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indicator

Transformation Champions

The index in the magazine Inovação (Innovation) will highlight the leading companies of Brazilian industry

brazThe magazine Inovação, from the Uniemp Institute, should disclose during the coming month of May the first ranking of Index Brazil Innovation (IBI), which is going to identify the five leading companies in the main sectors of the transformation industry. “We shall have companies already known for their innovating efforts and some new ones”, says Ruy Quadros, from the Scientific and Technological Policies Department (DPCT) of Unicamp’s Geosciences Institute, one of the researchers involved in the new indicator project, which is the result of an editorial initiative from the magazine Inovação, based upon the original idea from its editorial chief, Carlos Vogt. He was the person who arranged the partnership with the Uniemp Institute, FAPESP’s support and the participation of Unicamp for the project’s development. The industrial companies that are not among the five most innovative in their respective segments, will not have their names revealed. The presentation of the ranking will take place firstly during a workshop at FAPESP and afterwards at the 7th Iberian-American Science and Technology Congress (Read page 29).

The IBI has as its raw material the information that the companies provided to the Industrial Research in Technological Innovation (Pintec) 2003, of the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE), voluntarily ceded to the research team for the purpose of the indicator, under the commitment of absolute secrecy. As well, information relative to patents registered by the companies at the National Institute for Industrial Property (INPI) will be computed and those of the Annual Industrial Research (PIA) 2003, also with the IBGE, which takes into account investment in qualified personnel, equipment acquisition, among others. “This is an ingenious way out, at zero cost to the company”, underlines  Quadros.

This data is being processes taking into account the innovative efforts of the companies – internal costs for research and development (R&D), expenditure in capital goods for innovation, percentage of doctorate personnel etc. – and their results – innovative performance, percentage of sales or exports of innovative products, registration of patents etc.”Technological efforts are not an objective in themselves, but instruments to guarantee the growth and strengthening of competitive performance”, justifies researcher Quadros.

The IBI, in this way, divides itself into two major indicators – the Aggregated Effort(s) Indicator (IAE) and the Aggregated Result(s) Indicator (IAR) – built up  from the “individual” indicators of each one of the analyzed companies, duly “balanced  to permit a systemic vision of the innovation process”, explained researcher Quadros. If, for example, the internal efforts of a company towards the implanting of new products or processes are more important than the expenditure in machinery and equipment, this difference will be compensated for by way of the attribution of a heavier weighting on the first indicator. The most innovative companies, in the IBI ranking, will be those that present efforts towards innovation and results above the average in their sector.

The IBI’s intention is to highlight and identify the companies that invest most in R&D in the country. The construction of an index sprung up from the verification that there does not exist consistent public data about R&D in Brazil and only the information from Pintec – based on indices from the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OCDE) – which does not reveal all of the particularities of the innovative process in Brazil.

The IBI, adds  Quadros, has a triple advantage: it will allow society to get to know the performance of innovative companies via a prism different from traditional indicators; it will serve as a reference for the government and its development agencies to calibrate the instruments of public policies directed towards the private sector; and it will make it possible for companies to evaluate their performance in relation to other competitors in the market.

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