{"id":151278,"date":"2014-05-20T20:28:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T23:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=151278"},"modified":"2014-06-20T20:31:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T23:31:19","slug":"scenarios-entrepreneurial-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/scenarios-entrepreneurial-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenarios for entrepreneurial research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carreiras_219ilustra\"Daniel Bueno<\/span><\/p>\n

One method that companies use to encourage investment in innovation is to establish partnerships with universities or research centers. Another method is to turn to professionals who have just left the university with ambitions for a research career in a corporate environment. As viewed by Henkel\u2014a German multinational founded in 1876 that operates in the cleaning products, cosmetics and adhesives industries\u2014the earlier you forge a relationship with students, the greater the chance of instilling an enjoyment of research from an early age and encouraging young people to connect to research in the corporate environment. In 2007, the company created the Henkel Innovation Challenge, an annual global competition in which undergraduate and graduate students work on creating innovative designs for execution in the year 2050.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contest provides an opportunity to be around the students as employees, and to meet young talent from all over the world,\u201d says Manuel Macedo, president of Henkel in Chile and head of consumer adhesives for Southern Latin America. In addition to receiving material prizes such as trips and tablets, participants have the opportunity to come into contact with Henkel managers, who act as team mentors. The competition also offers an opportunity to work at the company. In the space of seven years, some 130 students have been hired.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, a Brazilian team won the Latin America regional final, topping Mexico\u2014a traditional event participant\u2014and Colombia, which like Brazil was participating in the competition for the second time. Daniel Minatelli, 23, and Fernando Luengo, 25, both master\u2019s degree students at the Chemistry Institute of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP), went to the finals held in Germany in April, where students from 30 countries participated. The Brazilians are studying the use of biopolymers such as proteins, starch and cellulose to regenerate human tissue. When they learned of the competition, they had the idea of developing a new, completely biodegradable adhesive. \u201cIf you take food waste\u2014potato peelings, for example\u2014you can extract starch and use it to produce an adhesive that can be used in food packaging,\u201d Luengo explains. \u201cBesides being biodegradable and usable as post-consumption compost, the material would not be toxic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The design did not win the competition, but the experience opened Luengo\u2019s eyes to a different way of thinking about research activity than he had ever imagined. \u201cWe saw that our research has the potential to move outside the walls of the university, to go beyond the bounds of our laboratory,\u201d he says. This is because the competition also rests on the view that a researcher needs to be aware of the economic dimensions of his project. According to Luengo, throughout the three stages, participants are encouraged to think about business strategies that can make the project viable.<\/p>\n

\u201cCandidates need to have creativity and the analytical capability of developing a clear, consistent concept while bearing in mind the needs of the market,\u201d Macedo points out. Henkel\u2019s interest, therefore, is not in the products proposed by the participants. \u201cThe focus of the challenge is not the products, but rather the students\u2019 creative and innovative potential. The projects are only viewed as hints of future trends,\u201d Macedo says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Multinational promotes competition for innovation","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1204],"tags":[243],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-151278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","tag-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151278"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=151278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}