Libro Blanco Vol I en Ingles

TOWARDS A NATIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGY FOR COMPETITIVENESSVOLUME 12.2 BASES FOR PUBLIC ACTIONS IN INNOVATIONSCIENCE AS A STARTING POINTThe first chapter of this document has highlighted the importance of science in innovation and growth.This is particularly the case with research that is more applied to technological development or targeted atproviding a response to production problems. Even though in Chile first-rate scientific research is carried out invarious disciplines, its impact on the national production system is not very satisfactory.Why? One factor is the low number and dispersion of researchers, which makes it difficult to generate thenecessary critical masses for a greater impact. Additionally, there are incentives and cultural elements thatseparate it from the scientific activity of the production world. Thirdly, the public funds that support scientificactivity have shown greater efficacy in fostering free research or research weakly linked to companies (“pushedby science”) than in research with a production impact (“demand-driven”).There is a consensus that the country must invest more in science. Consequently, the Council in itsFebruary 2006 report recognises the need to carry out a generic endeavour such as the obligation to foster thescientific work that is more oriented to production needs. This is a task in which the business world should getinvolved with a much greater financial commitment. This document proposes a gradual increase in the supportto individual researchers or centres of excellence for their own initiatives. It also obligates the task of creating anew balance in the future between basic and applied research, favouring the progressive prevalence of sciencelinked to knowledge for innovative change and the growing pre-eminence of research driven by companies forR+D activities.However, to define the National Innovation Strategy for Competitiveness, the Council has sought to takeup the analysis again based on essential questions.Is it necessary for a relatively poor country such as Chile to target a share of its public resources to fundbasic scientific research? Is it not enough to have a handful of trained professionals capable of reading thescientific publications that are produced elsewhere?The answer is Yes, it is necessary, but not only because it is very difficult for a researcher to fullyappropriate the benefits of producing knowledge, but also because home-grown basic science will give thecountry the capabilities to understand new knowledge or to adopt the new technologies that emerge from it.Why? Because highly trained people possess something that is not entirely transmittable through their research74Even though in Chile first-rate scientificresearch is carried out in variousdisciplines, its impact on the nationalproduction system is not very satisfactory,given the difficulty in reaching a criticalmass of researchers, The distance betweenproduction and scientific activity and theincreased efficacy of public funds forfostering free research versus “demanddriven”research.It is necessary to target funding to basicscientific research, since without it, it isdifficult to understand new knowledge oradopt new technologies that arise from it.