Despite our analysis was bounded by data availability, it is relevant to remember that to increase SMES competitiveness other elements should be considered.
Such elements are defined according to the idea that innovation occurs within a wider framework which is
identified by the environmental conditions enabling the innovation process and that eco -system factors play a crucial role in determining direction
and opportunities to innovate Allman Et al. 2011 In particular, key enablers of the innovation process rest on the interplay between
available resources and knowledge creation, a relationship shaped by factors such as human capital, infrastructures, access to finance and knowledge exchange between
public research base and entrepreneurs Research into human capital has suggested that innovation-driven growth in small and
medium sized firms is fostered by a broad range of capabilities both managerial and entrepreneurial (Kakaki 2003;
Macpherson and Holt 2007. Moreover, a recent study highlights how skills are very relevant enablers of SMES capacity to export (Love and
Roper 2013. Human and social capital in turn also activate networking opportunities and increase firms†absorptive capacities, defined as the capacity of make use of external
knowledge Institutional, physical and financial infrastructures such as the normative framework stimulating trade and competition; an increasing communication and digitalization
accessibility; as well as smooth lending technologies augmenting credit availability are all historically tested keys to pursue the expansion of productivity (Mokyr 2008
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 12 REFERENCES Allman K.,Jakob Edler, Luke Georghiou, Barbara Jones, Ian Miles, Omid Omidvar
Ronnie Ramlogan and John Rigby (2011), Measuring Wider Framework Conditions for successful innovation. A system†s review of UK and international innovation data, NESTA
Report, London (UK Baumol William J. 2002), The free-market innovation machine: analysing the growth
miracle of capitalism, New jersey: Princeton university Press Bronwyn H. Hall, Francesca Lotti and Jacques Mairesse (Jun.,2009), Innovation and
Productivity in SMES: Empirical Evidence for Italy, Small Business Economics, Vol. 33 No. 1 Cohen W. M. and Levinthal D. A (1990) Absorptive Capacity:
A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35 (1), 128-152 Criscuolo C. Squicciarini Mariagrazia, Lehtoranta Olavi (2010), R&d, innovation and
productivity, and the CIS: sampling, specification and comparability issues, MPRA Paper No 39261 (http://mpra. ub. uni-muenchen. de/39261/1/MPRA PAPER 39261. pdf
European commission (2011), Competitiveness Report on SMES (2011), European Commission, Research and Innovation http://ec. europa. eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/competitiveness
-report/2011/executive summary. pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none European commission (2013), Innovation Union Scoreboard http://ec. europa. eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/files/ius-2013 en. pdf
Griffith R.,Elena Huergo, Jacques Mairesse, and Bettina Peters (2006), Innovation and Productivity across four European countries, Oxford Review of Economic policy, Vol. 22
No 4 Grossman G. M.,Elhanan Helpman (1991), Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy, Massachussets:
MIT Press Holzl W. 2009), Is the R&d behaviour of fast-growing SMES different? Evidence from
CIS III data for 16 countries, Small Business Economics, Vol. 33 pp 59†75 Kakati M. 2003), Success criteria in high-tech new ventures, Technovation, Vol. 23
Issue 5, pp. 447†457 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013
13 Kline, S. J.,Nathan Rosenberg (1986. â€oean overview of innovation†In R. Landau & N
Rosenberg (eds. The Positive Sum Strategy: Harnessing Technology for Economic Growth. Washington, D c.:National Academy Press, pp. 275†305
Love J.,Stephen Roper (2013), SMES Innovation, Exporting and Growth, ERC White Paper N 5
Macpherson A.,Robin Holt (2007), Knowledge, learning and small firm growth: A systematic review of the evidence, Research Policy, Volume 36 pp 172-192
Mokyr J. 2008), The Institutional Origins of the Industrial revolution, in Elhanan Helpman, ed.,Institutions and Economic Performance.
Harvard university Press, 2008 pp. 64-119 Moncada Paternã Castello P. 2011)" Companies'growth in the EU:
What is research and innovation policy's role?""IPTS Working papers on Corporate R&d and Innovation series
http://iri. jrc. ec. europa. eu/papers. htm Nelson R. R. 1996), The Sources of Economic growth, London:
Harvard university Press OECD (2010), SMES, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Centre for Entrepreneurship SMES and Local Development, Paris:
OECD Publishing Rosenbusch N.,Jan Brinckmann, Adreas Bausch (2011), Is innovation always beneficial A meta-analysis of the relationship between innovation and performance in SMES
Journal of Business Venturing, Volume 26, Issue 4, pp 441†457 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
ANNEXES I. PROPORTION OF PRODUCT AND PROCESS INNOVATION (ENTERPRISES Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR
2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 15 II. TOTAL INNOVATION EXPENDITURES (2010
Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013
16 III. R&d EXPENDITURES †INTRAMURAL (2010 Source: Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR 2013 Brief on INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
ANNUAL REPORT ON EUROPEAN SMES 2012/2013 17 IV. R&d EXPENDITURES †EXTRAMURAL (2010 Source:
Eurostat, DIW econ, London Economics, MIOIR
Building Bridges: Social Inclusion Problems as Research and Innovation Issues Santiago Alzugaray *Academic Unit, University Research Council, Universidad de la Repã blica, Montevideo
Uruguay†Leticia Mederos *Academic Unit, University Research Council, Universidad de la Repã blica, Montevideo Uruguayâ€
Judith Sutz *Academic Unit, University Research Council, Universidad de la Repã blica, Montevideo Uruguay†Abstract
This article discussed why specific efforts aimed at establishing direct relationships between social inclusion problems and research and innovation projects are needed,
what are the main difficulties to achieve this objective, and how these difficulties can be addressed.
This focus came from the successive calls of a program called â€oeresearch and Innovation Oriented to Social Inclusion,
†implemented by the Research Council of the Universidad de la Repã blica, Uruguay. A critical appraisal of this experience
and the main lessons learned were presented through the lens of an analytical tool: a circuit in which
different types of actors interact while traveling along it. The point of departure of the circuit was the
recognition that a problem that hampers social inclusion exists; the end of the circuit is reached if an
effective solution for that problem is achieved. Some examples from actual research projects were included to illustrate the functioning of the circuit.
The article analyzed with some detail the possible short circuits that may occur at each stage of the circuit and
what their causes might be. It analyzed as well the transformations undergone by the â€oeresearch and Innovation Oriented to Social Inclusionâ€
program and its attempts to avoid the short circuits, evolving in that way toward a more hands-on
strategy to link research and societal needs KEY WORDS: social inclusion, Uruguay, innovation, social policy Introduction The arguments for research and innovation in the public discourse have been
mainly centered on the view that both, combined, would create economic growth and lead eventually to economic development.
Economic growth would be the increased productivity in the existing activities; economic development would come from the opening, through research and innovation, of new production
branches or the birth of knowledge-based firms (OECD, 2005; Schumpeter 1934). ) Other justifications centered on the contribution of research and innova
-tion to solve some specific social problems have been put forward as well. For This paper is indebted intellectually to the collective theoretical and empirical work done on the subject by the
Academic Unit of CSIC (Comisiã n Sectorial de Investigaciã n Cientã fica: we thank our colleagues for that
*santiago@csic. edu. uy; lmederos@csic. edu. uy; jsutz@csic. edu. uy †http://www. csic. edu. uy
bs bs banner 776 Review of Policy Research, Volume 29, Number 6 (2012) 10.1111/j. 1541-1338.2012.00592. x
 2012 by The Policy Studies Organization. All rights reserved instance, as Cozzens and colleagues (2007,
p. 2) posited, â€oeinnovation policies gen -erally respond primarily to the competitiveness agenda, but can also be directed
in pro-poor ways by putting jobs front and center and focusing on pro-poor
technologies. †To what extent the â€oesocial inclusion†part is winning a real place within research and innovation policies is not yet clear though.
If we take for instance, the Economic commission for latin america and the Caribbean ECLAC, 2010) report, Time for Equality:
Closing Gaps, Opening Trails, we will find that innovation, a term repeatedly referred to in the text,
is without exception used in relation to competitiveness, sustainable economic growth, closing the structural heterogeneity gap in productivity,
and the like, but not as a direct tool in the fight against poverty and inequality
The hypothesis that there is a trickle-down effect from economic growth to social inclusion, implicit in many analyses, is illusory;
even the blending of improved economic conditions and focused social policies have left important parts of the
population in many countries without access to dignified life conditions (see, for instance, Infante & Sunkel 2009 for the Chilean situation.
Equally illusory is the hypothesis that with greater scientific and technological achievements, we will be capable of solving the social exclusion problems that our societies face.
That this is not true has been stated long ago; an inspiring essay by Richard Nelson (1974 analyzed the reason why it is (at least) naive to believe that taking a man to the moon
would assure the eradication of the ghettos; his argument stands after more than 30 years (Nelson, 2011
A variety of initiatives, at the international level, are becoming increasingly visible, which rejects the ideas that social inclusion comes naturally from growth and
the existing knowledge would automatically collaborate with such inclusion (see, for instance, both the â€oeold†Sussex Manifesto Singer et al.
1970 and the â€oenew Mani -festo†STEPS, 2010. What old and new initiatives have in common is the recog
-nition that collective knowledge is a powerful tool, combined with others, in the search of social inclusion
This recognition is shared by the Universidad de la Repã blica, Uruguay. As an exploratory attempt to align such recognition to practice, a specific program
organized as a competitive call for projects, was designed. It aims to foster research agendas that incorporate problems affecting the most deprived sectors of the
population. The reflections included in this article relate to the experience in implementing this program The program focuses on problems without workable or/and accessible solutions
faced by socially excluded groups: we refer to them as â€oesocial inclusion problems†SIPS). ) The solutions to be found may be technological or not;
they have in common the need for research as part of their construction. While designing the program
diverse questions were raised. For instance, what is a SIP from an academic research point of view? This is not an easy question.
Researchers who might have the knowledge required to help solve some SIPS will work on them, as researchers, if
the problems require research as part of their solutions. However, as has often occurred in efforts to connect people affected by SIPS and researchers, the former
brings up issues where research has no relevance. There is, thus, a problem of demarcation that must be solved by identifying SIPS where new knowledge can
contribute to finding solutions. However, research will always remain a part of such Building Bridges 777
solutions: important as it may be, little would be accomplished if many other actors seriously and systematically, do not combine their actions in a rational way in the
pursuit of a shared goal that commits them all. Who are those actors? There is no
general answer: much will depend on the problem itself and on those directly affected by it.
However, the question is valid, and it leads to an additional one: how may a complete map of the actors capable of intervening in the building of solu
-tions, its diffusion, and full implementation be outlined or elaborated? Two assump -tions are made in relation to these questions:
first, there are SIPS for which academic research can (and should) contribute to find solutions; second, that
searching and obtaining solutions implies a multistage process, requiring a systemic behavior of the different actors involved
Our reflection develops in the Uruguayan setting, meaning that even though we use the National Systems of Innovation approach,
we take as well into account that differently from the â€oenorth, †we are working with a rather â€oeex-ante†theoretical
construct (Arocena & Sutz, 2003. This implies that we will probably not be dealing so often with well-behaved systemic circuits but,
instead, with incomplete trajecto -ries. This is why besides depicting the circuit as an analytical tool to take into
account the encounters between actors in the process of problem solving, special attention is paid to the possible short circuits that can truncate the travel and affect
the systemic behavior. The article is organized in five sections: the next section characterizes SIPS as research problems, section three deals with the actors that
intervene in the process and their interactions, section four describes the traveling along the circuit (and the short circuits) providing concrete examples as illustra
-tions, and section five reflects on the process of institutional learning that fostered the changes followed by the program from its first call until now
Social Inclusion Problems as Research Problems: Bridges to Be built SIPS are those problems that severely affect the quality of life of some groups, at a
material or symbolic level. Such problems refer to the disadvantages of individuals or social groups that are excluded from the opportunities shared by others (Sen
2000). ) We do not mean that any â€oefeeling of disadvantage†configures a social exclusion situation;
that is why we focus on situations that limit the quality of life in terms of jeopardizing the survival possibilities or the dignity of life.
In agreement with Sen, we set social exclusion analysis in a frame that extends the definition of
poverty to comprehend it as capability deprivation and we distinguish between the constitutive and instrumental nature of social exclusion.
Constitutive exclusion situations are those that constitute a significant deprivation: typical examples of this type of exclusion can be found in the realm of health.
On the other hand, we have situations of deprivation that could not have much intrinsic relevance but, through
causal chains, may derive to other deprivations: they are called instrumental exclu -sion. The program â€oeresearch and Innovation Oriented towards Social Inclusionâ€
faces both types of â€oeexclusion problems, †even though the examples presented later are mostly of the constitutive exclusion type
Any exclusion situation is social and historically situated; it is a relational situa -tion, which has other social groups as a reference.
As already indicated, this does not mean that every situation of this type should be looked equally after in our frame
778 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz of work but rather the most urgent ones†concrete deprivations that cause signifi
-cant limitations to the quality of life in absolute terms Once the SIPS are delimited, there are at least two conditions they should fulfill
to allow academic research to address them. The first condition is that the problem becomes visible.
This can be achieved by setting a point of view or a demand. In Hirschman†s (1970) terminology, this would imply that the problem has â€oevoice, â€
that it expresses â€oeany attempt at all to change, rather than to escape from, an objectionable state of affairs†(Hirschman, 1970, p. 30.
This is akin to Sen†s approach, whose recommendation in relation to the development process is to visualize people as agents, not as patients (Sen, 1999.
â€oevoice†can be seen as a concept connected with people†s objectives, which are valued, wanted, and sought
for a reason. Problems that lack â€oevoice†not only are difficult to detect but also the essential articulation between different actor†s efforts, in pursuit of a possible solu
-tion, is almost impossible We consider that a problem â€oehas voice†if it is recognized as such by an actor
directly linked to it. Not infrequently, researchers may figure out how their knowl -edge can contribute to the solution of some SIPS,
but this outlook â€oefrom the knowledge supply side†does not guarantee â€oevoice. †The second condition alludes
to the nature of the problem and to the kind of interventions needed to reach a
solution: if new knowledge is required not, research will provide little help. The â€oesocial inclusion problem that requires research for its solution†notion deserves
further discussion. If at the problem†s roots we identify justice and power asymme -try as main causes, the academic research contribution can be seen as a palliative, of
little effectiveness as a solution component. Problems with such roots are, for example, the extremely high cost of some vaccines for diseases that affect mainly or
fundamentally some countries that do not have the resources to pay for them, or the absence of investment in vital infrastructure such as sewage, or starvation and
undernourishment in the midst of the world†s food overproduction, among many others. This is why we stress that both the notion of problem and of resolution that
we are using in this article does not necessarily address the identification of struc -tural causes and less so implies working on their removal.
The main condition that problems must meet is to be a barrier to social inclusion
and require new knowledge as a part of the solution-building process. We also want to stress that although we
emphasize the need of new knowledge to contribute to finding solutions, with similar forcefulness, we recognize that the articulated commitment of a diversity of
actors is an essential ingredient. In turn, the question remains why the Universidad de la Repã blica intends to build bridges that put in contact research
and SIPS as a contribution to solve the latter. One answer is because it is a specific way of
expressing the university social commitment. Another, and by no means less impor -tant, answer is to foster the recognition of SIPS by the researchers†â€oeacademic
radars. †The expectation is that the resulting research agendas will therefore become richer and the university integration into society will become stronger
The Intervening Actors We take Sábato and Botana†s (1968) classic concepts, particularly their systemic
approach to understand sociotechnical performances at the national level, as a frame Building Bridges 779
of reference in order to characterize the social inclusion†problem resolution circuit The system they proposed to depict is an interplay between knowledge and the
process of development. This interplay is composed of three types of actors, repre -sented in the geometric shape of a triangle, with particular emphasis on the
relationships between the vertexes to describe the dynamics of the system. These actors include government, scientific and technological structure, and production
structure The aim of this section is to characterize an ideal (in a Weberian sense) system of
interrelations between different actors, to address SIPS€ need for new knowledge We are fully aware that new knowledge will be one ingredient of a solution;
political will and resources will always be. The actors involved in the system belong to four
vertexes: policy makers, knowledge producers, goods and services producers, and actors directly linked to SIPS. This fourth vertex is a collection of diverse and
heterogeneous actors but defined by a common role within the system. Policy makers can play multiple roles in the system:
to provide that acceptable levels of quality of life for the inhabitants are achieved, to actively demand knowledge for
problem solving, to bear responsibility in the implementation or research results, to facilitate interactions with and among the other actors.
Knowledge producers are not only called to integrate the system for their ability to generate new knowledge
This actor also has the role of generating knowledge concerning the problem itself integrating it with the knowledge that the affected population and other stakehold
-ers may have. In addition, they have a role to play in creating the mechanisms to allow for the effective integration of all the system stakeholders.
The role of the goods and services producers is to render operative the solutions generated in the
research process. Particularly in the case of technological solutions, these actors are responsible for passing from the prototype stage to the delivery of complete prod
-ucts and services able to be put to work We now turn to those actors directly linked to SIPS.
Their characterization and definition is perhaps the most complex one. This vertex is made up of actors
directly related to the problem but with different types of connections with it. These actors include
•Sectors of the population directly affected by the problem, namely, those who suffer it;
it includes their organizations as well •Actors who are affected not directly by the problem but have a tight connection
with it •Civil society organizations •State sectors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) implementing social
public policies The category â€oedirectly affected by the problem†is given to actors suffering as a
result of SIPS. For the rest of the actors in this vertex the membership is given by
their direct knowledge of the sectors of the population suffering the problem, their direct knowledge concerning the problem,
or its symptoms. The membership to this vertex is given by the potential or effective capacity of making the problem
visible for the rest of the population and to generate a demand for solution. The
780 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz actors in this vertex acquire, in turn and in different ways, responsibility for the
solution†s implementation and acceptance It is important to distinguish between i) those people directly affected by the
problem who do not recognize it as a problem (they are identified by others as being
affected by it) and ii) those affected by a problem and that are conscious of
being affected. For the first ones, the problem) may be naturalized, being a part of their lives, and therefore not taken as a problem.
Moreover, once the problem is assumed as such by someone, the possibility to become visible at a macro-social level
widens. The issue of the visualization of problems is a capital one; thus, the actors
capable of producing information and analysis concerning the problems are stra -tegic for finding solutions.
Figure 1 illustrates the structure of this vertex that perhaps should be characterized better as a â€oecloud. â€
The Circuit and its Short circuits: from the Problem to its Solution Presenting the different stages through
which the travel along the circuit takes place may describe more clearly the process by which the necessary links between the
different actors are established (Alzugaray, Mederos, & Sutz, 2011. It should be noted that in certain cases,
some stages in the circuit may be absent; moreover, the route presented is not necessarily sequential and progressive,
and it permits going back to a previous stage to refine the definition of the problem,
redefine it, or to clarify some other points. Negotiation and dialogue between different actors can occur in each stage,
making it necessary to discuss the previous assumptions Figure 1. Actors Directly Linked to the Social Inclusion Problem
Building Bridges 781 The beginning of the circuit is defined by the existence of a sector of the
population affected by a problem. The first stage in the travel through the circuit is
composed of the recognition of a problem by the affected population or other stakeholders. This does not necessarily involve describing
or diagnosing the problem at least at this stage) but acquiring awareness of the existence of an unequal situation
that limits the quality of life of the affected sector and may be linked to at least one problem whose solution can come from new knowledge.
Figure 2 depicts in a stylized way the circuit and the travel around it The travel around the circuit is far from smooth,
though, and short circuits can happen in each passage from one stage to another. Each problem will lead to a
â€oeunique travel†where different stages can be found and even loops within each stage can appear.
In a sense, we could say that the circuit has fractal features; that is, we can recognize similar patterns
while looking in more detail into the differ -ent stages. For instance, a much more complicated circuit, albeit perfectly recog
-nizable in our experience, would be the following: solution existing in one group â'feeling of injustice and deprivation â'solution demand (voice) â'SIP â
'NGO, political, industrial, or research) agenda setting â'research â'controversy regarding the orientation of research programs or the solutions â'fight for a
different resolution process â'exclusion of some researchers and inclusion of others â'redefinition of the problem â'on-the-shelf technical solution and imple
-mentation â'new controversy and new definition of the SIP â'local design of a
solution â'recuperation of the solution by local artisan or enterprise â'improve -ment of the solution by an NGO â'improvement, standardization, commercial
-ization, and dissemination by a multinational company â'creation of new differences and emergence of new SIPS. 1
From Problem to Demand Stage Once the problem is understood, or at least its symptoms are understood as a
barrier to social inclusion, a demand for solution must be set so that the problem Figure 2. The Complete Circuit, from the Problem to its Effective Solution
782 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz can acquire social macro-level visibility. We define demand as an abstraction of the
problem, recognized as such and externalized in terms of â€oeneed for a solution†to an unacceptable situation in a given society, according to its parameters of justice
Many actors may intervene in the construction of demand, in a combined way or alone:
actors that suffer the problem, their organizations, those that have a direct link with it,
and/or academic actors Short circuit from Problem to Demand†Why may a problem not be identified as such
remaining invisible to those that suffer from it? The answer to this question is important for the program because invisible problems will never become research
subjects. The phenomenon denominated by Jon Elster (1983), â€oeadaptive prefer -ences, †can be a significant obstacle for the recognition of the problematic nature of
some situations, particularly for those people who have been for a long time directly affected by them. According to Elster, adaptive preferences evolve from an uncon
-scious process of adaptation to situations where opportunities are limited; the effect is to diminish the frustration derived from desiring something that is out of reach
Such frustration is explained by Elster†s use of the concept of cognitive dissonance proposed by Festinger (1957) in which every person tries to achieve an internal
coherence between their opinions and their attitudes. Inconsistencies in these are psychologically uncomfortable and those that experiment these inconsistencies try
to eliminate them and to reestablish the previous coherent state. The way to resolve these cognitive dissonances would be through adapting the volitions to the real
opportunities at hand; this can be achieved through a process of degradation of what is desired, at the same time and unachievable and by valuaing more what
already exists In this way, after a long and daily experience of situations of social exclusion that
either are addressed not or not resolved, adaptive preferences may provoke a sort of naturalization of these situations.
If this happens, it would be difficult for differ -ent types of actors to conceive them as problems,
hampering the possibility to design circuits oriented to its solution (see example 1 Example 1:
rural rice workers. When a problem has been turned invisible by a mechanism such as an adaptive preference, we will not know concerning it:
this is merely a tautological assertion. However, sometimes, the problem is rendered visible while the actors remember
when it was invisible. This is the case of a trade unionist of the Uruguayan rice rural
workers, interviewed during the evaluation process of a project presented to the program He explained how the consciousness of a health problem took place:
â€oe w e knew that policemen retire, that teachers retire, that public servants retire, and that we, rice-workers
die before retiring. We die faster, without any doubt...If you apply glyphosate to pastures, you put it
and you don†t go there in the next three months. However, in rice is different:
you put the poison today and you must go into the water tomorrow, the same water into which you have spread the poison the day before.
This is, we believe, the great difference. †Now they are worried, they are organizing themselves, they are talking with
people from the university, at the extension services and at the chair of occupational medicine, but until recently, they simply understood death as a consequence of â€oeregularâ€
illnesses and not as a process accelerated by working conditions. Workers, family, and social environment had naturalized the high prevalence of deaths at relatively young ages
compared with life expectancy of men in the country. They also naturalized suffering from respiratory diseases, skin conditions,
and types of cancer. Such diseases began to be seen as problematic by the Rice Worker†s Union,
and the demand was gathered by researchers Building Bridges 783 at the Universidad de la Repã blica and reflected in a project that was funded by the
program in 2010 The capacities to build demand are linked to overcoming the eventual natu -ralization of problems.
For that, a disruption is needed. In the previous example such disruption was provided by the workers†organization,
which was able to recognize a problem and express a demand. The trade union capacity to
give voice to this problem is linked perhaps to the concrete historical process going on in Uruguay where â€oeneglected workers†such as rural workers
and domestic workers gained recently parliamentary recognition for their orga -nizations. It is interesting to reflect on what would have been the situation if
under another correlation of forces rural workers†trade unions continued to be unrecognized From Demand to Research Stage
At a cognitive level, the demand unraveled in the previous stage must be recognized by researchers with the capacity to generate appropriate knowledge in relation to
an associated problem. If the main features of the problem have already been identified, the researchers will need to understand them;
otherwise, they must â€oetranslate†the problem into a research problem. Researchers may get involved with demands in direct dialogue with those that suffer the problem or by means of third
actors or â€oemediators. †Once involved, they proceed to evaluate whether the problem can be tackled with the research skills they have at hand;
if they reach a positive answer the SIP can be translated into a research problem. The third actors
or â€oemediators†we were referring to may be quite diverse •Other researchers •Policy makers •Civil society organizations and NGOS
•Mass media This diversity of actors will give rise to different styles of dialogues Short circuit from Demand to Research†The passage from demand to research can be
short-circuited by different types of difficulties Even if problems are identified, and the need for research to solve them is
recognized, the concrete demand for producing the needed knowledge can be quite weak. Eventually, the weakness of knowledge demand will produce the short circuit
that can stop the travel along the circuit In Latin america, the weakness of knowledge demand, even though usually
analyzed in the case of production, is accentuated even more in relation to SIPS for at least two reasons. The first reason is due to the weakness of all types of demands
stemming from the population most affected by SIPS. Weak knowledge demand is, in this case, a particular manifestation of a more general situation (Arocena &
Sutz, 2010. This weakness is associated, among other issues, to the lack of self -constitution as a social group, with atomization as a main consequence
784 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz The second reason is related to the fact that the organizations that give voice
to marginalized groups and try to better their situation, be they NGOS, civil society organizations,
or the state, rarely view academic research as a tool at their disposal. One of the persons interviewed with the aim of detecting demand before
the second program†s (2008) call was responsible for the Ministry of Social Devel -opment†s section on disabilities.
She identified clearly a bottleneck in the better -ment of children with severe neuromuscular problems:
the high cost of imported special spoons that would allow them greater levels of autonomy.
The university†s Center for Design could have tried to search for a solution if the problem would
have been put forward, but the idea that researchers are able and willing to address the challenges in the country was not present,
inhibiting the expression of demand Sometimes, the researchers†â€oeacademic radar, †that is, the tool they use to detect
and include the problems to be tackled in their working agenda, is not able to capture the kind of problems associated with social inclusion (see example 2
Besides that, well-known difficulties for linking research to developmental pur -poses, in general, and to problems of social inclusion, in particular, stem from the
academic reward system (Singer et al. 1970). ) This is not only a â€oesouthern†diffi -culty; concerns regarding the uselessness and distorting effects of counting articles
as the paramount criteria for academic excellence is growing everywhere (Chat -away, Smith, & Wield, 2006.
However, in places where the seriousness of social exclusion makes focused research more important, the developmental and social
blindness of the academic reward system is particularly worrisome. The short circuit may also appear
because research is not able yet to deliver solutions, or because the local conditions for doing research make it difficult to tackle a given
problem (the working strategy may be too costly or require cognitive capacities that are not present)( Bianco, Oliva, Sutz, & Tomassini, 2010
Example 2: malnutrition in Uruguay. A paradigmatic case of this type of short circuit was recorded in the Second Meeting on Research and Innovation Oriented to Social Inclusion
September 2009) in which a punctual demand to a particular problem was staged: the growth retardation detected in children under two years belonging to low-income homes
The problem was described in different ways by diverse officials of the Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Public health, National Food Institute, the National Primary
Education, and members of the United nations Development Program in Uruguay According to the usual dynamic of those meetings, an invitation was extended to university
researchers from all areas of knowledge and particularly to those with specific cognitive capacities which presumably could be placed at the service of finding answers to the
problem. The result was striking and illustrative of the aforementioned short circuit: no project around malnutrition was proposed
The passage from demand to research can be stopped also if the researcher is not able to characterize
or to properly understand the SIP in his or her own cognitive terms, thus failing in building a research problem.
This can occur even when dialogues between researchers and actors directly linked to the problem are in
place: in such a case, a communication failure is driven probably present by the use of different linguistic codes.
Communication difficulties have been reported again and again in the literature on cognitive dialogues between people with quite diverse
types of knowledge or belonging to different settings (Caron-Flinterman, Broerse & Bunders, 2005, Chataway & Smith, 2005;
Ostrom, 1996 Building Bridges 785 From Research to Production Stage The outcome of the research process will be a solution prototype for the identified
SIP. We understand as prototype any research outcome, in any knowledge area that has not yet been taken to the necessary scale to solve the target problem.
Once the prototype is in place, it must be scaled up to allow the solution to reach all the
people in need of it. Actors in the productive structure of goods and services, in the
private and in the public sphere, are those who should take charge in this stage of production
For â€oetraveling†from prototype to production, the intervention of public policy becomes crucial. Public procurement is fundamental to achieve operative solutions
for SIP: setting accurate incentives and warrants able to drive innovation decisions are two of the tools they can provide.
This is so because the part of the population frequently affected by SIPS usually does not constitute an attractive market for
business firms and so the certainty provided by public procurement can have a very effective countervailing effect
Short circuit from Research to Production†The SIPS can be extremely complex in cognitive terms, requiring sometimes unorthodox heuristic approaches.
It can occur that researchers do not find a solution in cognitive terms: progress could have
been made and even solid steps toward a solution could have been achieved, but the research project could not deliver
what it had promised Sometimes, the research process does not deliver a workable solution (see example 3). For example, a laboratory solution has been found, but to implement
the solution in real life, much more research is needed, or much more money is necessary, or actors such as business firms should enter into play
and there is no certainty that they will do that, or the characteristics of the users were not carefully
taken into account and they will not be able to incorporate the would-have been solution Example 3:
group B streptococcus. An example of this type of short circuit is represented by the failed attempt to get a diagnostic kit to detect the presence of group B streptococcus
in pregnant women in real time just before delivery. Group B streptococcus is a bacterium that causes illness in newborn babies and may even lead to death.
These bacteria, lodged in the mother†s vagina, infect the baby when passing through the birth canal.
The disease does not manifest in the mother so it is necessary to conduct a prebirth test to detect it on
time and treat it. This test is routine in late pregnancy; however, many women, especially
low-income ones, do not attend these controls. The population potentially affected is not aware of the problem:
its identification and characterization comes from doctors in contact with it. The demand for a solution was expressed in the First Meeting on Research and
Innovation Oriented Social Inclusion (August 2008) by a clinical doctor. This doctor is, in our scheme, an actor directly linked to a SIP who has information concerning it but no
capacities to solve it. The demand was collected by a chemical engineer who, jointly with the mentioned doctor,
presented a research project to develop a kit to detect this disease at the time of delivery.
The kit would also be low cost to ensure its incorporation into the whole health system.
The research ended with a prototype that did not reach the required threshold for detecting the streptococcus,
thus leading to a short circuit of the type â€oefrom research to production from the research side. â€
Occasionally, a mismatch between the research process and the problem can also occur. A research proposal dealing with SIPS usually needs great amounts of
786 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz dialogue between the researchers in charge of the project and other actors related
to the problem in a way or another. If such dialogue is too sparse, it can be expected
that the sphere of research and the sphere of the problem â€oein real life†become
incrementally divorced. In a worst-case scenario, such divorce can be detected at the end of the circuit,
when there is no chance to redress its effects Short circuits in research to production usually come from the difficulties found
on the production†s side to implement the solution even in small batches. It takes
time, it costs money, it needs a lot of adjustments, and it can require transformations in the marketing and logistics strategies:
we are talking concerning innovation in its classical meaning of changes in routines. These obstacles can be overcome with the
right set of incentives, aimed at countervailing the difficulties to explore new and uncertain productive venues
The well-known public technology procurement policies can have great impact on redressing this short circuit; specific public policies can be fundamental to avoid
it (see example 4). When a public policy, for instance, in the realm of health, creates
a market by assuring that everyone will have access to a health product even if they are not able to pay for it
because the state will take care of the cost, an important incentive is set to pass from cognitive results to production
Example 4: synthetic human skin. The SIP that motivates the search is the high incidence
of severe skin lesions (burns) in the poorest population of Uruguay due to the means of
heating used as well as the type of precarious housing. The high cost of the imported synthetic dermal segments available on the market prevents the state from acquiring it
massively for public hospitals; this seriously compromises the chance of survival and subsequent quality of life of the injured people
Researchers have developed, at prototype level, synthetic skin made of soluble collagen from bovine tendon (waste material in the meat industry, abundant and free of â€oemad cowâ€
disease in Uruguay), which costs much less that the imported synthetic skin having similar quality.
The demand for a solution to the problem was expressed not in an organized way Even if such demand has been put forward in isolated events, by relatives of fire victims
especially in the mass media), it has not been enough to reach visibility at a macro-social
level. The cost of imported synthetic skin is seen as a barrier by those directly involved with
the problem (those who suffer from it, their family, and doctors. However, this recognition was not sufficient to raise an effective and clear demand from the public health policy:
the passage from â€oesocial problem†to â€oeresearch problem†was mainly due to the sensitivity of the researchers.
The origin of this short circuit can be traced back earlier in the circuit: the lack of a clear
and â€oevoiced†demand for solutions to an unacceptable situation ends blocking the possibility of producing a solution out of a working prototype
From Production to the Effective Solution Stage Production can deliver a technical solution, but it has to pass through a process of
diffusion to reach all the affected sectors, and through a process of adoption, the final stage in the achievement of a solution for the SIP.
Again, public intervention is crucial in this stage, given that the transit from a technical solution to an integral
solution is far from spontaneous. Public policies can develop a series of instruments and mechanisms to facilitate the diffusion and the adoption of solutions
Short circuit from Production to the Effective Solution†The â€oeeffective solution†concept deserves more attention: we only say here that we conceptualize effectiveness as the
Building Bridges 787 incorporation of the solution in such a way that the problem detected at the
beginning of the circuit diminishes its harmful consequences. It seems clear from this characterization that the role of the public policy is of great importance, from
assuring complementary interventions needed to put the solution in place to a good distribution of the solution if necessary (see example 5). Short circuits can appear
then, in case of weaknesses in several of the fundamental workings of public policy legitimacy, capacity to exercise control over the territory,
or the functioning of the state bureaucracy. They may also arise from lack of public technology procurement
policies Example 5: severe neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. This one type of short circuit is illustrated by the case of â€oebililed, †trademark of a technological device to treat infants with severe
neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. This disease, a type of strong jaundice, has a high prevalence among premature infants (approximately 60 percent;
teenage mothers and deprived women are overrepresented in premature birth The appropriate therapy is composed of directing a very precise beam of blue light
toward the baby†s body; this achieves the degradation of the bilirubin molecule responsible for the jaundice.
There are two types of blue light lamps on the market. On one side, there are the halogen bulbs.
They have some disadvantages, such as a relative lack of precision in the light spectrum, presenting additionally the difficulty that the lamp burns out quite
often, and the spares are very expensive. This leads the pediatric intensive care units equipped with such lamps to frequently keep them inactive
On the other hand there are the light emitting diode (LED) lamps whose lifetime is longer. However, as each LED has a very low intensity,
many LEDS are required, increasing the price of the lamps. The problem lies in the combination of these two situations:
no lamps for treatment in public hospitals, leaving as the only alternative the (dangerous therapy of replacing all of the baby†s blood
The solution found by a researcher from the faculty of engineering is composed of a phototherapy instrument: â€oeoptical elements(..
designed to maximize the light intensity useful for treatment, with a small number of LEDS in a compact and low cost unit†(Geido
Failache, & Simini, 2007, p. 1). The equipment†s virtues are high precision, long life
and low cost, and, in addition, in contrast to conventional lamps, they can be used in incubators The prototype was developed at the Center for Biomedical Engineering from the
Faculty of engineering, and the results were tested successfully at the university hospital Hospital de Clã nicas The passage from prototype to production took a long time.
Finally, with support from international funds, the technology was transferred from the university to a national
electronics company, under university patent. The company introduced improvements to the prototype and hired another company specialized in marketing of medical products
for its distribution Regarding policy, the Universidad de la Repã blica donated five lamps to hospitals in
different parts of the country. There was no other political initiative, particularly at the Ministry of Industry or the Ministry of Public health;
this situation prevented the spread of the solution to all affected populations In those cases in which diffusion successfully occurs, the issue of the adaptive
preferences mentioned at the beginning of this section can constitute an obstacle at the very end of the circuit.
The circuit could have been traveled and this travel could have been accompanied by people with an acute consciousness of the problem
and a strong will to overcome it, but they may as well represent a minority of the
people affected by it. If the majority has developed adaptive preferences, the implementation of the solution can be blocked.
This case was analyzed by Pereira 788 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz 2007): ) he posited that this could be one of the reasons why social policies targeted
to people in extreme poverty or victims of domestic violence fail even if they have been designed carefully.
The fable of the fox and the grapes with which Elster 1983) illustrated the operation of the cognitive dissonance can be a clarifying
analytical device to understand why the blockage of the technical solution can occur at the end of the circuit.
Even if a solution is made available, the grapes may seem too sour to be accepted. However, there are successful examples,
such as in the case of epilepsy (see example 6 Example 6: refractory epilepsy. A successful case of travel around the circuit is a project
funded by the program whose purpose was to seek cognitive solutions to enable real-time imaging to assist surgeons during surgery of epilepsy refractory to drug treatment.
The problem is that the tools available so far for surgery (the most effective alternative) in the
university hospital provided a vague spatial position of the location of the epileptic focus The unaffordable alternative was importing a special software
The passage from the problem to demand was mediated by actors who are not directly affected by the problem,
but have a tight connection with it: the neurosurgeons from the university hospital. It is no coincidence that the demand was expressed clearly by physicians:
in the case of health care, technicians who daily face limitations on the quality of their attention
of patients can clearly identify barriers to perform a better job The passage from demand to research was mediated by a virtuous combination of use
of existing capabilities, accumulated knowledge and human resources, and generation of new knowledge. Specifically, the passage was given by the interaction of the Epilepsy
Surgery Program (PCE) of the Hospital de Clinicas and the research group of Image Processing, Faculty of engineering, Universidad de la Repã blica.
The research project was executed jointly by researchers from these two institutions The transition from research to production was easy because the cognitive outcome
obtained is free software so it does not require material investment or large-scale logistics for implementation.
Indeed, it could be said that there was an almost immediate passage from research to the effective resolution.
The software developed was transferred directly to the PCE for use in patients, while the research group made contacts with members of
the international medical community for evaluation and accreditation, which may allow its use worldwide As stated at the beginning of this section,
we have characterized the functioning of a system of interrelationships among different actors whose aim is to find
solutions to a particular kind of SIPS: those in need of new knowledge to be solved We propose to call this set of interrelationships between actors and institutions
System of Research and Innovation for Social Inclusion. The differences between such a system and others (national, sectorial, and so on) stem from at least two aspects:
the first one is that this specific system deals exclusively with SIPS; the second one
relates to some of the actors included, who are referred seldom to in more â€oeclassi -cal†systems of innovation
University Research Responds to the Advancement in the Conceptualization of the Problem The way to make operative the conceptualization described so far has been a
specific â€oecall for Projects, †with the first edition launched in 2003, followed by three others, in 2008,2010, and 2012.
The conditions of the call evolved through time, following a better comprehension of the difficulties at stake:
the analysis of Building Bridges 789 this evolution is the aim of this section. The account is made from the Academic
Unit of the University Research Council†s perspective. This group is, at the same time, a scholarly academic group and is in charge of the academic management
of the council†s research programs. It was responsible for the design of the first call and for proposing transformations both in the conception of the call and in
its implementation As already mentioned, the overall objective of the call is to foster national research
agendas that take actively on board problems that negatively affect processes of social inclusion for large parts of the Uruguayan population.
This basic objective, tenta -tively proposed since the first call, has been reinforced: nothing in the experience
developed so far indicates that it was just wishful thinking without practical anchor -age. However, transformations were introduced in the following calls:
they were induced by changes in the national context as well as by considerations stemming from the learning process associated with the concrete practice of the calls
The context of the first call in 2003 was a deep social and economic crisis at the
national level, whose genesis went back to the beginning of the 1990s. This crisis became full blown with the financial crisis of 2001 in Argentina that severely affected
Uruguay in 2002. The social role of the Universidad de la Repã blica was fostered by the dramatic situation experienced by the country.
The first paragraph of the Call â€oeresearch Projects Oriented to Social Emergency†eloquently describes the
national situation when the call was being conceived Uruguay is immersed in an unprecedented economic and social crisis. A recession of
many years combined with the dismantling of a great part of its productive units has led to an unemployment rate near 20%,a figure largely below that of the youngsters
seeking for jobs without finding them. The qualification of â€oesocial emergency†fits well with the present situation in which endemic hunger gives rise to vast social mobilizations
to try to cope with its most dramatic manifestations. This situation affects particularly children and young people, who are damaged the most by the severe process of impov
-erishment suffered by the population. The growth of precarious lodgings aggravates the sanitary conditions in which more and more people live and the public health system
at the verge of collapsing, is getting out of hand, a situation nurtured by the long agony
of the mutual health assistance system. The environmental conditions deteriorate and phenomena like human lead contamination dangerously evolve from isolated anecdotes
to permanent problems. The lack of perspectives foster migration processes of an entity only comparable to that occurred thirty years ago. 2 For those
whose â€oesocial capital†is too low to allow them to emigrate, hopelessness activates circuits of violence which
effects are fairly notorious The call was directed toward projects for which the â€oemain aim is to study one or
several aspects of the social emergency situation in which many sectors of the population are living,
and to propose solutions/answers/alternatives to cope with them. †To be eligible for this call,
the proposals had to do the following 1 Identify precisely the problem associated with some expression of the social
emergency suffered by the population 2 Indicate the shortcomings in terms of the existing knowledge to address
possible solutions 3 Propose a research strategy for obtaining, even partially, the missing knowledge 790 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz
4 Indicate the necessary conditions to enable the research results obtained to be an effective contribution to the solution of the problem under consideration
indicating as well the actors that should participate in the solution implementation 5 Devise strategies to involve such actors in the discussion of the proposal and to
assure their participation in putting into practice the results that can be obtained by the research
In this first call, even though the systemic conception was already present emphasis was put on stimulating only one actor of the system to travel across the
circuit: the researchers. The relationship with other actors, not yet clearly identified in the call, was expected to be declared without any requirement to demonstrate the
steps undertaken to assure such relationships The researchers are expected to design strategies for detecting the problem of
social emergency or social inclusion, transform the detected problem into a research problem, obtain the cognitive results,
and after all that, assure the effective trans -lation of such results into practice to achieve an effective solution.
The travel across the circuit induced by this specific call included only the research stage, even
though the need to build linkages between researchers and other actors in the system was indicated
In 2008, a new call for research projects with similar characteristics was made introducing some changes derived from the gathered experience and from further
academic research around the issue. Moreover, the economic, social, and political context in Uruguay had changed.
With the leftist coalition Frente Amplio in gov -ernment since 2005, different types of sound social policies were implemented
pointing specially to the lowering of poverty and indigence. Some years later Uruguay showed an unparalleled rate of economic growth:
at the end of 2008, the country growth reached 8. 9 percent and the level of unemployment was below two
digits For the 2008 call, special emphasis was made in the previous recollection of demand. One of the lessons learned from the previous experience was that such
recollection was a must because researchers were not able by themselves to get fully acquainted with the needs and demands stemming from social problems even
though many of them were more than willing to put their capacities to contribute to the solution of such problems.
The point was to help the researchers†â€oeacademic radar†to identify new and unfamiliar challenges.
Undertaking such recollection in general, that is, targeting all possible types of needs and problems would have been
totally impractical. This is why it was decided to narrow the search and to focus on three types of problems:
equity in access to high-quality health services; the effects of the Plan Ceibal, or â€oethe one laptop per child†program implement in Uruguay
since 2007; and the needs and demands present in two poor neighborhoods in Montevideo, profiting from the work done in these territories by a specific exten
-sion university program, the Metropolitan Integral Program To achieve this initiative, several meetings were organized by the Academic Unit
with actors directly related to the type of problems previously defined. Such actors included representatives of the people bearing the problems, intermediate actors
with direct contact, and public officers. The information gathered during these Building Bridges 791 meetings was systematized
and publicly exposed to university researchers, public policy officials, and the general population through an open gathering called the
First Meeting of Research and Innovation Oriented to Social Inclusion, as well as in thematic workshops. In this way, the Academic Unit started working between actors
with direct linkages to the problems and researchers with capacity to build answers The results of the previous described process were a main ingredient in the defi
-nition of the 2008 call. The efforts to identify demand and to communicate it were
not strongly reflected in the proposals presented to the call. However, some pro -posals were built around demands that were detected not beforehand but emerged
from face-to-face contacts produced during the workshops One important difference between this call and the previous one is that the
university research policy recognized itself as an actor in the process and assumed a protagonist role in facilitating encounters between researchers and other actors
As a result, the travel across the circuit from the problem†s identification to the
demand and from there to the research problem was facilitated. As before, the rest of the travel is recommended
or suggested but is induced not directly In 2010, a new call was put in place, consolidating the program as a University
Research Council regular program. The new call presents similarities but also important differences with the previous two.
The call provided a more detailed and precise explanation, widening the characterization of the actors that need to par
-ticipate in the finding of an effective solution to SIPS. This was incorporated into the formalities to apply to the call:
the proposal must demonstrate that dialogues with nonacademic actors were established to get a better comprehension of the issues at
stake; the commitment of these actors to contribute in different ways to the success of the proposal was required also formally.
The participation of nonacademic actors can take quite different forms, from financial support to participation in the imple
-mentation of the solutions found through research: the important point is that such commitment, whatever its form, needs to be stated
and signed by these nonaca -demic actors Attention to the detection of demand continues, as well as the determination to
organize workshops and wide gatherings to foster face-to-face relationships between actors directly linked to the problems,
and researchers who can listen and recognize such problems as belonging to their field of competence.
What is new in this call is the effort made from the university side to link these two actors, problem bearers or
its representatives and potential research problems solvers, with other type of actors whose role emerges from their capacity to assure the effective implementation of
solutions The intention was to pay special attention to these types of actors before the
closing of the Call on several occasions, these actors played a double role: they were directly linked to the problems by a thorough knowledge of its nature and dynam
-ics, and at the same time, they had access to public action needed to assure the passage from the cognitive solution to an effective solution.
In these cases of â€oedouble role, †it was expected that not only a clear presentation of the problems would be
achieved but the assurance of the interest to find concrete solutions would also be conveyed.
This is why in the 2010 call, the Academic Unit was involved not as much as in 2008 in the demand detection,
but it concentrated on incorporating diverse actors from the sphere of public policy, from social organizations and NGOS, from
792 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz society in general, as well as from academia, to a series of workshops.
In these workshops, a wide list of themes was addressed: energy, health, habitat, public social policies, gender, and education
An innovation was introduced also in the evaluation process: part of the appraisal of the proposals included interviews with the nonacademic actors indicated in the
presentation forms. These interviews were conducted by members of the expert group in charge of the evaluation and by members of the Academic Unit.
The nonacademic actors included representatives from organizations of people bearing the problems, actors related in different ways to the problems but without dealing
with them directly, and actors working in the public sphere with capacities to foster the effective implementation of solutions.
Only as a way of example, actors of the first type included representatives of cooperatives of hand garbage collectors and of
rice rural workers trade unions. Examples of the second type of actors include a medical doctor in charge of the only public laboratory of the country entitled to
perform lead contamination diagnoses and a group of psychologists and social workers dealing with different kinds of homeless people.
Examples of the third type are the governmental program â€oeplan Juntos†(Plan Jointly), set to address the issue
of people without decent housing, as well as a municipality dealing with urban planning, which tends to include excluded people in the vicinity of a highly expen
-sive and exclusive sea resort. These interviews were important indeed to gain a better comprehension of the problems involved
and to better harness the commit -ment of actors to a future implementation of a solution, if founded.
From the Academic Unit perspective, it constituted a very valuable analytical tool for further reflection and learning.
Furthermore, these interviews allowed for the detection of new research demands; they also allowed for detecting inconsistencies between
what the research proposal wanted to do and the problem that gave rise to the demand.
In such cases, the proposals were reformulated, and a much better research strategy was obtained Another innovation in the 2010 call was the opening of a second modality of
research projects with a lower time frame and less allocation of resources for each individual proposal.
Its main objective was to avoid the two first short circuits in the travel across the circuit, that is, from the problem to the expressed demand and
from there, to the research strategy. Again, the stimulus is addressed toward the university researchers, many of whom may want to formulate a project having as a
starting point the suspicion of an SIP€ s existence but for which they lack clarity around its dimensions, depth, characteristics, and scope.
The aim of this second modality is to allow the clear delimitation and characterization of the problem and
the identification of the actors suffering from it as well as those actors endowed with capacities to contribute to its solution.
The outcome of these small projects are full-fledged research projects with a well-developed strategy to deal with the
problem and with sound contacts made with other actors to maximize the prob -abilities to transform their results into solutions.
These full-fledged projects will compete again for funds, even though some will be funded directly if the outcomes
of this previous stage are good enough. They can be carried out by the same researchers or by different researchers identified in the process of characterizing
the problem. This modality goes a step further in pushing the university research policy toward a hands-on strategy to link research and societal needs
Building Bridges 793 At the time of writing, the 2012 call was still open. It presents an innovation
a problem platform on maternal and child malnutrition to try to gain momentum by stimulating diverse approaches around a common concern.
Researchers from all knowledge areas can present projects in the problem platform: those funded will have, somehow, to coordinate their work.
The objective of the platform is to concentrate efforts in a complex and multidimensional SIP that is unlikely to be
efficiently addressed by more classic and isolated research projects. The inter -views with nonacademic actors will be maintained as part of the evaluation
process as well as the call for more classic research projects around any identified problem Conclusion Uruguay has changed dramatically since the program†s inception.
From the prob -lems of unprecedented hunger, the issues are now the lines at the doors of the big
commercial stores to buy plasma television, from violent robberies for food at the time of the first call to different types of security problems associated now with
violence related to the uneven economic growth and the persistence of social exclusion, from the bankruptcy of hundreds of firms and the damaging personal
indebtedness in dollars to inflation in the national currency and a type of foreign exchange favorable to imported consumption, from massive firings and salary
reductions to negotiated rises in salaries between workers and entrepreneurs medi -ated by the state, plus very low levels of unemployment.
All this notwithstanding Uruguay still has important groups of populations excluded from access to a
dignified quality of life, despite the implementation of diverse types of social policies, and a sustained economic growth.
The persistence of these situations makes even more valid the premise from which the university program â€oeresearch
and Innovation Oriented to Social Inclusion†derives its normative vision: there are situations of exclusion whose reversal will not come only through political will or by
devoting to their solutions increasing amounts of money, even though these factors are absolutely crucial. For some of these problems, new knowledge is necessary in
order to reach effective solutions, in tight and systemic articulation with all the actors that should enter into play, each in his or her role
The program has advanced in its formulation, refining and clarifying the means to reach its ends;
it has achieved this through learning and reflecting from its successive implementations. We can say that the program has made its own travel
through the circuit, trying, from one call to the next, to identify short circuits and ways to solve them.
However, we should not forget that the university by itself will never be able to assure the completeness of such travel.
Only the joint and systemic action of a great variety of actors can allow this initiative to reach the scale needed
to tackle at least some of the social exclusion problems that we are facing Note 1 We thank an anonymous referee for this valuable suggestion that captures so well what we mean
2 From 1973 to 1985, Uruguay suffered a bloody military dictatorship that emphasized existing migra
-tion processes, adding political reasons to preexisting economic causes 794 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz
About the Authors Santiago Alzugaray is an anthropologist, Assistant professor at CSIC Academic Unit. His area
of research is science, technology, and society. He is co-author of La investigaciã n cientã fica
contribuyendo a la inclusiã n social Leticia Mederos is a sociologist and economic historian, Assistant professor in the CSIC
Academic Unit. Her area of research is science, technology, and society. She is co-author of
La investigaciã n cientã fica contribuyendo a la inclusiã n social Judith Sutz is a professor at CSIC Academic Unit.
Her area of research is science technology, and society. She has published articles in Science and Public Policy and Technology
in Society References Alzugaray, S.,Mederos, L, . & Sutz, J. 2011). La investigaciã n cientã fica contribuyendo a la inclusiã n social
Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia Tecnologã a y Sociedad, 6 (17), 11†30 Arocena, R, . & Sutz, J. 2003).
Subdesarrollo e innovaciã n. Navegando contra el viento. Madrid: Cambridge University Press Arocena, R, . & Sutz, J. 2010).
Weak knowledge demand in the South: Learning divides and innovation policies Science and Public Policy, 37 (8), 571†582
Bianco, M.,Oliva, E.,Sutz, J, . & Tomassini, C. 2010). Investigaciã n orientada a la inclusiã n social:
Complejidades y desafã os para el contrato social de la ciencia en contextos de subdesarrollo.
Buenos aires: VIII Jornada ESOCITE Retrieved from http://www. csic. edu. uy/renderresource/index/resourceid/11736/siteid/3
Caron-Flinterman, F.,Broerse, J, . & Bunders, J. 2005). The experiential knowledge of patients: A new
resource for biomedical research? Social science & Medicine, 60, 2575†2584 Chataway, J, . & Smith, J. 2005).
Smoke, mirrors and poverty: Communication, biotechnological innovation and development. Innogen Working paper 36. Edinburgh: Innogen
Chataway, J.,Smith, J, . & Wield, D. 2006). Changing notions of scientific excellence: Agricultural research and
the cases of trypanosomiasis and theileriosis vaccine research in East Africa. Innogen Working paper 46
Edinburgh: Innogen Cozzens, S.,Kallerud, E.,Ackers, L.,Gill, B.,Harper, J.,Santos Pereira, T.,et al.
2007). ) Problems of inequality in science, technology, and innovation. Policy James Martin Institute Working paper 5. Retrieved from
http://www. ces. uc. pt/myces/Userfiles/livros/125 wp1-%232 final. pdf ECLAC. (2010. Time for equality.
Closing gaps, opening trails. Thirty-third session of ECLAC, 30 may to 1 June 2010, Brasilia.
Retrieved from http://www. eclac. org/publicaciones/xml/1/39711/100604 2010-115 -SES-33-3-Time for equality doc completo. pdf
Elster, J. 1983. Sour grapes: Studies in the subversion of rationality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge university Press Festinger, L. 1957.
A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford university Press Geido, D.,Failache, H, . & Simini, F. 2007).
Bililed low cost neonatal phototherapy, from prototype to industry. 16th Argentine Bioengineering Congress and the 5th Conference of Clinical Engineering IOP
Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 90. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/90/1/012024 Hirschman, A. 1970.
Exit, voice and loyalty. London: Harvard university Press Infante, R, . & Sunkel, O. 2009). Chile: Hacia un desarrollo inclusivo.
Revista de la CEPAL, 97, 135†154 Nelson, R. 1974. Intellectualizing about the moon†ghetto metaphor:
A study of the current malaise of rational analysis of social problems. Policy Sciences, 5, 375†414
Nelson, R. 2011. The moon and the ghetto revisited. Science and Public Policy, 38 (9), 681†690. doi:
10.3152 /030234211x13070021633404 OECD. 2005. The measurement of scientific and technological activities. Proposed guidelines for collecting
and interpreting technological innovation data. Oslo Manual. European commission, Eurostat. Retrieved from http://www. oecd. org/dataoecd/35/61/2367580. pdf
Ostrom, E. 1996. Crossing the great divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development. World Development 24 (6), 1073†1087
Pereira, G. 2007. Preferencias adaptativas: Un desafã o para el diseã o de las polã ticas sociales.
ISEGORà A, 36 143†165 Sábato, J, . & Botana, N. 1968). La ciencia y la tecnologã a en el desarrollo futuro de Amã rica Latina.
INTAL 1 (3), 15†36 Schumpeter, J. 1934. Theory of economic development. New brunswick, NJ: Harvard university Press
Sen, A. 1999. Development as freedom. New york: Oxford university Press Building Bridges 795 Sen, A. 2000.
Social exclusion: Concept, application, and scrutiny. Manila: Asian Development Bank Singer, H.,Cooper, C.,Desai, R c.,
, Freeman, C.,Gish, O.,Hill, S.,et al. 1970). ) The Sussex Manifesto: Science and technology to developing countries during the second development decade.
IDS Reprints No. 101 Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies STEPS. (2010. Innovation, sustainability, development:
A new manifesto. Brighton, UK: IDS and SPRU, Sussex University 796 Santiago Alzugaray, Leticia Mederos, and Judith Sutz
Copyright of Review of Policy Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied
or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011