National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean [1] 9789290891543

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National Science, Technology

and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Guillermo A. Lemarchand (editor)

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this publication and for the opinions expressed herein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO, and do not commit the Organization. The designations employed throughout this publication and the modality of presentation of data, do not imply the expression of any opiUSDnion whatsoever on the part of the UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or the delimitations of its frontiers or boundaries.

© UNESCO 2010 Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean Edificio MERCOSUR Dr. Luis Piera 1992 11200 Montevideo, Uruguay Tel. (598) 2413 2075 Fax: (598) 2413 2094 e-mail: [email protected] web: www.unesco.org.uy

Second updated edition: October 2010

ISBN: 978-92-9089-154-3

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Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Contents Prologue by Jorge Grandi............................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements:.................................................................................................... 13 Science, technology and innovation policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past six decades Guillermo A. Lemarchand............................................................................................ 15 1.

Introduction:................................................................................................................ 15

2.

The institutional structure of the “S” in UNESCO in Latin America and the Caribbean.............................................................. 16

3.

LAC’s economic and social characteristics ..................................................................... 23

4.

Funding of scientific, technological and innovation activities in LAC................................. 33

5.

The training of human resources in science, technology and innovation in LAC ................. 38

6.

Personnel engaged in research, development and innovation activities in LAC.................... 54

7.

Science, technology and gender: women in science, technology and innovation:................. 56

8.

Output indicators for science, technology and innovation activities.................................... 62

9.

Co-authorship networks in LAC...................................................................................... 71

10. Statistics on Patents in LAC ......................................................................................... 76 11. Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean............................................................... 77 12. UNESCO and science, technology and innovation policies in Latin America and the Caribbean............................................................................... 85 13. The pace of techno-economic organizational paradigms in science, technology and innovation policies in LAC ................................................... 100 14. Characteristics of a regional LAC strategy for South-South cooperation in science, technology and innovation ..................................... 120 References........................................................................................................................ 135

Inventory of National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean......................................... 141 Argentina................................................................................................................. 143 Bolivia, Plurinational State of ................................................................................... 151 Brasil...................................................................................................................... 157 Chile....................................................................................................................... 169 Colombia................................................................................................................. 177 Costa Rica............................................................................................................... 183 Cuba....................................................................................................................... 189 Dominican Republic................................................................................................. 195 Ecuador................................................................................................................... 201 El Salvador.............................................................................................................. 207 3

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Guatemala............................................................................................................... 213 Honduras................................................................................................................. 219 Jamaica................................................................................................................... 225 Mexico.................................................................................................................... 231 Nicaragua................................................................................................................ 239 Panama................................................................................................................... 245 Paraguay.................................................................................................................. 251 Peru........................................................................................................................ 255 Trinidad & Tobago..................................................................................................... 261 Uruguay................................................................................................................... 267 Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of ............................................................................. 275 CARICOM Countries.................................................................................................. 281

Appendix Appendix 1

Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean on the tenth anniversary of the “World Conference on Science”......................................................... 293

Appendix 2

First Latin American Forum of Chairmen of Parliamentary Committees on Science and Technology Buenos Aires, March 7-8 2005



Declaration of Buenos Aires........................................................................................ 298

Appendix 3

Glossary of terms on science, technology and productive innovation, as used in Latin America ........................................................... 301

Appendix 4

Organisms Related to Science, Technology, Innovation and Regional Cooperation and Integration Processes...................................................... 307

Appendix 5

Bibliography.............................................................................................................. 309

Appendix 6

Nomenclature............................................................................................................ 310

Appendix 7

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Member States of UNESCO by Region.......................................................................... 311





Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

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Boxes BOX 1: The UNESCO “Science Policy Studies and Documents” collection.................................. 22 BOX 2: An approach to the assessment of the impact of science, technology and innovation policies through the evolution of indicators over time ................................................................ 27 BOX 3: Regional seminar: Education, Science and Technology for the MERCOSUR countries and associates by Sonia Scaffo.......................................................................................................... 44 BOX 4: Visibility of Latin American and Caribbean Universities on Internet . ............................... 52 BOX 5: The Millennium Development Goals: the contribution of Science and Technology Gender implications . ................................................................................................. 58 BOX 6: The L’ORÉAL-UNESCO programme: “For Women in Science” ........................................ 61 BOX 7: What are bibliometrics?............................................................................................... 63 BOX 8: Latin American and Caribbean Scientific Journals by Ana María Cetto and José Octavio Alonso-Gamboa..................................................... 64 BOX 9: Fifty years on from the “Caracas Declaration”................................................................ 88 BOX 10: Science and technology in the Parliaments of Latin America and the Caribbean .............. 97 BOX 11: The need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to solve regional problems........................................................................ 124 BOX 12: Agreement between UNESCO and the Inter-American Development Bank to promote science, technology and innovation policies in LAC...................................... 128 BOX 13: Biosphere Reserves by Cláudia Karez...................................................................................................... 132 BOX 14: The International Hydrological Programme (IHP) in LAC by Zelmira May......................................................................................................... 132

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National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

BOX 15: Science, technology, innovation and social inclusion by Denise Gorfinkiel ................................................................................................. 133 BOX 16: The “S” of UNESCO in the Caribbean: its beginning...… ............................................. 224 BOX 17: CARISCIENCE ......................................................................................................... 287 BOX 18: Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF) ......................................................................... 290

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Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Prologue For more than six decades, the UNESCO Regional Bureau in Science for Latin America and the Caribbean has promoted science and technology policies, the development of basic sciences, engineering, alternative energy sources, mitigation of natural disasters, protection of biosphere areas, the study of the scientific and quantitative hydrology base for responsible management of water resources in an integrating economic and social context, among many other programmes in the region. Fifty years ago (1960), in Caracas (Venezuela), our office organized the first meeting of science and technology policy-makers in Latin America and started the establishment of national research councils in various countries. A few years later (1965), the “First Conference on the Application of Science and Technology to Development in Latin America” (CASTALA) was organized in Santiago (Chile). Latin America was the first region in the world to organize events of this type. Already at that time, the Final Declaration recommended governments to invest at least 1% of their GDP in research and development (R&D) activities. Almost five decades later, according to official statistics, only three countries (Brazil, Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) had reached this figure. In 2007, the average investment in R&D throughout the region was only 0.67% of the GDP. During the seventies, our office’s strategy was focused on integration and harmonization of science policies among the LAC countries. For this purpose, six meeting were held of the “Standing Conference of the Directors of National Science and Research Councils on the Latin American and Caribbean Member States.” In 1985, the last of these intergovernmental conferences was organized in Brasilia (CASTALAC II). Our office also contributed to the establishment of regional research centres, such as the Latin American Physics Centre (Centro Latinoamericano de Física) (1962), the Latin American Chemistry Centre (Centro Latinoamericano de Química) (1966), or the Latin American Biology Centre (Centro Latinoamericano de Biología) (1972). Later on, during the nineties, we supported the setting up of networks such as, inter alia RedPOP, RELAB, RedFAC, RedLACQ, RedPOST, CARISCIENCE, among others. At present, we consider that once again, LAC countries have a great opportunity to integrate their science and technology efforts and establish a true South-South cooperation alliance in the region. For this reason, we have decided to provide the Member States with regular reports aimed at governmental decision-makers and planners, in order to fulfil the mandate of our Organization. The present volume is the first of a series we hope will extend over time. It presents a study of the evolving Science Technology and Innovation (STI) policies in LAC over the past six decades, together with an inventory of the region’s national science, technology and innovation systems. I feel confident that this information will be of great use, both to decision-makers and STI policy planners and to members of the scientific and academic community. At this point it is important to note that our Organization promotes an inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to find solutions to the global challenges facing modern society. In particular, during the recent UNESCO General Conference held in October 2009, the promotion of policies and strengthening of capacities in science, technology and innovation aimed at 7

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

sustainable development and poverty eradication were established as a mandate. Towards this aim, we were entrusted with: i. Supporting Member States in the formulation and implementation of science, technology and innovation policies, the building of related capacities, and the establishment of mechanisms linking the various sectors, drawing, as appropriate, on the contribution of local and indigenous knowledge and promote access to scientific and technical knowledge and basic services through cutting-edge technologies, especially in the developing countries. ii. Strengthen science and technology education as well as human and institutional capacitybuilding and associated policies in the basic sciences, engineering and renewable energy, including through the International Basic Sciences Programme (IBSP), in close cooperation with the Education Sector, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the International Bureau of Education (IBE) and educational and scientific networks, centres of excellence and non-governmental organizations, with emphasis on fostering the use of space technologies for promoting science education and enhancing public awareness of science and its services for development, the use of science to respond to contemporary challenges, the sharing of scientific and research capacities, and South-South and Triangular North-South-South cooperation. iii. Leverage the contribution of science and technology applications for poverty eradication, sustainable development and other internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs, and for addressing global climate change, integrating gender equality considerations and targeting under-represented groups, particularly through the promotion of linkages between education, research and development. Following these mandates, to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of our Regional Bureau in Montevideo, we undertook a series of activities aimed at analyzing progress made and results achieved during the past decade and to propose future action towards fulfilling the agreements contained in the documents of the World Conference on Science (WCS), held in Budapest (Hungary) in June 1999. These agreements were duly endorsed by UNESCO Member States at the 30th General Conference (Paris, 18 August 1999) and by the International Council for Science (ICSU) at its General Assembly (Cairo, 28-30 September 1999). With this intention we organized a series of consultative meetings with the collaboration of the main LAC scientific and technological institutions and the support of their corresponding governments. Together with the Science and Technology Consultative Forum, CONACYT and ICSU, we organized the First Regional Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards a New Social Contract for Science, held in Mexico City from 11 to 13 March 2009. In Rio de Janeiro, together with CNPq and the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology we organized a meeting of the drafting committee for the Regional Declaration (the full text can be found in Appendix 1). Finally with the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, we organized the Second Regional Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards a New Social Contract for Science, held in the city of Buenos Aires from 23 to 25 September 2009.

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Thus, the three countries generating 75% of the production of the scientific and technological knowledge of the whole of LAC were the main promoters - together with UNESCO - of this process which made it possible to gather representatives of governments, academia and civil society involved in science and technology from the whole region. Together with the consultations carried out through the UNESCO National Commissions in each country, material was consolidated that led to the drafting of a Regional Declaration. Its main hub focused on the establishment of a regional strategic programme, aimed at strengthening South-South cooperation, geared to solving common problems affecting Latin American and Caribbean countries. Throughout the consultations carried out among the 33 Member States and 4 Associate Members of UNESCO in our region, we were able to observe that many of the goals set out in the Budapest WCS were still far from being attained. Ten years after Budapest, the highest rate of generation and absorption of scientific and technological knowledge continues to be concentrated in the developed countries. This has contributed to increasing the technological gap between the latter and those countries that are still developing. It was also acknowledged that stepping up globalized relations and internationalization of scientific and technological production continues to be limited by restrictions in circulation and dissemination of the knowledge produced. Although humanity has benefitted from scientific and technological progress, it is not equitably distributed, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. In most of the countries of the region, science and technology teaching is still left out of the priority subjects on the curriculum and, furthermore, policies, curricula, teaching aids and methods for scientific disciplines are usually obsolete and of scant interest to students and teachers. There was agreement in pointing out that many of the educational systems are more concerned over selecting talent rather than promoting it, disregarding the formative process and centring on carrying out selective tests (particularly in secondary education), condemning to scientific illiteracy those students who most need help and motivation Much of the discussion and consultation was focused on the identification of the region’s strong points and weak ones. Also on the design of a set of proposals that would serve as a basis for setting up the above mentioned regional strategic programme. In November 2009, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Budapest WCS, UNESCO and the Hungarian Academy of Science organized the Fourth World Science Forum, again in Budapest. Progress made regarding the Science Agenda: Framework for Action that had been adopted a decade before during the WCS was analyzed. Latin America and the Caribbean was the only region worldwide that prepared and submitted a regional document establishing the bases to consolidate a strategic programme in science, technology and innovation. The Argentine, Brazilian and Mexican official science and technology representatives made the presentation of the document at the Fourth World Science Forum. The Regional Declaration identified the strengths and weaknesses found in LAC and on this basis put forward a series of actions that should be developed in order to implement a regional strategic plan.

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National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

As a result it was agreed that various sub-regional meetings should be organized during 2010, in collaboration with our Cluster offices in Quito (the Andean Region), San Jose (Central America and Mexico), Havana (the Spanish-speaking Caribbean) and Kingston (the English-speaking Caribbean). The aim of these meetings is to consolidate an agreement between the various stakeholders (government, the academic community, enterprise and civil society) seeking the effective implementation of the various proposals included in the Regional Declaration of Buenos Aires. Furthermore, we are planning to organize another Regional Forum in 2011, to harmonize the different proposals from each sub-region in science, technology and innovation. These are the specific activities defined in our mandate. UNESCO’s priority axis is the planning of strategic interventions to build up sustainable science and technology through the establishment of policy networks, the strengthening of research and the promotion of learning to guarantee a knowledge society. These networks will facilitate the exchange of information, data, experience and essential expertise to promote understanding of natural systems, preservation of biodiversity and a sustainable socio-economic development. In order to find appropriate solutions to all these issues, innovative vision, new knowledge and skills different from traditional ones are required, together with interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches. Strategies geared towards regional problem solving demand the creation of inter-sectoral platforms to apply innovative solutions with coordination and synergic action among the various social stakeholders. The decade 2005-2014 has been declared the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and UNESCO as the lead agency is responsible for its coordination. The Education for All strategy has been formulated in this framework and, as part of it, the aim is to achieve quality scientific education for all. This must involve the following dimensions: respect for human rights, relevance, pertinence, equity, effectiveness and efficiency. These contents are reflected within the type of actions proposed in the LAC Regional Declaration. It was also agreed that it is essential to develop new forms of cooperation: • To promote networks of scientists from different disciplines and countries to find solutions to regional issues and share laboratories and research programmes; • To create new sources of research and development funding in order to promote cooperation among the various countries and make it possible to solve these regional priorities; • To coordinate third level and university teaching and syllabuses involving issues of priority to Latin America and the Caribbean, such as: water resource management, sustainable development, energy production and consumption, renewable energies, environment, preservation of biodiversity, etc. • To coordinate public policies on science, technology and innovation and on strategies for sustainable development. Science, technology, innovation and knowledge are all fundamental instruments in the eradication of poverty, the struggle against hunger and the improvement of the health of our populations. They are also essential to achieve sustainable, integrated, inclusive, equitable and environmentally respectful regional development, paying special attention to the situation of the more vulnerable economies. To reach this goal, it is crucial to advance towards public policies 10

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

that build up a knowledge society promoting social equity, inclusion, diversity, cohesion and justice and full respect for gender equality, contributing thus to overcome the effects of the world financial and economic crisis in our countries and finally, upgrade the quality of life of our peoples. A democratic society requires a high level of participation that is only possible if citizens are provided with the necessary formation to achieve it effectively. The exercise of citizenship, that is to say, feeling part of collective issues, being able to examine and understand local and global problems concerning us, presupposes the skill of using scientific knowledge within a social context that values it and to have the capacity to take decisions and to act effectively, making use of this knowledge. In its broadest sense, scientific and technological knowledge should not remain circumscribed uniquely to experts. Scientific knowledge is justified according to the context in which it is applied and the use made of this learning, thus science teaching must favour the acquisition of an attitude in which amazement, self-confidence and a critical thinking are enhanced and these faculties should be extended to society as a whole. These visions were the dominating approach during the discussions within the Forums. The Regional Declaration attempts to reflect them in its proposals. Finally, I would like to close this prologue appealing to all those who are responsible for designing science, technology and innovation policies and also to scientists and academics, to focus our efforts to apply the knowledge derived from scientific and technological labour to the benefit of the quality of life of our inhabitants. We must start to consider, as pointed out in the Regional Declaration “that it is an ethical and strategic imperative for science, technology and innovation to integrate social inclusion as a cross-cutting dimension in its activities (STI).”

Jorge Grandi, Director, UNESCO Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean Montevideo, 1 February 2010

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Acknowledgements The publication of this volume has been possible thanks to the proposal, enthusiasm and constant support of Mr. Jorge Grandi, Director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. I should also like to thank my collaborators for drafting various texts included in this volume: Ana María Cetto, Deputy Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and President of LATINDEX; José Octavio Alonso-Gamboa from the General Library Directorate of UNAM and General Coordinator of LATINDEX; Cláudia S. Karez, Programme Specialist in Ecological and Earth Science, Denise Gorfinkiel, National Programme Officer for Natural Sciences, Sonia Scaffo, Consultant for the Education Sector and Zelmira May, Consultant for the International Hydrological Programme, all colleagues at the UNESCO Office in Montevideo. I must also underscore the considerable task of systematization of the information carried out by Martín Viera Dieste, assistant consultant who has been responsible for preparing the inventory of national science, technology and innovation systems, included in the second part of this volume. Without his constant work and enthusiasm this report could not have been successfully concluded. It is also timely to express thanks to Lenin Henríquez who collaborated in the initial stage of the project. The willingness, constant help and professional input of Paula Santos, Assistant to the Natural Sciences Programme, who collaborated in the various stages of the project, must also be highlighted. Last but not least, this volume could not have been published without two colleagues from the Publications Department of the UNESCO Office for Science for Latin America and the Caribbean: María Noel Pereyra who made an excellent job of designing and diagramming it, and the professional work done by Silvia Diez in correcting the texts. The following volume constitutes an improved and up-to-date edition of the Spanish original work published eight months ago, several figures were modified and small changes within the national STI organizational charts were introduced. The regional review on STI policies in LAC was translated by Victoria Swarbrick, while the STI National Systems Inventory sections by Irene Delgado and Blima Ginzo Díaz. The proof reading of the last was done by Paula Santos and Kirsty Lee Holstead. We are in debt with all of them for their professional great work.

Guillermo A. Lemarchand Editor

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Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades1 Guillermo A. Lemarchand2

1. Introduction: The year 2009 saw the sixtieth anniversary of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. To commemorate this anniversary, the Science Policy and Sustainable Development Programme decided to reinitiate the regular publication of reports on science policy and on the national science, technology and innovation systems of the region, which the Montevideo Bureau had regularly edited between 1965 and 1985 within the “Science Policy Studies and Documents” series. The history of the Regional Bureau for Science goes back to 1947 and the Second Session of the UNESCO General Conference held in Mexico City. At that Conference, the Organization’s Member States entrusted the Director General with the task of opening a science cooperation office in Latin America, recommending that an expert meeting be held to define the best way of assisting the progress of science in the region. Between 6 and 10 September 1948, jointly convened by the Government of Uruguay and UNESCO, some thirty experts from diverse scientific disciplines met in Montevideo. The meeting was chaired by the distinguished Uruguayan professor, Clemente Estable, while the honorary president was the Argentine Bernardo Houssay who had been awarded the Nobel 1



This work and the information it contains is the responsibility of its author and is not necessarily the opinion of UNESCO. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

2



Consultant for the Division of Science Policy and Sustainable Development (SC PSD) and for the Division of Basic Science and Engineering (SC BES), UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2008-2010. Address: Edificio MERCOSUR, Luis Piera 1992, 2do piso;11200 Montevideo, Uruguay. E-mail: [email protected] - [email protected]

Prize for Medicine in 1947. The participants adopted the General Conference proposal and drew up a document describing the tasks the regional office was to undertake in order to contribute to the development of scientific activities in the region. Some of the original tasks set out in this foundational document were to systematize, standardize and disseminate scientific and technological information in the region; to support the exchange of teachers, students and specialists among the countries of Latin America and the major science centres in the world; to promote the signing of agreements of a scientific and cultural nature among the Member States; to foster the creation of research centres, the development of research facilities and capacities, the acquisition of laboratory equipment, and the granting of scientific research grants and fellowships; to formulate suggestions and provide scientific information regarding the region’s problems, among many others. The constitutive document which showed clear adhesion to the linear model of science, ended by affirming: “All scientific and technological progress directed towards the benefit of humankind is based on the development of the basic sciences. Considering the absence of such development in Latin America, the Conference of Experts recommends the governments of the countries of Latin America, UNESCO and the institutions that the development of sciences such as biology, mathematics, physics and chemistry among others, must be promoted by all suitable and necessary means” (UNESCO, 1948). Just a few months later, in January 1949 in the city of Montevideo, the UNESCO Field Science Cooperation Office for Latin America

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

was opened. At that time, only 15 nations in the region were associated with UNESCO. Over the years the office broadened its functions and changed its name, up to the present one. The present volume is the first of the new collection named “Latin American and Caribbean Science Policy Studies and Documents” and is divided into two major sectors. The first includes a regional analysis of the recent evolution of science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and national systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), while the second part presents an inventory of national STI structures, a synthesis of the most outstanding programmes and a summary analysis of the evolution of the main science and technology input and output indicators for each country of the region. The volume ends with several appendixes that provide complementary information used while preparing the report.

2. The institutional structure of the “S” in UNESCO in Latin America and the Caribbean The Latin American and Caribbean region has 33 UNESCO Member States and 4 Associate Members. It spans an area of over 20.3 million square kilometres and in 2008 its population amounted to more than 575 million inhabitants. The countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region show a great diversity of size, climate, and variety of physical, demographic, economic, political, cultural and social conditions. On examining the various sub-regions, the sample of countries becomes more homogeneous. In order to address this great diversity of patterns, UNESCO has a vast network of offices which, in coordination with Paris Headquarters, attend to the requirements of the various sub-regions and countries. In this way, the UNESCO Science Sector coordinates 16

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

on a regional level the activities of its Divisions of Basic and Engineering Sciences (SC BES); Water Sciences (SC IHP); Ecological and Earth Sciences (SC EES); Science Policy and Sustainable Development (SC PSD) and the activities of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (SC IOC) through the Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean located in Montevideo. This Bureau also has regional responsibility for the Social and Human Sciences Sector for the whole of Latin America, including the ethics of science and technology programme. Administrative reporting of the various countries within UNESCO is organized into different sub-regions from north to south in the following way: the UNESCO San Jose Cluster Office (Costa Rica covers the activities of Mexico and the Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The Havana (Cuba) Cluster Office manages activities developed in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic together with Haiti (a Francophone country). The Kingston (Jamaica) Cluster Office is responsible for activities within Anglophone Caribbean, including Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the continental States of Belize, Suriname and Guyana as well as the small island States of Antigua and Barbuda, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Granada, the Caiman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Lucia. The Quito Cluster Office covers the Andean sub region, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela; while the Montevideo Cluster office is responsible for the Southern Cone: Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. UNESCO also has national offices in Brasilia, Guatemala City, Lima, Port-au-Prince and Santiago. It should be noted that the Havana and Santiago Bureaux are regionally responsible for

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

the Sectors of Culture and Education respectively. Furthermore, UNESCO has an International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) located in Caracas and an International Institute for Education Planning (IIPE) located in Buenos Aires. Moreover, the Latin American and Caribbean region also has several category II institutes and centres under the auspices of UNESCO which, as stated in 33C/90, are entities which are not legally part of the Organization, but which are associated with it through formal arrangements approved by the General Conference. A National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO operates in each of the Member States. It comprises representatives of the Organization’s five sectors (Education, Natural Sciences, Social Science, Communication and Information, and Culture). In general these Commissions operate within the framework of the Ministries of Education or Foreign Affairs. Their existence is an element which is part of UNESCO’s Constitution and is unique within the United Nations system. They are able to facilitate contacts and promote interaction between the Member States and the intellectual and professional communities in each country, aiming at forging broader links and extending UNESCO’s scope in each nation. UNESCO’s actions obey medium term strategies that cover six yearly planning divided into three two-year programmes approved at each General Conference of the Organization. Graph 1 shows a synthesis of the main objectives to be achieved during the present period, set out in the 2008-2013 Medium-Term Strategy (document 34 C/4). The strategy thus defined considers that science and technology are essential for attaining peace and achieving poverty eradication and sustainable development. Through its

science programmes, UNESCO will act as a catalyst to enable Member States to address multidimensional aspects related to peace and poverty, while promoting a dialogue among different cultures and knowledge systems. UNESCO will promote equal access to scientific and technical knowledge and to basic services through appropriate technologies, leading to better living standards, especially for the excluded segments of societies. Guided by internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Organization is addressing in particular the needs of Africa, women, youth, indigenous peoples, the least developed countries (LDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). UNESCO is also encouraging access for people to benefit from and participate in the production, sharing and application of scientific knowledge. In fulfilling these vital roles, UNESCO with its science mandate will be the primary advocate within the United Nations system for the transformative power of scientific knowledge in support of peace, poverty eradication and sustainable development by fostering dialogue, cooperation, networking, capacitybuilding as well as knowledge-sharing with the scientific community, decision-makers and civil society, globally, regionally and at the country level. Furthermore, UNESCO has a vital role in helping to strengthen national science and technology capacities and create an enabling environment, by developing and promoting access to scientific and technological research and innovations, including the understanding of the dynamic interactions between Earth systems and society; collecting and interpreting data for monitoring and benchmarking; advocating the adoption of evidence-based science, engineering and technology policies by Member States incorporating UNESCO norms and standards.

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Special attention is paid to empowering women through access to science and technology information, attracting youth to scientific careers and promoting young researchers. Programmes reflect and communicate cutting–edge science, including new scientific paradigms, such as societal3 ecological resilience and adaptive management of the environment, while also taking into account local and indigenous knowledge. In particular, science, technology and innovation policies are framed in Strategic Programme Objective 4 which proposes “Fostering policies and capacity-building in science, technology and innovation, with special importance assigned to the basic and engineering sciences.” In the context of the above mentioned strategy, basic sciences and engineering are presented as creating the scientific underpinning for innovations, yielding economic benefits and offering improved opportunities to meet basic human needs. Within this framework, UNESCO supports Member States, notably in Africa, LDCs and SIDS in developing their national science, technology and innovation policies and building human and institutional capacities in science and technology. This task is achieved by strengthening educational and research institutions; providing upstream policy advice; benchmarking and monitoring trends in science, technology and innovation systems; fostering regional and sub-regional cooperation in training and research; and communicating the results of scientific research, technological development and productive innovation to policy-makers and the public. The Member States have entrusted UNESCO with assisting them in building the capacity

and knowledge base for policy-makers, curriculum planners, teacher trainers and teachers to improve the quality and relevance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. UNESCO will also advocate the incorporation of improved science curricula and scientific content at all levels of education in order to stimulate greater interest in these fields among young people. In the field of energy, UNESCO will provide evidence-based policy advice, build capacities and disseminate scientific and technical knowledge with special emphasis on renewable and alternative energies, energy management and conservation of the environment. Dialogue and collaboration through a range of trans-disciplinary networks and centres of excellence, especially in the developing countries, as well as South-South, North-South and triangular cooperative programmes, will be particularly important features of all such efforts. Global, regional and sub-regional networking, cooperation and knowledge-sharing mechanisms for science policy and basic and engineering sciences will be supported and promoted. The 32nd UNESCO General Conference (Document 31 C/21 of 19 September 2003) determined the administrative dependency of the Member States, divided into five regions (1) Africa; (2) Latin America and the Caribbean; (3) Asia and the Pacific; (4) the Arab States; (5) Europe and North America4. However, administrative dependency does not always fully coincide with the geographical location in relation to the continents. Details of each country’s membership with UNESCO’s regional divisions can be found in Appendix 7. In order to better understand the proportions and differences between each of the five regions, four relevant indicators are represented

4 3



18

Here, the term “societal” refers to society understood in a broad sense, including its needs and aspirations, as well as its rational structures responsible for (political, legislative, administrative and consultative) decision-making and the respective corrective feed-back processes.

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

The Regional Bureau for Science in Africa is located in Nairobi, the one for Latin America and the Caribbean in Montevideo, the Regional Bureau for Science in Asia and the Pacific in Jakarta, the one for the Arab States in Cairo and the one for Europe-North America is shared between Venice and Paris.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

in this study: fraction of the earth’s surface; fraction of the global domestic gross product; fraction of the global population and fraction of global scientific publications. Graph 2 shows the percentage fraction of the earth’s total surface (here the area occupied by the Antarctic has been included) occupied by each region. Graph 3 shows the regional distribution of global gross domestic product (GDP) for the

year 2008 (estimates and calculations done by the author using GDP values against 2000 constant dollars of the United States (USD) for each country, supplied by the United Nations Statistics Division). Graph 4 shows the percentage regional distribution of the global population for the year 2008 (estimates and calculations made by the author on the basis of national data supplied by the United

Graph 1: UNESCO Medium-term strategy for 2008-1013. Source: reproduced from UNESCO Document 34 C/4 (English version), Paris, 2007, p.38. 19

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Distribution of area, fraction of global GDP, population and scientific output by UNESCO administrative region

Graph 2: Percentage distribution of the area occupied by countries within each one of UNESCO’s five administrative regions as compared to the total of the earth’s surface. Source: prepared by the author.

Graph 3: Percentage distribution of the gross global product, measured for the year 2008 against 2000 constant USD, shown by UNESCO administrative region. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of national and global GDP supplied by the United Nations Division of Statistics. .

Graph 4: Percentage distribution of the world population for the year 2008, represented by UNESCO administrative region. Source: Prepared by the author from data on national populations supplied by the United Nations Division of Statistics.

Graph 5: Distribution of mainstream scientific publications accumulated between 1998- 2007, listed in the SCOPUS base, shown by UNESCO administrative regions. Source: prepared by the author.

20

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Nations Division of Statistics). Finally, graph 5 shows the percentage distribution of mainstream scientific publications accumulated between 1998 and 2007 (estimates made by the author on the basis of national data estimated by the SCOPUS database). These aggregate graphs only show the enormous differences in physical, population, economic resources and in the generation of knowledge existing among each of UNESCO’s administrative regions. Only in the case of distribution of accumulated scientific production by region and the corresponding distribution of the global GDP, does there seem to be a good correlation between both figures. In the particular case of LAC, the 33 Member States and 4 Associate Member States occupy 13.7% of the earth’s surface, 4.7% of the global GDP, 8.6% of the global population and 2.9% of mainstream scientific publications as revealed by the SCOPUS database between 1998-2007. The UNESCO/UNITWIN Chairs, set up in 1992 by the 26th General Conference, is another of the UNESCO programmes which has an important presence in LAC. UNITWIN is the abbreviation of the University Twinning and Networking Programme. The UNITWIN/ UNESCO Chairs Programme was conceived as a way to advance research, training and programme development in all of UNESCO’s fields of competence by building university networks and encouraging inter-university cooperation through the transfer of knowledge across borders. UNITWIN Networks and UNESCO Chairs provide the academic community with an opportunity to become partners with UNESCO and to directly contribute to pursuing the Organization’s strategic objectives as defined by the General Conference as well as contributing to

the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The UNESCO Executive Board has recently underscored the dual function of UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks as “think tanks” and “bridge builders” between the academic world, civil society, local communities, research, policy-making and other decision-makers (UNESCO; 2009). Table 1 shows the distribution of UNESCO Chairs up to May 2009, classified by UNESCO Sector and administrative region. The values of the number of chairs by sector and region are presented as well as the percentage fraction as compared to the total of each sector in each administrative region. For example, Latin America and the Caribbean have 12% of the Natural Sciences Sector Chairs; 21.8% of the Social and Human Science Sector Chairs; 19.1% of those of the Education Sector; 11.9% of the Culture Sector Chairs and 26.5% of those of the Communication and Information Sector. Thus, considering all Sectors, LAC has 17.3% of all the UNESCO Chairs globally. It is the second best represented region, following Europe and North America that host 50.2% of the total of UNESCO Chairs. However, within the Natural Sciences Sector, LAC has the least percentage of representation of all UNESCO’s administrative regions. There are only 23 UNESCO Chairs in Natural Sciences distributed thematically with the following proportions: 1 within the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (SC IOC); 2 within the Division of Water Sciences (SC IHP); 9 within the Division of Basic and Ingeneering Sciences (SC BES); 8 within the Division of Ecology and Earth Sciences (SC EES); and 3 within the Division of Science Policy and Sustainable Development (SC PSD).

21

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Table 1: Distribution of UNESCO Chairs by Sectors and Administrative Regions (May 2009) Africa

UNESCO Sector

No.

%

Arab States

Asia-Pacific

Latin America & Caribbean

No.

No.

No.

%

%

%

Central & Eastern Europe No.

%

Western Europe & North America No.

%

Total Europe & North America No.

%

Natural Sciences

29

17.2%

28

14.6%

34

17.7%

23

12.0%

41

21.4%

33

17.2%

74

38.5%

Social & Human Sciences

14

8.2%

8

4.7%

15

8.8%

37

21.8%

35

20.6%

61

35.9%

96

56.5%

Education

20

12.7%

12

7.6%

18

11.5%

30

19.1%

32

20.4%

45

28.7%

77

49.0%

Culture

5

5.0%

7

6.9%

16

15.8%

12

11.9%

21

20.8%

40

39.6%

61

60.4%

Communication & Information

3

6.1%

1

2.0%

6

12.2%

13

26.5%

12

24.5%

14

28.6%

26

53.1%

71

10.7%

56

8.4%

89

13.4%

115

17.3%

141

21.2%

193

29.0%

334

50.2%

Totals

BOX 1: The UNESCO “Science Policy Studies and Documents” collection

For almost three decades, between the early sixties and the mid-eighties, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science for Latin America and the Caribbean published a series of documents, coordinated by Paris Headquarters known as “Science Policy Studies and Documents.” The main aim of the series was to make available to those responsible for scientific research and development in the various countries of the world objective information on the science policies of the Organization’s Member States and also to offer policy-setting studies of a general nature. In this collection the national reports were prepared by government authorities responsible for science and tech-

22

nology policies in the respective countries. The collection also included policy-setting studies regarding science policy planning and science and technology research management as well as other aspects of development. Various volumes containing the minutes of international and regional meetings on the design of science, technology and innovation policies were also published. Generally, the country or regional studies were published in a single language (Spanish [S]), French [F], or English [E]), while the policy-setting studies were published in the three languages. A list follows of the main volumes containing issues of rel-

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

evance for Latin America and the Caribbean: • Vol. 14, La política científica en América Latina 1, [S], Montevideo, 1969. • Vol. 15, Manual for surveying national scientific and technological potential, [E, I, F, R], Montevideo, 1970. • Vol. 20, Política científica y organización de la investigación científica en la Argentina, Montevideo, 1965. • Vol. 26, International aspects of technological innovation [E, F], París, 1971. • Vol. 28, Science policy research and teaching units [E, F], París, 1971.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

• Vol. 29, La política científica en América Latina - 2 [S], Montevideo, 1972. • Vol. 37, La política científica en América Latina - 3 [S], Montevideo, 1975. • Vol. 40, Method for priority determination in science and technology, [S, E, F], París, 1978. • Vol. 42, La política científica en América Latina 4, [S], Montevideo, 1979. • Vol. 42 b, Presupuestación nacional de actividades científicas y tecnológicas Add., [S], Montevideo, 1980. • Vol. 46, An introduction to Policy Analysis in Science and Technology , [E, F, S], París, 1981. • Vol. 49, Repertorio mundial de proyectos de investigación, estudios y cursos relativos a las políticas científicas y tecnológicas, [E, F, S], París, 1981. • Vol. 53, La sexta reunión de la Conferencia permanente

de organismos nacionales de política científica y tecnológica en América Latina y el Caribe, [S], Montevideo, 1983.

• Vol. 63, Unesco science and technology activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, [S, E], Montevideo, 1985.

• Vol. 54, Informes nacionales y subregionales de política científica y tecnológica en América Latina y el Caribe, [S], Montevideo, 1983.

• Vol. 68, Méthodes de programmation applicables à l’orientation et la gestion de la R&D nationale, [F], París, 1990.

• Vol. 59, World directory of national science and technology policy making bodies , [E, F, S], París, 1984.

• Vol. 70, World directory of research projects, studies and courses in science and technology policy (Second edition), [E, S, F], París, 1989.

• Vol. 60, Manual para el establecimiento de unidades de documentación y bases de datos bibliográficos nacionales para la política científica y tecnológica, [E, F, S], París, 1984. • Vol. 61, Technology assessment: review and implications for developing countries, [E, F], París, 1984. • Vol. 62, National and sub-regional reports on science and technology policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (Part II), [S, E], Montevideo, 1985.

Summing up, in over six decades UNESCO has consolidated a considerable institutional structure geared towards the Natural Sciences in the region. In particular, the Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean has undertaken an important task by articulating science, technology and innovation policies in the region to satisfy the requirements of the Organization’s Mission: contributing to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. The last sections of this study give details of the main actions generated by the

• Vol. 73, World directory of academic research groups in science ethics, [E], París, 1993. • Vol. 74, The Management of science and technology in transition economies, [E], París, 1994.

Notas: (1) [S]: Spanish; [E]: English; [F]: French; [R]: Russian. (2) The above volumes are available in their electronic version at: http://spin.unesco.org.uy

Regional Science Bureau regarding science, technology and innovation policies over the past sixty years.

3. LAC’s economic and social characteristics The economic, social, educational, scientific and technological patterns in LAC are very heterogeneous and over the past decades have shown different evolutionary progress. In order to examine and distinguish these characteristics it is essential to analyze a set of long-term indicators. For example, graph 6 shows the evolution over time of the GDP of 23

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

ten countries in the region between 1950 and 2008, expressed as a percentage of the total GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean. Thus we can appreciate the dynamics of each nation in comparison with the aggregate product of the whole region. Three countries alone have been concentrating almost 70% of the GDP of the whole region A more detailed observation shows that Argentina has considerably reduced its regional GDP shares, from being the main economic power in the region in 1950 with a little over 30%, to coming third with a little less than

15% in 2008. In 1960, Brazil equalled that of Argentina, reaching a peak of 36% in 1988 and dropping to 32% in 2008. In 1974, Mexico displaced Argentina, holding a value of around 21% in 2008. Only one third of Argentina’s sharp drop may be explained by the fact that its rate of demographic growth has been much lower than that of Brazil or Mexico. Other revealing aspects show the smooth oscillations of Chilean or Peruvian economies when observed in the long term and the sharp drop in the Cuban shares after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It may also be

Graph 6: Long-term economic dynamics among the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (19502008). Evolution over time of the percentage fraction of each GDP out of the total GDP of LAC annually between 1950 and 2008 for 8 countries of the region Source: prepared and calculated by the author, using original national GDP data from ECLAC and the United Nations Division of Statistics.

24

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

observed that Uruguay shows a similar drop to that of Argentina, falling from 3% in 1950 to a little over 1% in 2008. Finally this type of long-term analysis shows just how dynamic each of the economies is as compared to the aggregated performance of the group. Curves showing a positive gradient point to their rate of growth being higher than the whole region’s rate of growth. Likewise, those with negative gradients indicate that the rate of growth of that country is lower than the regional rate of growth. Finally, if the curve has almost no gradient (it is almost horizontal), this indicates that the rate of growth is similar to that of the region as a whole (see Box 2). Following the same rationale and to represent LAC economic dynamics in the international context, graph 9 represents evolution over time of GDP in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean, China, South Korea and Africa, as a percentage of global GDP between 1970 and 2008. This shows some very interesting results. For example, the fraction of global GDP occupied by Brazil between the years 1979 and 2000 was similar to the fraction of the whole African continent. Likewise, the growth of China is very revealing, as it follows a quadratic function that shows up when analyzing the evolution over time of the fraction of global GDP it occupied over the past 40 years. In 1979, China equalled the GDP of Argentina, in 1984 that of Mexico, in 1993 that of Brazil and in 2007 that of the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean. On the other hand, the case of the growth of South Korea has been somewhat more moderate, possibly explained by the population size of the country. In 1984 South Korea’s GDP equalled that of Argentina, in 1990 that of Mexico and possibly by 2011 will reach that of Brazil. These graphs are more impressive than the traditional ones that usually show individual rates of growth. In this type of illustration, curves are usually smoother and make it pos-

sible to model the dynamics of the various countries and regions using differential equation systems, similar to those used by mathematical ecology in the studies of competition among the various species to occupy the same ecological niche. These models have been used successfully in the modelling of substitutive competence between technologies to occupy a certain techno-economic niche and in various technological forecast studies (Lemarchand, 1990). In our case, the niche to be occupied is the fraction of global GDP and each country or region would represent the competing species. In this metaphoric analysis, each country or region’s skill in incorporating technological innovations in its productive system is what enables its growing (or decreasing) gradient to occupy (or to leave empty) a greater fraction of global GDP. More detailed studies will make it possible to assume the dynamic properties of the various growth curves by country and thus determine the growth constants, the tipping point and changes in hollowness that are useful to correlate these points of change with the application (or not) of technological or economic policies, be they implicit or explicit, that are the reason for the patterns observed in the growth of the countries studied. Graph 10 shows the annual evolution of GDP per capita growth rates based on the 2000 constant USD standardized with the purchasing parity power (PPP), expressed in percentages for the whole of LAC and also for the rest of the countries of the world. It will be clearly seen that between 1974 and 1984 the region went through a period of increasing loss of per capita income. Even though the process was reverted after 1985, it was only from 1994 onwards that it stabilized in an annual per capita growth figure of 1.3 – 1.5 %, a much lower figure than that observed between 1960 and 1973 which was 2.3 – 2.5 %. On the other hand, when observing the GDP growth rates (measured in constant USD – year 25

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 9: Long-term economic dynamics among various countries and regions of the world (1970-2008). This graph represents the evolution over time of each national or regional GDP as compared to the total global GDP calculated annually between 1970 and 2008 for LAC, Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Korea and Mexico. Source: preparation and calculations done by the author using original national and regional GDP data from the United Nations Division of Statistics..

Graph 10: Evolution over time (1960-2007) of the per capita GDP growth rates expressed in constant year 2000 USD, standardized with the purchasing power parity (PPP). Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data provided by the database of the Inter-American Development Bank. 26

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

BOX 2: An approach to the assessment of the impact of science, technology and innovation policies through the evolution of indicators over time A detailed study to prepare a methodology for the impact of STI policies would require work that exceeds the scope of this publication. However, in order to provide an approach to the issue, this box shows a schematic model of how we proceeded to make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the impact of these policies in an aggregate or global manner. Initially it may be assumed that, following a period of application of a specific policy, the evolution over time of the performance of the main science, technology and innovation indicators (STII) will show an evolutive pattern and over time may show growing, decreasing or remain constant. In order to identify the most relevant patterns, we are assuming here that the structural situation of each country is not directly influencing the performance of national STI systems. In a more sophisticated model, the influence of each country’s structural situation could be considered, including it as specific surrounding conditions that affect the evolution over time of the STII under examination. A method of determining if a given policy, applied within a specific context does or does not produce positive results, is through the analysis of the evolution over time of a given indicator. If it shows a positive or ascending gradient or slope, it may be inferred that the policies applied are meeting expectations. Should this be the case, an analysis on mathematical terms will

show that the quotient between the difference in two successive values of the selected indicator (∆I) and the difference between the two successive values of the time span (∆t) will have a numeric value that will be greater which is the than 0, or same. Graph 7 shows the type of evolution over time that would demonstrate such a pattern. Furthermore, if the policies applied generate negative effects on the national STI system, it will be observed that after a period of application, the evolution over time of the main STI indicators performance will show an evolutive pattern with a downward slope indicating a negative result. In mathematical terms, the quotient between the difference of the two successive values of the selected indicator (∆I) and the difference of the two successive values of the time span (∆t) will have a numeric value of which is the less than 0, or same. Graph 8 shows the type of evolution over time that this performance describes. Finally, the case of a specific policy having a neutral result on the STI system is set out. This means that after a period of application the evolution over time of the performance of the main science, technology and innovation indicators has shown no change, or what is the same, shown a negative gradient. In mathematical terms, the quotient between the difference of the two successive values of the selected STI indicator (∆I) and the difference of the two succes-

sive values of the time spanned (∆t) will have a numeric value that will be approximately equal which is the same. to 0, or The upper left-hand side of graph 8 also demonstrates this type of evolution over time performance. STII can be classified into two major groups: (a) input indicators; and (b) output indicators. As what we want to analyze is the effect of a set of policies on a specific country (or region), we must examine the various instruments to promote the STI activities that have been applied in each case. For this purpose a set of indicators must be selected that are able to standardize all the variables among the countries (or regions), making them independent from the size of the country (for example, Brazil is much larger than Guatemala). Within the variety of existing indicators that are being analyzed systematically by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), the OECD or the RICYT in Latin America and the Caribbean, within this study (see Inventory of National STI Systems in LAC), the following have been selected for practical purposes: (a) Input indicators: (1) Expenditure on STI activities measured as a percentage of the GDP in dollars that have been weighted with the purchasing parity power (PPP); (2) Per capita spending in PPP dollars; (3) Staff engaged in STI activities expressed in the full-time equivalent (FTE) work; and (4) Staff engaged in STI activities expressed in the (FTE) 27

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 7

work divided by the economically active population (EAP);. (b) Output indicators: (1) Number of publications listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI); (2) Number of publications listed in the SCI per capita; (3) Number of patents per capita requested by residents; and (4) Number of patents per capita granted to residents. According to the above, when the input indicator gradient is positive ( ) it shows that the policies applied in the various countries are effectively introducing new funds and human resources into the system under examination. A negative gradient would indicate a drop in the STI activities input factors and no gradient would indicate that the policies applied are not introducing any change to the system.

Graph 8

The output indicators show the appropriateness of the policies applied when generating the expected results. When the gradient in the output indicators is positive ( ), it shows that the national policies are effectively increasing the production of new knowledge (publications listed in the SCI) or stimulating creativity and innovation within society (patents to residents). A negative gradient would show that the national policies have not been efficient in increasing the outputs of science, technology and innovation activities, while no gradient would show that no change in the system has been observed. At this point we should explicitly indicate that the type of analysis proposed assumes that the country’s economic, political and societal context is an integral part of the concept of “policies” that this

type of analysis can show. Following the nomenclature used by Herrera (1971), we may distinguish two categories of policies: (a) implicit policies, within which the economic, political and societal context must be included; and (b) explicit policies, among which we will exclusively include those policies formulated to have a direct action on STI activities. In the individual analysis for each country, presented in the Inventory of National STI Systems of LAC, a table is included with a set of economic, political and social indicators, aimed at contextualizing the medium-term performance of input and output indicators for science, technology and innovation activities. These will be useful to understand the differences between the various characteristics of the different national science and technology systems presented. GAL.

2000) of the LAC countries during the past

analysis shows that the Argentine crisis did

decades, we will see the impact of the Argen-

not substantially affect the Caribbean coun-

tine 2001-2002 crisis and how this affected

tries, which show a performance uncoupled

the countries of the region, also followed by

from that of the rest of the region. In the

a fast recovery. These facts are corroborated

same way, in the period following the crisis

in graphs 11 and 12, where the growth rates

(2003-2008), Argentina comes second (after

between 2000-2008 and between 2003-

Trinidad and Tobago) with the highest rate of

2008 are respectively represented. A careful

average inter-annual growth.

28

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Table 2 shows the country classification used by the World Bank to group them according to their income level. Within the sample it will be seen that in the year 2009, only Haiti (1.7% of the total population of LAC) is considered to be a low income country, 9 countries are classified as middle-low income (11.3% of the population of LAC), 19 countries as middle-high income countries (86.7% of the population of LAC) and, in the Caribbean, Antigua and Barbuda, the Netherlands Antilles, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, and Trinidad and Tobago (0.4% of the population of LAC) are considered to be high income countries. Nevertheless, Latin America and the Caribbean continue to be the region in the world with the greatest inequality in its distribution of income. Kawabata (2009) characterized the middle income countries of LAC as having the following properties: (1) low growth impelled by low productivity, (2) high poverty levels in substantial portions of the population, (3) poor quality education, (4) a low rate of good quality job creation and a high rate of casual workers, (5) low risk coverage (collapsing pension, health, accident and disability systems), (6) low investment in science, technology and innovation, (7) exclusion of minorities and sharp gender differences, (8) scant institutional capacity. There is no doubt that these regional characteristics place considerable restrictions on the design of any STI policy attempting to be effective. When observing the evolution over time of poverty and extreme poverty levels in the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean over the past decades on an integrated level (see graphs 13 and 14), it will be noted that although they have dropped in terms of percentage, the estimates for 2009 showed poverty levels representing 34.1% of the population (189 million poor people), while the figures for extreme

poverty are 13.7% (76 million people in extreme poverty). In both cases there has been an increase with respect to the year 2008 of 1.1% and 0.8% respectively. Graph 15 shows the distribution of income expressed as an average of the Gini index between the years 2003 and 2008, against the average GDP annual growth rates for the same years. The graph is divided into four quadrants separated on a vertical level by the value corresponding to half-scale of the Gini index (0.500), while the horizontal level is separated by the average growth value in Latin America and the Caribbean between the years 2003-2005. It was decided to select a period with this time band to detach it from the effect of the Argentine crisis (2001-2002) in the general performance of the region. The average of the Gini index for LAC is 0.529, indicating that this region shows the greatest inequality of income distribution in the world. In our sample, the best placed country is Venezuela, with a value of 0.446. This latter value is much higher than the average for Sub-Saharan Africa, with 0.415. It should be noted that the higher the numeric value of the Gini index, the more inequitable is income distribution. Other regions show the following averages: East Asia and the Pacific 0.388; North Africa and the Near East 0.378; South Asia 0.365; Eastern Europe and Central Asia 0.351 and the average for the OECD countries is 0.281. Kliksberg (2009) showed a set of comparisons that concisely enumerate the negative consequences promoted by the levels of inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. For instance, the child mortality rate in LAC is a factor 10 times higher than the values noted for countries such as Sweden and Norway. Furthermore, the maternal mortality rate is very high, more than 20,000 mothers die annually either during pregnancy or childbirth.

29

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Table 2: This table classifies those countries in the region with populations of over 30.000 inhabitants. For operational and analytical purposes, the economies were divided into income groups according to per capita GDP (2008), calculated using the method described in the World Bank Atlas. The groups are: low income: USD 975 or less; middle-low income, USD 976 to 3,855; middle-high income, USD 3,856 to 11,905, and high income, above USD 11,906. Low income economies and middle income economies are usually called developing economies. It should be noted that the classification by income level does not necessarily reflect the country’s true state of development. The classification of this table will remain constant up to July 2011, when it will be further revised. Source: World Bank (2010).

Country

Income level (2010)

Aruba

High income

Netherlands Antilles

High income

Bahamas, The

High income

Barbados

High income

Bermuda

High income

Trinidad & Tobago

High income

Antigua & Barbuda

Upper-middle income

Argentina

Upper-middle income

Brazil

Upper-middle income

Chile

Upper-middle income

Colombia

Upper-middle income

Costa Rica

Upper-middle income

Cuba

Upper-middle income

Dominica

Upper-middle income

Dominican Republic

Upper-middle income

Grenada

Upper-middle income

Jamaica

Upper-middle income

Mexico

Upper-middle income

Panama

Upper-middle income

Peru

Upper-middle income

St. Kitts & Nevis

Upper-middle income

St. Lucia

Upper-middle income

St. Vincent & the Grenadines

Upper-middle income

Suriname

Upper-middle income

Uruguay

Upper-middle income

Venezuela, Bolivarian Rep.

Upper-middle income

Belize

Lower-middle income

Bolivia, Pluri-national State

Lower-middle income

Ecuador

Lower-middle income

El Salvador

Lower-middle income

Guatemala

Lower-middle income

Guyana

Lower-middle income

Honduras

Lower-middle income

Nicaragua

Lower-middle income

Paraguay

Lower-middle income

Haiti

Low income

This implies that for every 160 births a mother dies, while in the OECD member countries the ratio is one for every 7300 births. Other striking indicators show that 20% of the popula30

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

tion of LAC does not have latrines, only one out of three poor children finishes secondary school; 16% of the children are undernourished; 81% of LAC produces food for more

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Graph 11: Average annual rate of growth of the GDP between the years 2000 and 2008. Source prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of GDP data in constant year 2000 dollars provided by the United Nations Division of Statistics.

Graph 12: Average annual growth of GDP between 2003 and 2008. Source: preparation and calculation done by the author on the basis of GDP data in constant year 2000 dollars, provided by the United Nations Division of Statistics.

31

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 13: Evolution of poverty in LAC, calculated as a percentage of the population in the region. Source: Prepared by the editor on the basis of data provided by CEPAL (2009b).

Graph 14: Evolution of poverty in LAC, shown in millions of inhabitants. Source: prepared by the editor on the basis of data provided by CEPAL (2009b).

32

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Distribution of income average Gini index (2003-2008)

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Average GDP growth rate (2003-2008) on the basis of millions of dollars at constant (2000) prices

Graph 15: Distribution of income expressed as an average of the Gini index between the years 20032008, against the average annual GDP growth rates between the years 2003-2008, based on millions of dollars at constant 2000 prices. Source: Preparation and calculation by the author using Gini index data provided by ECLAC (2009) and GDP evolution data provided by the United Nations Division of Statistics (2009).

than 1500 million people (almost three times the total population of LAC), however 92 million people suffer from chronic malnutrition. These figures are more pronounced when examining indigenous populations: 58% in Ecuador, 47% in Peru. New ways to generate and distribute wealth and to achieve development must be explored in Latin America and the Caribbean. These new paths need to reassess both the physical, social and economic resources potentially available in the region, as well as those using knowledge as a central axis to articulate these new development paradigms. In this context, STI must play an increasingly important role in achieving development, equity and social inclusion. This has been the approach promoted

during the work of the two Regional Fora on Science, Technology and Innovation in LAC, organized in 2009 in the cities of Mexico and Buenos Aires respectively by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science for Latin America and the Caribbean.

4. Funding of scientific, technological and innovation activities in LAC Comparisons between different countries of the performance of expenditure allocated to research and development (R&D) activities as a percentage of the GDP, must be taken with certain precaution. From the start of STI statistics, the percentage of expenditure on R&D of the GDP was an indicator creating much confusion in comparisons that were made among 33

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

the different nations of the two predominating blocs during the Cold War. Although the data to estimate investment in R&D as a percentage of the GDP were generated in accordance with the standards promoted by UNESCO or the Frascati Manual (OECD, 2003), in many cases they were gathered considering all the expenditure within scientific, technological and innovation activities. Thus the percentage shown was overvalued. At the time of the peak in mega-science projects, (for example during the Apollo Project, the construction of large particle accelerators, investment in sophisticated defence systems, etc.), comparisons based on UNESCO statistics on expenditure and personnel engaged in R &D tasks seemed to indicate that the western bloc countries had fallen back as compared to their rivals in the eastern bloc. However, this trend was being favoured by the use of a different way of accounting for expenditure and investment in STIA, both in the east and in the west. With time, specialists have been formed in various parts of the world and have perfected measuring systems. At present these indicators are used by decision makers and international organizations, not only to compare different countries and regions, but also to establish medium and long-term goals to be reached. The establishment of the Ibero-American/ Inter-American Network of Science and Technology Indicators (Red Iberoamericana/Interamericana de Indicadores de Ciencia y Tecnología - RICYT) in 1995 made it possible to rapidly standardize statistical information on science, technology and innovation activities (STIAs) and to smooth out discrepancies regarding measuring processes within LAC. RICYT carries out a very important task in training human resources in measuring processes for STIAs in the various countries of the region. Right from the start, the region began generating a great variety of indicators and developing new measuring, systematization and standardization methodologies that 34

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

previously non-existent in LAC. They have been the promoters of the Bogota Manual, aimed at measuring innovation processes in the region; the Santiago Manual for the measurement of the intensity and the description of the characteristics of the internationalization of science and technology in the IberoAmerican countries; the Lisbon Manual establishing guidelines for the interpretation of available statistical data and the construction of indicators referring to the transition of Ibero-America towards the Information Society; and the Buenos Aires Manual geared towards establishing guidelines for the development of indicators measuring the evolution and training capacities of human resources in science and technology in Ibero-America. On examining all the international comparisons, expenditure on R&D tasks, usually a problematic issue arises: the conversion of national currencies. In order to present these measurements in a comparable and consistent manner it is very important to reflect the true value of the amounts that each country allocates to R&D activities. Generally this information is reported to UNESCO, RICYT and other organizations such as the OECD. In the past what was generally used was the so-called “official rate of exchange,” however it was shown that rarely did this rate of exchange reflect “realistic links” regarding those of the national economies. Since 1993, the World Bank has provided an equivalence rate in each country of a dollar adjusted to the purchasing parity power (PPP). The present report has decided to use this unit of measurement in those statistics aimed at assessing the national investment in R&D activities. The PPP method is based on the weight of a common “shopping basket” of goods in the national GDP and it is now generally accepted for this type of analysis. There are still problems in the conversion of some local currencies, particularly in the developing countries. PPP rates are periodically revised and some-

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

times important retrospective revisions are introduced regarding data published in previous reports. Within the inventory of national innovation systems in LAC (a part of this volume), the evolution over time is reflected of expenditure on R&D activities for 21 countries of LAC between 1990 and 2008, expressed as a percentage of the GDP and in constant dollars adjusted to the PPP per inhabitant. The last indicator is appropriate to make it independent from the size of the country and to indirectly reflect the level of importance and societal interest that each nation assigns to scientific research, experimental development or productive innovation. As will be seen from the analysis presented in Box 2, when the evolution over time of any indicator is represented, the most relevant information is provided by the gradient of the curve shown. For this reason, it is essential to guarantee the generation of reliable data, organized in a systematic, standardized and constant manner over decades. In this way, from the analysis of curve gradients it will be possible to infer the evolution and impact of the policies applied. According to a recent study made by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2009), data for the year 2007 show that global expenditure on R&D continues to be very concentrated in the industrialized countries. In fact, 70% of this expenditure is made by the countries of the European Union, the United States and Japan. Table 3 shows, in global terms, the performance of the investment made in R&D over a period of 45 years. It shows various comparative indicators: investment in R&D in LAC expressed in millions of constant dollars of the year 2000, in constant dollars per capita and as a percentage of regional GDP. Furthermore, for the same period the evolution of global expenditure in R&D as a percentage of global

GDP; investments made by the US as a percentage of its GDP and the number of times that per capita investment in R&D in this latter country exceeds per capita investment in the whole of LAC. It may be seen that the most important growth of this comparator took place at the end of the sixties, a period coinciding with the establishment of the National Research Councils. While regional investment rose from 0.20% of the GDP to 0.31% between the years 1963 and 1974. During the same period, the ratio of per capita investment between the US and the region dropped from a ratio of 124 to one of 47. During almost three decades this ratio remained at an average of 42, while in 2007, the value dropped to 29 when regional investment in R&D activities reached 0.67 % of the regional GDP. In this way, in 45 years, investment in R&D has been multiplied by a factor of 3.2. This figure is very low compared to the evolution of other countries such as the US (1940-1964) and South Korea (in the eighties and nineties). In both cases, in less than 25 years they managed to rise from an investment rate of 0.2% of the GDP to 3% or more, multiplying it by a factor of 15 in half the time taken in LAC. It should also be pointed out that, in the majority of the developed countries, it is the private sector that funds R&D activities. In the US and Canada, 60% of these activities are subsidized with private capital. In Europe, this percentage is about 50%, while in Latin America and the Caribbean it ranges at around 30%. However, in Africa funding is essentially public. using data supplied by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and RICYT (2009) Graph 16 was built to estimate global expenditure and LAC expenditure respectively showing the evolution over time (1990-2007) of the aggregated investment for the whole of LAC in R&D expressed as a percentage of world expenditure 35

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Table 3: Long-term evolution of investment in research and development activities Source: prepared by the author. 1963 Total expenditure in R&D in LAC [Millions USD constant at year 2000]

1974

1980

1990

1995

2000

2007

917.43

2,671.47

5,246.30

6,944.85

10,423.45

11,340.00

19,390.76

Total expenditure on R&D in LAC [USD constant at year 2000 per capita]

3.21

9.51

14.44

16.67

22.80

21.90

35.88

Total expenditure on R&D in LAC [Percentage of GDP]

0.20

0.31

0.34

0.32

0.58

0.57

0.67

--

2.10

1.78

1.80

1.90

1.71

1.74

Total expenditure on R&D in USA [Percentage of GDP]

2.84

2.22

2.27

2.62

2.48

2.73

2.66

Total expenditure on R&D in USA [Constant USD at year 2000 per capita]

399.08

443.80

592.59

746.32

758.96

938.00

1023.53

124

47

41

45

33

43

29

World expenditure on R&D [Percentage of GDP]

Relationship between investment in R&D per capita in USA and investment in R&D per capita in LAC [Number of times greater]

rate of investment in R&D in LAC has grown faster than the world average; a negative gradient indicates that the growth rate for global investment in R&D is higher than that of the region, while no gradient (a horizontal line),

Percentage of expenditure on R&D in LAC as compared to total global investment in R&D

on R&D activities. This type of analysis is useful to compare the dynamics of investment in R&D in the region as compared to the global average. When the data represented have a positive gradient this indicates that the growth

Graph 16: Percentage of expenditure on R&D activities in LAC as compared to the total expenditure on R&D generated in the world between 1990 and 2007. Source: prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of data supplied by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and RICYT (2009).

36

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

shows that the rate of growth of investment is equal to that of the world (see Box 2). Over this period, expenditure on R&D in LAC oscillated between 1.3% and 2.4% of the world total of expenditure on research and development activities. These values are far lower than the fraction of the world population in LAC (approximately 8.5%); or the fraction of global GDP (approximately 5%), or the fraction of surface area it occupies (10.3%). It should be noted that, in addition to the care that must be taken when analyzing this type of indicators for the reasons set out at the beginning of this section, when working with world aggregated values, estimates and forecasts are made that are not necessarily exact. For this reason it should be assumed that global values may be imprecise by at least ±3% of the value of the total global investment. Graph 17 shows the geo-referenced distribution of investment in R&D among the various countries of Latin America and the Caribbean for the year 2007. Only three countries exceed 1% of the GDP: Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela. The latter country is the one that has fastest multiplied annual investment in R&D activities in recent years through the introduction of legislative reforms regulating minimum investment that must be made by companies in R&D activities. It should be noted that the figures published here and in the majority of international reports are statistics provided by the states themselves. In Latin America and the Caribbean, funding of R&D activities mainly comes from public funds. If we consider government funds, together with the universities’ own funds, the mean value of public finance would be about 62,4% of the regional expenditure in R&D for the year 2007. The companies only finance one third of research and development activities. For example, in 2007, companies in Argentina invested 29.3%, those of Brazil 44.7%, those of Cuba 35% and those of Uruguay 38.3%.

An essential part of this private investment in R&D expenditure comes, in many cases, from State-owned companies. The latter are classified, according to the Frascati Manual (OECD, 2003) in the entrepreneurial sector. These facts only go to confirm the influence of the national public sector on R&D activities taking place in the region. An exceptional change in the regional pattern has recently been achieved by Venezuela. Through its Organic Law for Science, Technology and Innovation (2006), it established that the funding of STI activities must be shared by the companies, imposing contributions of between 0.5% and 2% of their gross income in the development of innovation projects. This is the reason why in Venezuela, 94.8% of STI funding comes from the entrepreneurial sector and that in just a few years total investment in expenditure on science, technology and innovation activities has risen from 0.65% of the GDP to 2.3%. Graph 18 shows the distribution of expenditure on R&D by funding sector. Foreign funding is an important source of financing R&D in some countries of the region such as in the case of Guatemala: 50.5% (2007); Panama: 50% (2007); while Ecuador and El Salvador received approximately 7% (2007) of their expenditure on R&D activities from foreign sources. However, the regional average is about 1%. If what we want to measure is the average productivity of researchers in a given country, some of the input indicators can be compared against the output indicators. For example, graph 19 shows, for a set of countries in the year 2007, their average expenditure on R&D, expressed in PPP USD per equivalent full time researcher and by the average number of articles in the SCI base per equivalent fulltime researcher. This graph shows, for Trinidad & Tobago, a high rate of productivity as compared to the 37

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

0.00% to 0.25% of the GDP 0.26% to 0.50% of the GDP 0.51% to 1.00% of the GDP 1.01% to 2.00% of the GDP No available data

Graph 17: Investment in research and development activities, expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product of each country for the year 2007. Source: prepared by the author using basic data provided by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2009).

mala, Colombia and to a lesser extent, Argen-

5. The training of human resources in science, technology and innovation in LAC

tina and Ecuador. At the other extreme is El

The main input in any creative activity and

Salvador and to a lesser extent, Venezuela and

particularly an activity involving scientific re-

Brazil.

search, the development of new technologies

amount of funding received per equivalent fulltime (EFT) researcher, similarly to Guate-

or implementation of productive innovations is the availability of highly qualified human

38

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Graph 18: Distribution of expenditure on R&D by funding sector in a set of LAC countries during 2007. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data supplied by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and RICYT (2009).

Graph 19: Mean productivity of researchers in a set of countries in the region. This shows, on the one hand, the annual average amount, expressed in PPP dollars that each EFT researcher allocated in 2007 to R&D tasks and, on the other, the number of publications appearing in the SCI database for each EFT researcher. Source: prepared by the author.

39

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

resources. The results and impact on science, technology and innovation activities will depend on the implantation of an appropriate STI policy, on the level of human resource training, of access to suitable instruments, laboratories and to financial resources to sustain running expenses arising from STIAs. Studies made on the best practices in developed and recently industrialized countries, usually show the same pattern: the application of explicit State policies for decades to strengthen the training in excellence of human resources, aimed at scientific research and the creation of new technologies as well as the generation of excellent institutional facilities in which to develop STIAs appropriately. These seem to be the strategies followed by this group of countries. The results measured as an increase in the industrial, economic and societal levels of development, are usually to be observed decades after their application. Notwithstanding the existence of important islands of excellence in the training of highly qualified human resources in science and technology in LAC, in general terms insufficiency is generalized and this represents the first bottleneck in training human resources with a capacity for scientific research, technological development or productive innovation. Two countries alone concentrate over 90% of science PhDs graduating in the region (see graph 26). This shows the enormous educational disparity noted in LAC and the absence of explicit long-lasting State policies. The countries of the region show an average rate of enrolment in tertiary education three times lower than countries such as Australia, the United States, New Zealand, or the Republic of Korea. Although in countries such as Argentina and Cuba, university enrolment is over 50%, in others such as Brazil and Mexico it barely exceeds 20%, while in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala it is below 20%. These simple data account for the

40

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

complexity of the educational map linked to science and technology in the region. In designing science, technology and innovation policies for a country a priority must be established of appropriately defining an explicit strategy to reach specific goals in training qualified human resources, thus supporting a knowledge society. Both the developed countries and emerging economies clearly show patterns of increasing demand for qualified workers in the framework of STI. This is an excluding requisite for the installation of technologically based companies in the region. There is no doubt that scientific knowledge enables us to understand the phenomena that surround us and intervene and modify in a precise manner those aspects that will help to improve the citizens’ quality of life and increase economic development of a nation. Obviously, policies for the training of human resources in STI must be harmonized with the implementation of a basic quality and universally accessible education at primary and secondary level. Table 4 shows that the expectation of average number of years of schooling in LAC is comparable with the averages in the rest of the middle-high income countries of the world. However, the percentage of the labour force that has completed secondary and tertiary education is respectively 4% and 8% below the average of the other middle-high income countries around the world. This is a consequence of the fact that LAC is still the region having the worst income distribution in the world (see graph 15). It is obvious that to have a stock of potential scientists and technologists, the quality of education at primary and secondary level in mathematics and natural sciences must be appropriate. An approach to estimate the situation in the region regarding pre-university mathematics education can be found by analyzing the results of the Programme for Inter-

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Table 4: Expected years of schooling and composition of the labour force, according to the level of education of the middle-income countries in LAC compared to the world average of the rest of the middle-high income countries. Source: World Bank.

Year

Middle-high income countries World

LAC

Expected years of schooling

2007

13.5

13.6

Labour force with primary education (% of total)

2006

36%

43%

Labour force with secondary education (% of total)

2006

33%

29%

Labour force with tertiary education (% of total)

2006

24%

16%

national Students Assessment (PISA). This programme assesses the results of the learning process by measuring knowledge and skills acquired by the students. Both in mathematics tests and natural science ones, the poor performance of LAC students is remarkable. There is no doubt that this fact represents an enormous obstacle that must be overcome by decision-makers and those responsible for designing educational and scientific policies in the region. Graph 20 shows a correlation5 (or absence of it) between the levels reached by each country in the PISA mathematics test carried out in 2006, as compared to per capita income for the same year, expressed in year 2000 constant USD. This shows very clearly that countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay, have a very poor performance compared with other nations in the world. Furthermore, when comparing performance in PISA science tests with the effect of the socioeconomic index (PISA, 2006: vol.2) it will be clearly seen that young people in LAC be5 From a strictly mathematical standpoint, the dispersion of scoring is very wide and there is no simple functional relationship clearly correlating the two variables shown. In particular, for graph 20 a logarithmic function adjustment was used (R2= 0.48), implying that performance in the PISA test increases logarithmically with the increase in the per capita GDP of the countries. This adjustment has been made to refute other works in which the same data has been used with linear adjustments with R2 = 0.36 (a much lower adjustment than the logarithmic adjustment), to affirm that a linear correlation exists between the PISA tests and the per capita GDP, thus finding LAC very much lower than the values expected in performance of the tests according to their GDP levels (Lee, 2009). This affirmation is not necessarily correct. If a logarithmic correlation is assumed (a much better adjustment than the linear one), the values reached in the PISA tests for the LAC countries are exactly where they should be according to their income level. Graph 21 provides more evidence along these lines when comparing performance by socioeconomic sectors. At all events, the dispersion of points is so wide that any correlation between both variables must be used with great caution.

longing to the 5% best income, obtain scores 40% higher than those included within the 5% of least income. This same difference for student members of OECD countries is only 24%. However, if the differences in scoring by region between LAC and the OECD countries (excluding Mexico) are analyzed, the average value of scoring reached by the latter group is 32% higher. The following graph 21 shows these results. Science education at primary and secondary level has recently been recognized as a regional priority, both by the Member States and by the experts during the two Regional Fora on Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2009 (see the text of the Regional Declaration in Appendix 1). At these meetings, the need to implement long term State policies in universal quality education from primary to higher education, supported by significant and permanent investments was underscored. Similar observations were recently made at a meeting of MERCOSUR Ministers of Education (see Box 3). Furthermore, when analysing the distribution of the discipline profile of science and technology graduates within a country or a region, an indicator is obtained reflecting the potentiality of specialized human resources in the various areas of knowledge that could be used as an input to scientific research, the development of new technologies or the implementa41

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 20: distribution of scores achieved by country in the PISA international mathematics test, versus the per capita GDP for the year 2006 expressed in year 2000 constant USD. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data published on the PISA test by the OECD and GDP data published by the United Nations Division of Statistics.

tion of innovation processes in the productive sector. It is particularly interesting for decision and policy-makers to know the evolutive patterns in the generation of graduates by disciplinary area when implementing medium and long term development strategies. It is also very useful for the creation of incentives and other instruments promoting the training of new human resources in non-traditional areas of knowledge. In this respect, graph 22 shows the evolution between 1990 and 2007 of the production of university science graduates for Latin America and the Caribbean classified into the following categories: (a) exact and natural sciences, (b) engineering and technology, (c) medical science, (d) agricultural science, (e) social sciences and humanities. Graph 23 shows the distribution percentage of the number of science and technology graduates according to the same classification by disciplines. It is 42

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

surprising to check that approximately 64% of the graduates followed careers related to social sciences and humanities, 16% to engineering and technology, 12% to medical sciences, 5% to exact and natural sciences and only a little over 2% to agricultural science. Other emerging economies have a diametrically opposite profile, such as the case of the Republic of Korea, where 40% of the graduates follow engineering or exact and natural sciences fields. Similar patterns are to be seen in countries such as Finland and, to a lesser degree, France and Japan. From these data, it may be inferred that the great backwardness at the level of university education shown by LAC mainly obeys to reduced enrolment in fields that require a solid training in physics and mathematics. Similar patterns can be observed when analyzing postgraduate holders (Master and PhD)

5 % of the highest income sample

25% of the highest income sample

50% of the sample (average income)

5% of the lowest income sample

25% of the lowest income sample

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Graph 21: Performance during the PISA test (2006) by socioeconomic sector for the countries of the OECD and LAC countries. *Within the sample of the OECD countries, Mexico has been excluded, considering it to be within LAC. **Represents an average of the countries of the region participating in the test (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay). Source: prepared by the author on the basis of

University degrees in science granted in LAC by discipline by year

published PISA data (2006).

Exact & Natural Sciences

Engineering & Technology

Agricultural Sciences

Social Sciences & Humanities

Medical Sciences

Graph 22: Number of university graduates in sciences per year in the whole of LAC, classified by disciplines between 1990 and 2007. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data published by RICYT (2009). 43

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

BOX 3: Regional seminar: Education, Science and Technology for the MERCOSUR countries and associates From 18 to 20 November 2009, the Regional Seminar: Education, Science and Technology focused on basic education, was held in the city of Montevideo. The meeting was attended by ministerial representatives and specialists in science, maths and technological education in the MERCOSUR countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) and associate countries (Chile, Venezuela) The seminar was organized by the Uruguayan Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), the Education Sector of the UNESCO Cluster Office in Montevideo, and the UNESCO Paris Education Sector’s Division for the Promotion of Basic Education. The objectives set out were to contribute to a situation analysis, submit new concepts for science and technology education, show successful proposals and make an input to the agenda of science and technology education policies in the region, with clearly defined lines of action. The closing of the seminar coincided with the start of the 37th Meeting of MERCOSUR and associate countries Education Ministers who were presented with the Final Document (FD), with recommendations to guide science education policy lines in these countries. The subject, on the Agenda of the Ministerial Meeting, was included in its Final Report.

44

Recommendations contained in the FD of the Regional Seminar: Education, Science and Technology 1. To develop comprehensive and integrated policies for science and technology education involving an axiological, humanistic, historical-cultural and critical perspective. 2. To consider science and technology education policies as State policies 3. To define a profile and specific objectives for the MERCOSUR Working Group on Science and Mathematics Education and incorporate technological education. 4. To hold further meetings of the Seminar on Education, Science and Technology as a form of collective participation of teachers, members of MERCOSUR and associated countries, alternating the venue. 5. To promote teacher-training policies that develop skills and collective activities based on dialogue and lines of argument. 6. To implement policies geared at ensuring continuous training of Science and Technology teachers as every teacher’s right and duty. 7. To promote professional participation opportunities through the development of virtual networks for the exchange of information, experience, innovation, etc. 8. To promote the development of interfaces between teachers and research workers on a local and regional level. 9. To promote science and technology education policies aimed at increasing teacher-training enrolment and retention in these areas. 10. To promote the exchange of resources among the countries of the region with the aim of bridging the existing digital gap. 11. To develop and strengthen research policies regarding classroom teaching and learning of science and technology. 12. To ensure that science and technology teaching is included in all the basic education syllabuses, right from initial education. For example, in Uruguay, the subject of science and technology education is one of the Ministry of Education’s priorities. The new General Education Law 18437 includes it as one of the cross-cutting lines in the educational system (Art. 40, chapter VII) and it also has a democratizing intention, through understanding and social appropriation of scientific and technological knowledge (Art. 40, no. 4).

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Furthermore, in a set of programmatic efforts made by UNESCO to face the challenges of the 21st century, the role of science and technology education has been underscored in reaching the objectives of quality education for all, and in achieving sustainable development. The world is imbued with the scientific and technological progress, however while its benefits are very unequally distributed among the countries, the risks and threats arising from its irresponsible application potentially affect global sustainability. With this backdrop, it is imperative to promote science and technology education as part of citizen training, so that people are able to adopt responsible attitudes, take well founded decisions and solve daily problems.

Old problems, new challenges The recommendations of the Declaration of the Montevideo Seminar are in harmony with the proposals made in the “LAC Regional Declaration on the tenth anniversary of the World Science Conference” (See Appendix 1). Likewise, the problems highlighted by the seminar participants are similar to those formulated during the Regional Meeting of the UNESCO Education Sector, held in Cuba (2002), that led to a joint effort to prepare a Regional Education Plan for Latin America and the Caribbean, (PRELAC) that now has become a shared platform. On this occasion, regarding science education, the importance of supporting teacher training as the key to necessary educational

changes was highlighted. It was considered imperative to relocate science teaching in such a way as to ensure quality science training right from the first levels of basic schooling. Presently, Latin America and the Caribbean are facing two common major educational challenges: the first is to facilitate schooling inclusion of 3 to 5 year-olds and 12 to 17 year-olds in order to extend and make effective a 9 to 11 years long obligatory basic education cycle. At the beginning of the 21st century, the 25 year-olds in LAC had an average 5.9 years of schooling in comparison with 9.5 in the richer countries (Arellano-Marín, 2002). The second challenge is to improve the quality of education at all levels. Both regarding effective schooling and the quality of learning, the region shows deep inequity, related with the socio-cultural levels of the children and teenagers’ families. The problem is manifest in access, permanence and leaving levels in basic education and regarding the quality of what is taught and learnt. Science education is part of these challenges. Just to quote two examples of the quality of learning, it is sufficient to recall the results of the Second Regional Comparative and Explicative Study (SERCE, 2008) regarding science tests. Around 80% of sixth grade students reached the two lowest levels of performance, on a scale of 4. While the results of the PISA assessment carried out in 2006 (see for example the performance of some of the countries

of the region in graph 20), show an average scoring in the region of 402, in the OECD countries the scoring is 497. The gap between the results of Latin American students in relation to the OECD average in mathematics is 104 points, in sciences 92 and in language 89: Almost 55% of Latin American students as an average reach science level one (easiest tasks), while only 3% reach higher levels (five and six).

Urgent matters than cannot wait... The preceding scenario has placed on the education policy agendas of all the countries of the region, the concern of addressing without delay and with State policies these challenges that are a real obstacle to the full development of people and to give the countries the chance of sustainable development. In the twelve final recommendations of the Montevideo Seminar to the Ministers of Education, some priorities arise that can briefly be summarized as follows: • To conceive educational policies comprehensively and, within them, those of science and technology from the initial level. Education policies need to be planned together with all the other State social policies, in a democratizing and humanistic context. • To promote and strengthen alliances and partnerships among the countries, exchanging resources among researchers, teachers and insti-

45

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

tutional managers and among Ministries.

search and specific research in the teaching of sciences.

• To strengthen networks for the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge, science teaching and its social uses as an essential part of citizen education.

In syntony with the words of Jacques Delors in his introduction to the Report to UNESCO by the International Education for the Twenty-first Century Commission, the reflections that gave rise to the seminar recommendations are based on the conviction that the essential function of education is “not as a miraculous remedy” but as a way among

Sonia Scaffo Consultant, Education Sector, UNESCO Cluster Office in Montevideo [email protected]

Percentage of university graduates in sciences in LAC divided by discipline

• To implement teacher training policy lines with special attention to the relationship between scientific and technological knowledge with re-

others “but more than others” to achieve sustainable human development for the countries of the region. .

Exact & Natural Sciences

Engineering & Technology

Agricultural Sciences

Social Sciences & Humanities

Medical Sciences

Graph 23: Percentage distribution of university graduates in sciences for the whole of LAC by discipline between 1990 and 2007. Source: prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of source data published by RICYT (2009). in LAC (see graphs 24 and 25). In the case of Master degrees, there is an ample predominance of social sciences and humanities (64%). Their growth rate rose surprisingly as from the mid-nineties. Second come Master degrees in engineering and technology (13%), followed by medical sciences (9.7%) and exact and natural sciences (8%). 46

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

It is only when analyzing the distribution of new PhDs by discipline that a more proportionate sample is to be observed. For example social sciences and humanities generate 37% of the new PhDs in the region, followed by exact and natural sciences (22%), medical sciences with 16%, engineering and technology with 13% and agricultural sciences with

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

11%. This type of distribution shows a pattern that is much more adapted to the needs of the region. This characteristic obeys to the tradition of supporting doctorates with grants to encourage research and the creation of permanent jobs in state research centres for new PhDs in all areas of knowledge, especially in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. However the most surprising fact is shown in the distribution by country of new science PhDs. Graph 26 shows the evolution over time of PhDs distributed by country as a percentage of the total number of graduates with a PhD. degree in LAC. The graph shows that Brazil generates over 70% of the PhDs in LAC, followed by Mexico with over 20%. Thus, only two countries concentrate over 90% of the production of new science PhDs in the region. This fact must call for reflection on the part of planners and other decision-makers on the need to implement new instruments and mechanisms to encourage the production of new and highly qualified human resources in scientific and technological disciplines in the other countries of LAC. In is not by accident that Brazil has a head lead in the training of new PhDs in the region. The development of postgraduate studies in that country did not arise out of a spontaneous process, but from a deliberate State policy. This means that it grew in a planned and guided way at postgraduate level. The successful experience of expansion and quality of the system must also be credited to continuous public funding and to the institutionalization of a systematic assessment process (Neves, 2007). In fact, the programme aims at promoting an equitable growth of the national postgraduate educational system geared to responding to the demands of society regarding, science, scientific and technological, economic and social development, to guarantee stability and promotion for improvements in performance, funding and sustainability,

diversification through the creation of new models, international cooperation and quality assessment and promotion. In short, the consolidation of the postgraduate educational system that has taken place in Brazil is due to the application of the following strategies: (a) integration of postgraduate programmes into the university system and institutionalization of scientific and technological research activities in various federal and state institutions; (b) increased capacity of the country to provide higher education to its population; (b) creation of a major grants programme in the country and abroad, contributing to the qualification and reproduction of teachers and researchers; (d) structuring of a policy to support funding for postgraduate programmes; (e) systematic participation of the academic community’s representatives in the process of formulating policies for postgraduate programmes; (f) implementation of a national system to assess postgraduate programmes; (g) integration of teaching geared towards scientific research, establishing a limited number of courses articulated with the universities’ R&D lines; (h) creation of a sound system for the promotion and orientation of doctoral theses; (i) linking of the national academic community with important international centres for scientific production. Only countries such as Mexico and, to a lesser degree, Argentina and Chile are implementing policies for the training of human resources in science, and technology, in an attempt to emulate those of Brazil. In the inventory of national science, technology and innovation systems in LAC, attached to this volume, a brief description is given of the strategies followed by the various Member States of UNESCO in training human resources in science, technology and innovation. During the last decade, an increase has started to be observed in the degree of connectiv47

Master degrees or equivalent postgraduate degrees in LAC

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Medical Sciences

Exact & Natural Sciences

Engineering & Technology

Agricultural Sciences

Social Sciences & Humanities

Graph 24: Number of Master Degrees (or equivalent academic degree) in the whole of LAC between 1990

Ph. D degrees in LAC

and 2007, classified by discipline. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of source data published by RICYT (2009).

Exact & Natural Sciences

Engineering & Technology

Medical Sciences

Agricultural Sciences

Social Sciences & Humanities

Graph 25: Number of PHD degrees in the whole of LAC between 1990 and 2007, classified by discipline. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of source data published by RICYT (2009). 48

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Percentage participation in the generation of Science PhDs in LAC by Brazil, Mexico and Argentina (1990-2007)

Brazilian PhDs

Mexican PhDs

Argentine PhDs

Graph 26: Percentage distribution of the total number of science PhDs by countries in LAC. Brazil and Mexico alone generate over 90% of all the doctors in science in LAC. Source: prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of source data on the number of PhDs per country published by RICYT (2009).

ity between the various national higher education systems and those of R&D in the region. The focus of this connectivity has centred on promoting joint work to guarantee educational quality and accreditation, recognition of qualifications, exchange of teachers and students, promotion and participation of international stakeholders, development of new strategies to lessen the brain-drain, sharing of laboratories and resources, just to mention a few. This fact, added to the very high rate of mobility of science students inside and outside LAC, generates new opportunities for the design of a regional strategic framework for higher education geared towards science and technology. There is a need to see how on a national level educational instruments and facilities can be strengthened and perhaps expanded through

the participation of other regional and international stakeholders. Table 5 shows some of the higher education networks and regional and international stakeholders that are carrying out action in the region and that provide an extraordinary platform for the establishment of such a strategic regional framework for higher education geared to science, technology and innovation. This table includes cooperation networks in scientific research, technological development or productive innovation at all levels (inter-institutional, bilateral, regional and international). The UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in LAC is examining the possibility of promoting a platform for the coordination of all the operational networks (NEXUS Project) that would be articulated with a novel set of data 49

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

tools and semantic web tools that could be of enormous use, both for decision and policymakers and for individual users with concrete requirements.

of systems promoting Mode 2 of knowledge production (see box 12), trans-disciplinary research and the generation of projects geared to obtaining solutions to complex problems.

The absence of any organization or network gathering national and regional networks devoted to promoting and supporting higher education in science, technology and education should be noted. The development of this body could be the next logical step in the internationalization of higher education and of R&D activities directly related to exclusively Latin American and Caribbean issues. A discussion of this type took place within the framework of the two Regional Fora on STI policies mentioned earlier on.

This is an important issue that should be given an in-depth study. It has to be decided how the hypothetical development of a network of networks of this kind could play an important role in providing a trans-disciplinary dimension to higher education aimed at STIAs, through regional funding, training, information exchange, promotion and policy analysis programmes. Another of the possibilities already suggested is the establishment of a UNESCO Category 2 Centre, aimed at SouthSouth Cooperation in science, technology and innovation.

Other fallbacks observed in higher education structures in LAC are the absolute absence

Table 5: Key stakeholders in the internationalization of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Source: extended and updated version of the information provided by I.C. Jaramillo and J. Knight (2005). Level

Intergovernmental

International World Bank; OECD; OMI; WTO; UNDP; UNESCO

Governmental

Non-governmental or cuasi-governmental

50

AIU; IAP; IAUP; IFCU; ICSU; IMHE; SciDev.Net

Bilateral

Interregional

CABBIO; CABNN

European Commission

AECI; CIDA; JICA; KOICA; SIDA; USAID

CYTED; OEI

British Council; CEC; DAAD; DANIDA; EduFrance; GTZ; IDP; IDRC; IIE; IRD; NUFFIC; SAREC

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

AUIP; CINDA; Columbus; CONAHEC; CUIB; EUA; EULARINET; IANAS, IAOHE, LATINDEX; REDHUCyT; RIACES; SciENTI.

Regional IADB; IESALC; OAS; ROSLAC (Montevideo)

Sub-regional

CTCAP

BIOTECSUR; Andrés Bello Agreement; RECYT ACAL; AUALCPI; CLACSO; CLAF; FLACSO; ICSU-LAC; IINGENIE; RedFAC; RedPOP; REDUC; RELAA; RELAB; RELACQ; RELACT; RICYT; RITLA; RLB; RLCU; RNBio; UDUAL; UMALCA

AUGM; CARISCIENCE; CRISCO; CSUCA; Red-CienciA; UNAMAZ.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Level

Programme or agreement

International

AIESEC; IAESTE

Bilateral

Fullbright; LASPAU; PCI; PEC

Interregional ALBAN; ALFA; CINDA; CYTED; FTAA; IGLU; INCO-DEV; PIMA; PROMESAN; RedCLARA; TLCAN

Regional

PAME

Sub-regional

CAN; ESCALA; UNILAMERCOSUR

ACRONYMS: ACAL: Academia de Ciencias de América Latina; AECI: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional; AIESEC: Network of University Students from the whole world with over 50000 members; AIU: Asociación Internacional de Universidades; ALBAN: Programa de becas de alto nivel de la Unión Europea para América Latina; ALFA is a cooperation programme between Higher Education Institutions in the European Union and Latin America; AUALCPI: Asociación de Universidades en América Latina y el Caribe para la Integración; AUGM: Asociación de Universidades del Grupo de Montevideo; AUIP: Asociación de Universidades Iberoamericanas de Posgrado; IADB: Inter-American Development Bank; BIOTECSUR: Plataforma de Biotecnologías para el MERCOSUR; CABBIO: Centro Argentino-Brasileño de Biotecnología; CAN: Comunidad Andina de Naciones; CABNN: Centro Argentino-Brasileño de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; CARISCIENCE: Network of University Teaching & Research Programmes in Science in the Caribbean; CEC: Canadian Education Centre; CIDA: Canadian International Development Agency; CINDA: Programa de movilidad de estudiantes del Centro Interuniversitario para el desarrollo; CLACSO: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales; CLAF: Centro Latinoamericano de Física; COLUMBUS: Network of European and Latin American Universities; CONAHEC: Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration; CRISCO: Consejo de Rectores para la Integración de Sudamérica Occidental; CSUCA: Consejo de Universidades de Centro América; CUIB: Consejo Universitario Iberoamericano; CTCAP: Comisión para el Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico de Centroamérica y Panama; CYTED: Programa iberoamericano de ciencia y tecnología para el desarrollo; DAAD: German Service for Academic Exchange; DANIDA: Danish International Development Agency; EduFrance: French Agency promoting higher education programmes abroad; ESCALA: Espacio Común Académico de las Universidades del Grupo de Montevideo; EUA: Asociación de Universidades Europeas; EULARINET: European Union-Latin American Research and Innovation Networks; FLACSO: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales; FTAA: Free Trade Area of the Americas; GTZ: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit; IAESTE: International Association for Exchange of Students for Technical Experience; IANAS: Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences; IAOHE: Interamerican Organization for Higher Education; IAP: Inter Academies Panel; IAUP: International Association of University Presidents; ICSU: International Council of Science; IDP: Australian Education; IDRC: International Development Research Centre (Canada); IESALC: Instituto Internacional para la Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe; IFCU: International Federation of Catholic Universities; IGLU: Institute of University Management and Leadership; IIE: Institute of International Education; IMHE: Institutional Management of Higher Education; INCO-DEV: Programa de cooperación en I+D con terceros países del Consejo Europeo; INGENIE: Red de posgrados de ingeniería de ALC; IRD: Research Institute for the Development of France; JICA: Japanese International Cooperation Agency; KOICA: Korean International Cooperation Agency; LASPAU: Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas; LATINDEX: Sistema regional de información en línea sobre revistas científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal; MERCOSUR: Mercado Común del Sur; NUFFIC: Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation for Higher Education; OCDE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; OAS: Organization of American States; OEI: Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos; OMI: International Migrations Organizacion; WTO: World Trade Organization; ROSLAC: UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science for Latin America and the Caribbean (Montevideo); PAME: Programa Académico de Movilidad de Estudiantes; PCI: Programa de Cooperación Inter-universitario (España); PEC: Acuerdo de programa de estudiantes de grado (Brazil); PIMA: Programa de Intercambio para la movilidad académica; UNDP: United Nations Development Programme; PROMESAN: North American Mobility Program (Canada); RECYT: Reunión Especializada en Ciencia y Tecnología del MERCOSUR; RedCienciA: Red de 51

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Programas Universitarios y de Investigación en Ciencias en América Central; RedFAC: Red de Facultades de Ciencias de América Latina; RedCLARA: Red de Cooperación Latinoamericana en Redes Avanzadas; REDHUCyT: Red Hemisférica Interuniversitaria de Ciencia y Tecnología; RedPOP: Red de Popularización de la Ciencia y la Tecnología en América Latina y el Caribe; REDUC: Red Latinoamericana de información y documentación en educación; RELAA: Red Latinoamericana de Astronomía; RELAB: Red Latinoamericana de Ciencias Biológicas; RELACQ: Red Latinoamericana de Ciencias Químicas; RELACT: Red Latinoamericana de Ciencias de la Tierra; RLB: Red Latinoamericana de Botánica; RIACES: Red Iberoamericana de Acreditación de la Educación Superior; RICYT: Red Interamericana/Iberoamericana de Indicadores de Ciencia y Tecnología; RITLA: Red de Información Tecnológica Latinoamericana; RLCU: Red Latinoamericana de Cooperación Universitaria; RNBio: Red Regional de Bioseguridad; SAREC: Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation; SciDev.Net: Science and Development Network; SciENTI: Red Internacional de fuentes de información y conocimiento para la gestión de ciencia, tecnología e innovación; SIDA: Swedish International Development Agency; NAFTA: North American Free Trade Agreement; UDUAL: Unión de Universidades de América Latina; UNAMAZ: Asociación de Universidades del Amazonas; UMALCA: Unión Matemática de América Latina y el Caribe; UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; UNILA: Universidad para la Integración de Latinoamérica; USAID: United States Agency for International Development.

BOX 4: Visibility of Latin American and Caribbean Universities on Internet With the increasing importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the growing capacity for processing and mining data, a great variety of new indicators have arisen, among them university visibility on the network, as an approach to estimate the universities’ innovative capacity in education and research. One of these indicators is prepared by the Cybermetric Laboratory of the Human and Social Science Centre of the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. This indicator analyzes a set of variables that are assessed from the institutional domain, and solely comprises universities and research centres. Between 5-10% of the institutions located in developing countries do not have an independent presence on internet. In order to build the indicator, the following dimensions have been combined: a) Size: considered on the basis of the number of pages obtained from the four most popular search

52

engines (Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Exalead); b) Visibility: measured on the total number of external links received, c) Quantity of rich text files (RTF) within the academic and editorial environment, for example, number of Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), Adobe PostScript (.ps), Microsoft Word (.doc) and Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) files; and d) Analysis of the number of articles and references for each academic domain obtained from the Google Academic database. The four ranges were combined using the following formula, in which each is assigned a different weight: “Indicator = 0.5 x (Visibility) + 0.2 x (Size) + 0.15 x (RTF) + 0.15 x (Google Scholar)”. The inclusion of the number of pages is based on recognition of the existence of a new global market for academic type information: The network is an appropriate platform for institutional internationalization. The argument used is that a strong

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

and detailed presence providing exact descriptions of the structure and activities of the universities within the network may attract new students and teachers from all over the world. The number of incoming external links received by a domain is a measure representing the visibility and impact of the published material, and although there are a great diversity of motivations for the generation of these links, a significant portion of them operate in a similar way to those of bibliographical references. The success of self-archiving initiatives and other repositories is usually represented within the data analyzed by Google Scholar which has become an effective tool that has started competing with traditional tools such as the Science Citation Index (SCI). The high number of files in .pdf and .doc format signifies that it is not only bureaucratic and administrative type reports that are considered but also a strategy of the university to share the knowl-

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

edge it generates. PostScript and PowerPoint files are clearly related with training activities or communication at fora, congresses and scientific meetings. Obviously, this indicator is not directly related with an institutional quality ranking of the universities, but rather with the success (or lack of it) of the communications policy and finally the visibility generated within the network. It is very important to bear this in mind when this type of indicators is presented, as

visible universities in the world, only 2 are from LAC, among the first 200 there are 6, among the first 300 there are 11, among the first 400 there are 17, and finally among the first 500 there are only 21 in LAC: Another fact worth underscoring is that in this sample, 62% of the universities listed in LAC are Brazilian, 19% Mexican, while the remaining 20% is equitably divided between Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica. GAL

decision-makers are not always aware of the major limitations of this type of classification. Table 6 shows the higher education institutions in LAC that have the greatest presence on the internet, considering the abovementioned indicator. The list includes those universities among the 500 most visible universities throughout the world. The list reflects that so far communication strategies used by the universities of the region have not been efficient. Of the 100 most

Table 6: Latin American and Caribbean Universities that are among the first 500 positions in the classification made by the Cyber-metric Laboratory, Centre for Human and Social Sciences of the Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Source: www.webometric.info (July 2009). World position

Size

Visibility

Texts

Articles & quotes

LAC University

webpage

Country

38

Sao Paulo University

www.usp.br

Brazil

76

54

53

20

44

National Autonomous University of Mexico

www.unam.mx

Mexico

61

69

56

21

115

Campinas State University

www.unicamp.br

Brazil

262

236

87

36

134

Federal University of Santa Catarina

www.ufsc.br

Brazil

391

243

208

13

152

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

www.ufrgs.br

Brazil

424

287

227

11

196

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

www.ufrj.br

Brazil

381

284

180

116

204

Brasilia University

www.unb.br

Brazil

318

216

296

159

227

University of Chile

www.uchile.cl

Chile

334

345

176

167

241

Federal University of Minas Gerais

www.ufmg.br

Brazil

504

275

279

140

269

State Paulista University

www.unesp.br

Brazil

480

465

204

88

291

University of Buenos Aires

www.uba.ar

Argentina

298

362

196

468

348

Autonomous University of the State of Mexico

www.uaemex.mx

Mexico

371

526

1274

15

352

Parana Federal University

www.ufpr.br

Brazil

610

663

487

29

354

Pontificate Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

www.puc-rio.br

Brazil

759

456

345

226

385

University of Guadalajara

www.udg.mx

Mexico

554

205

845

593

386

University of Costa Rica

www.ucr.ac.cr

Costa Rica

672

336

701

316

391

Monterrey Technological institute

www.itesm.mx

Mexico

646

291

494

663

419

Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte

www.ufrn.br

Brazil

1452

272

593

396

422

Federal University of Bahia

www.ufba.br

Brazil

459

University of the Andes

www.uniandes.edu.co

Colombia

497

University of Concepcion

www.udec.cl

Chile

764

536

628

178

1621

332

687

318

655

331

659

1041

53

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

6. Personnel engaged in research, development and innovation activities in LAC The Frascati Manual (2003:99) defines researchers as “...professionals engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems and also in the management of the projects concerned.” This figure represents the total volume of the consumption of human resources in R&D. In the first place all researchers engaged in R&D activities fulltime and secondly the combined value of the time fractions of work of all the other researchers who are engaged part-time in R&D activities (such as university personnel who also are engaged in education, administration, medical care, consultants, etc.). To avoid a distortion, much care has been taken in appropriately accounting for these values in the surveys to measure R&D inputs carried out by UNESCO, OECD or RICYT. According to a recent study by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the number of researchers is growing world-wide and, between 2002 and 2007, the number increased by 56% in developing countries. However, over the same period, developed countries only showed an increase of 8.6%. These percentages have been obtained considering the increase in absolute figures of the number of researchers. If the increase in the number of researchers per thousand inhabitants is considered, the percentages are as follows: 45% in the developing countries, 6.8% in the developed countries. In five years the number of researchers showed a considerable increase worldwide, rising from 5.8 to 7.1 million. This increase benefitted in the first place the developing countries, where 2.7 million researchers were recorded in 2007, while five years earlier the total number had only reached 1.8 million. In 2002 these countries had 30.3% of the

54

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

world’s researchers, while presently they represent 38.4 of the world total. The most significant increase in numbers took place in Asia, which now hosts 41.4% of the world’s researchers, while in 2002 this continent only represented 35.7% of the total. This increase is mainly due to the rapid evolution taking place in China, where the percentage rose from 14% to 20% in just five years. Thus Asia took on greater importance at the expense of Europe and the United States, whose percentages dropped from 31.9% to 28.4% and from 28.1% to 25.8% respectively. Regarding Latin America and the Caribbean, graph 27 shows the geo-referenced distribution of the number of EFT researchers engaged in R&D tasks per million inhabitants in the countries of the region in 2007. Graph 28 shows the evolution over time of the total number of EFT researchers for all LAC as a percentage of the total number of EFT researchers worldwide. In this way, the constant increase in world participation by the number of LAC researchers may clearly be seen, rising from 1.5% in 1990 to 3.5% in 2007. This shows that the growth rate of the number of researchers in the region is greater than the average growth of researchers worldwide. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that LAC represents 8.6 % of the world population and if the desirable number of researchers were to follow a homogeneous spatial distribution throughout the world, LAC should have a proportion of researchers, as compared to the rest of the world, of at least 2.5 times the present figure. With the growth figures in the number of EFT with respect to the rest of the world, shown between 1990 and 2007 and assuming an exponential growth function, it would be necessary to wait until the year 2030 for the region to reach a figure of researchers with respect to the rest of the world, similar to the proportion of its population with respect to the rest of the world.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

In all these estimates we must point out that extrapolations and rounding off of aggregate figures on a world level are a characteristic of this type of calculation and data may involve errors of up to 10% of the absolute values presented. From all the data shown, it may be inferred that a considerable structural weakness exists

in the training of new researchers and technologists in LAC. However, some countries have implemented State policies that have started reverting the situation (for example, Brazil). When comparing the fraction of fulltime equivalent researchers in the region as compared to the world total, it will be clearly seen that the growth rate is greater in LAC than the

0 to 100 per million inhabitants 101 to 300 per million inhabitants 300 to 1000 per million inhabitants No available data

Graph 27: Geographical distribution of the number of researchers per million inhabitants by country in LAC for the year 2007. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data provided by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2009). 55

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

took place approximately in 2001, showing a process of acceleration in the growth rate of the number of researchers in the region as compared to the rest of the world.

Percentage of the number of EFT researchers in LAC with respect to the number of EFT researchers worldwide

world average. Furthermore, a more serious observation of graph 28 shows that the turning point and change in concavity of the curve

Graph 28: Evolution over time of EFT researchers in LAC as a percentage of the total number of EFT researchers in the world. Source: Prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of accountancy of the number of researchers per country estimated by the UNESCO Office of Statistics (2009) and RICYT (2009).

7. Science, technology and gender: women in science, technology and innovation: According to UNESCO (2009) women represented a little over a quarter (29%) of the total number of researchers worldwide. However, this world average conceals many disparities on a regional level. For example, Latin America and the Caribbean greatly exceed this proportion as 46% of its researchers are women (UNESCO-UIS, 2009). Six countries in this subcontinent reached parity between the sexes in research: Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. This situation is very different from that of other regions, such as Asia, where women 56

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

only represent 18% of the total number of researchers. The percentages of feminine presence in research show great disparities: 18% in the countries of South Asia, 40% in Southwest Asia and 50% in those of Central Asia. In Europe, the parity between men and women only occurs in five countries: the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldavia and Serbia. In the Community of Independent States, the participation of women in research reaches 43%, while in Africa it is only 33%. For this reason, LAC is one of the few regions in the world where the priority of gender equality, in this case in the framework of science and technology, has practically been

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

achieved. Graph 29 shows the geo-referenced distribution of women researchers in LAC for the year 2007. However, a more careful analysis shows that, behind such optimistic figures for the region, a situation is concealed where women are far from achieving equality. There is still a great difference in access to higher hierar-

chical positions in scientific careers and in decision-making posts. There is still no equitable acknowledgement when obtaining research subsidies, which has repercussions on the lack of autonomy and generates further inequity. These are aspects that require the establishment of specific policy instruments that are far from those presently predominating in the region.

0% to 30% women 30.1% to 45% women 45.1% to 55% women No available data

Graph 29: Geo-referenced data on the percentage of women in the national science, technology and innovation systems in the countries of the region. Source: prepared by the author on the basis of data provided by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics in 2009. 57

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

BOX 5: The Millennium Development Goals: the contribution of Science and Technology Gender implications In spite of the progress in schooling and the increased enrolment both of girls and boys, gender disparities continue to be the standard in the world and the improvements made so far are not sufficient to reach the MDGs. Only 20 countries have the possibility of reaching the objective of universal primary education by 2015, and there are another

45 countries making great efforts to reach the goal. But in 20 countries, schooling at primary level is dropping. In 2002, 49 countries achieved gender parity, 43 countries reached parity in primary education enrolment but not in secondary enrolment. School systems in the underdeveloped countries are characterized by gender in-

equality in favour of boys, with 24 countries showing little possibility of achieving parity. Of 100 countries with gender inequality in primary and secondary education, 6 have chances of achieving parity at both levels by 2005, 8 countries by 2015 and 86 countries risk not achieving it at primary or secondary level, or not at all.

MDGs

Contribution of science & technology

Gender implications

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Science and Technology make it possible to:

Women are responsible for 60– 90% of food-producing activities in developing regions.

• Increase agricultural productivity • Improve foodstuffs • Increase crops • Improve soil management • Develop efficient irrigation systems • Foster macro-economic growth, through sector contribution and the effect of investments in ICT on economic growth and job creation. It offers the bases for: • Promoting access to markets, efficiency and competitiveness to the poor, through interventions at grassroots level, such as making telephones available in villages and providing access to agricultural information

Women’s work in preparing and selling food is an important part of developing countries’ economy. Women possess great traditional and local knowledge of their seeds, crops and of land and water management.

• Increasing interaction to ensure social re-insertion of poor and underprivileged groups • Facilitating political empowerment through the establishment of priorities, increasing commitment and governance. 2. Achieve universal primary education

• Science teaching must be part of the basic education curriculum, to have a population with scientific knowledge that is the basis for an S&T workforce. • ICT enable remote access to educational resources and facilitate distance and electronic learning at primary, secondary and tertiary education levels.

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Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

The enrolment of women is lower in S&T higher education. Women have less representation in the S&T workforce at higher academic levels

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

MDGs

Contribution of science & technology

(cont.)

• ICT also facilitate curriculum delivery

2. Achieve universal primary education

• Administrative tasks can be rationalized thanks to ICT applications • ICT offer digital libraries and teaching aids of great value. • S&T can develop educational contents.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

Gender implications ICT are useful tools that facilitate distance education and electronic education of women and girls. ICT facilitate women’s training in science and engineering area.

Science and technology facilitate women’s daily tasks thanks to: • The sustainable development of energy resources • The availability of agricultural technology • The possibility of access to drinking water and appropriate sanitation. • The use of technologies (including ICT) for women’s enterprises. • Influence on public discourse and gender equality stereotypes • Improvement of women’s education through resources and access to distance and electronic education • Awareness of women’s rights and their participation in decision-making processes • Reduction of costs, increased market coverage, greater income generation

4. Reduce child mortality

Applications of ICT to health: • Follow-up on diet and growth • Remote support to consulting and diagnosis

5.Improve maternal health

• Improved access, registry and dissemination of medical information • Coordination of examinations • Training of health workers • Direct dissemination of health information to the population through traditional means • Use of software and databases on medicine and health to monitor vaccinations and treatment, coordination of dispatches of drugs, health supplies and information on diagnosis and treatments

Women are great possessors of traditional and local knowledge of health and hygiene In most societies, women are mainly responsible for their children’s health Women will benefit from access to basic knowledge on health and diet (ICT as a tool).

• Patients’ education and follow-up • Drug distribution management • Setting up a network to support patients and their families • Use of software for health management and disease recording 6. Combat HIV/ AIDs, malaria and other diseases

• Development of new treatments and vaccines, microbiocides

Women are great possessors of traditional and local knowledge

• Lower cost of generic drugs

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National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

MDGs (cont.) 6. Combat HIV/ AIDs, malaria and other diseases

Contribution of science & technology • Creation of new institutional frameworks for research (for example, the vaccine against Haemophilic Influenza Type B [HIb] was developed thanks to collaborative research among groups from the Universities of Havana and Ottawa under a joint patent, the synthetic version is cheaper and easier to process than the non-synthetic market vaccine • Follow-up and improvement in the quality of drugs

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

Gender implications The rate of HIV/AID infection among women increases on an international level and in Africa is higher among women Young women are at greater risk Women are responsible for caring for the sick

• Integrate scientific knowledge with traditional and local knowledge to monitor and manage ecosystems such as wetlands, seas and forests.

Women are great possessors of traditional and local knowledge

• Prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change and loss of biodiversity

Women as a group are an especially vulnerable to natural disasters

• Develop and improve low cost technologies for water supply and treatment, drop by drop irrigation and sanitation • Develop drought resistant crops using both conventional hybridizing methods and genetic engineering • Develop sustainable land management strategies, agricultural systems for biodiversity conservation and knowledge based on the real needs of the inhabitants who depend on the ecosystems and indigenous knowledge of resources for their survival. • Facilitate the participation of the local population in environmental protection and monitoring through the exchange of information and interconnected work • Facilitate tools for the observation, simulation and analysis of environmental processes

Women’s knowledge of survival help to provide social answers to face crises and disasters Women are responsible for managing local environmental resources Women’s access and rights to land are important land planning issues

• Reduction of consumer goods and facilitation of telecommunications • Promote awareness of environmental issues • Facilitate risk monitoring, management and mitigation • Use and benefit from geographical information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) 8. Develop a global partnership for development

• Promote S&T policies at high decision-making level and articulate them explicitly with the main economic and social policies

Women do not have sufficient representation in high level posts for S&T policy decision-making

• Increase access to new ICTs to improve governance

Women’s activities at community level will contribute to improve local governance

• Develop ICTs and electronic and distance education in less developed countries and small island states.

Flexible teaching systems are particularly suited to women’s tasks and condition.

Source: Huyer (2004); Juma y Lee (2005); Khosla y Pearl (2003) and UNESCO (2007).

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Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

BOX 6: The L’ORÉAL-UNESCO programme: “For Women in Science” In 1998, the firm L’ORÉAL and UNESCO joined efforts to implement the “For Women in Science” Programme. Inspired by the common conviction that the world needs science and science needs women: the association between both organizations has resulted in an ambitious programme, unique in its kind, conceived to promote the participation of women in scientific research. So far (2009), 57 women from 27 countries have been given the Award and another 135 from 71 countries have been rewarded with L’ORÉAL-UNESCO International Fellowships. To these must be added the beneficiaries of the L’ORÉAL National Fellowships. At the end of 2009, two women who had won the L’OREAL-UNESCO Award, Elizabeth Blackburn and Ada Yonath, were also distinguished with the Nobel Prizes for Medicine and Chemistry respectively.. The L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Awards are the result of a unique cooperation and their aim is to reward the contribution of outstanding researchers to science progress and to promote the participation of women in the field of scientific research. The Laureates are an example for coming generations and represent an encouragement for young women all around the world, serving as models for their path ahead. With research work in different disciplines, the winners of the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Awards actively face the important challenges presented by modern science. Thanks to their work no-

torious progress has been made in contexts as different as ecology and sustainable development, gene therapy and hereditary diseases, drugs and materials of the future, and innovative technologies. On the three last occasions, the following distinguished scientists from Latin America and the Caribbean, were respectively rewarded with the L’ORÉALUNESCO Award, • 2010: Alejandra Bravo, professor at the Molecular Microbiology Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico), “for her work on a bacterial toxin that acts as a powerful insecticide.” • 2009: Beatriz Barbuy, Professor at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Science of the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), “for her work on the life of stars from the birth of the Universe to the present time.” • 2008: Ana Belén Elgoyhen, professor at the Institute for Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology (CONICET), Buenos Aires (Argentina) “For her contributions to the understanding of the molecular basis of hearing (sense).” The fact that the L’ORÉALUNESCO programme “For Women in Science” has been operating for ten years not only highlights the constancy of the commitment taken on by the two partner organizations to support research workers but also marks an important milestone in the

progress of women in the field of science. The association between UNESCO and L’ORÉAL also recognizes and supports young women scientists continuing their doctoral or post-doctoral studies, awarding International “For Women in Science” grants. These grants enable the young women to carry out research work over a two-year period, with a 40,000 USD grant each. Annually they are granted to 15 young women researchers all over the world, active in the field of life sciences to enable them to undertake research in countries other than their own. In order to encourage scientific cooperation and the establishment of inter-cultural networks, the UNESCO-L’ORÉAL International Fellowships Programme makes efforts to award the fellowships to talented young researchers from countries where the opportunities to carry out scientific research are limited. With a view to ensuring that a balanced geographical representation is made, a maximum of three young women will be awarded fellowships, from each of the following five geo-cultural regions of the world: Africa, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The grantees are offered the opportunity of continuing their studies at high level international scientific institutions. GAL

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National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

8. Output indicators for science, technology and innovation activities Within the university and the academy, scientists keep up the tradition of “first publishing” the results of their R&D activities, preferably in acknowledged scientific journals, before seeking any commercial application. Furthermore, in industry, companies or inventors seek to “patent first” before publishing and sharing the knowledge generated or the innovation process achieved as a consequence of their R&D activities. Here two diametrically opposed philosophies may be observed. Over the past decades, LAC countries have attempted to promote various instruments to encourage university-enterprise cooperation in R&D tasks and to try to harmonize both opposing trends. Basic research is usually carried out in universities or other academic institutions. The main method used to measure or assess academic research results is by using bibliometric indicators (see Box 7). Furthermore, the procedure for impact assessment of industrial R&D is essentially based on an analysis of the statistics regarding patents; trading of highly technological products and through studies of the technological trade balance for each country. Both in the bibliometric analyses and patent statistics, access is usually to databases offering world coverage already organized into very sophisticated classifications. Presently it is possible to combine the various categories under which information is presented in the different databases with digital information processing. In this way, mathematical models can be developed from which properties regarding cooperation and development patterns in the thematic areas can be inferred. The results obtained in this way are usually very important in the design of medium and long-term STI policies.

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Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

In the early sixties, Eugene Garfield founded the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and started setting up the “Science Citation Index (SCI)”, a compendium enumerating the list of articles published in some thousands of mainstream scientific journals on exact, natural, medical and engineering sciences. This institute started counting the bibliographic references that appeared in these articles and estimate the impact, both of the journals and of the scientific articles and institutions worldwide. Later the same institute started publishing in the “Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)” to estimate the impact on social sciences and finally the “Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)” was established to analyze the impact of journals in the humanities. Presently the Thomson-Reuters company has taken over the ISI and digitalized all the information covering the three databases, creating a service known as the Web-of-Science. This provides researchers, managers, teachers and students with rapid and powerful access to the databases containing the most important bibliographic references worldwide in science. The multidisciplinary content covers over 10,000 mainstream journals having the greatest impact globally, including journals of open access and over 10,000 scientific congress minutes. The present and retrospective coverage of exact and natural sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities spans from 1900 to the present. Over the year, alternative and complementary databases have appeared. Among these, on an international level the following may be highlighted: SCOPUS, MEDLINE, PASCAL, INSPEC, COMPENDEX, BIOSIS, CAB, ICYT, IME, PERIODICA, CLASE, LILACS, LATINDEX etc. In general, scientific journals published in LAC are usually under-represented in the international databases (see Box 8). Graphs 30 and 31 respectively show the number of publications and bibliographical refer-

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

box 7: What are bibliometrics? Bibliometrics is a general term for the inventory and statistical analysis of articles, publications and citations and other more complex indicators of scientific production deriving from such statistics. Bibliometric indicators are important tools in assessing R&D, performance and specialization of countries, institutions, laboratories, universities, thematic areas and individual scientists. Bibliometrics were born with the pioneer work of Derek J. de Solla Price and Eugene Garfield, based on counting publications and citations in these publications, in a small number of mainstream technical journals. At present, thanks to an exponentially growing data processing capacity, it is possible to prepare sophisticated multidimensional indicators on the production of scientific articles in all the disciplines, from exact sciences to humanities. Furthermore, very precise analyses can be made of the impact of publications, the development of the various state of the art of knowledge subjects in each country, study the levels of cooperation regarding co-authorship of publications, co-citations, the creation and evolution of scientist networks (“invis-

ible colleges”), etc. Through the analysis of cross references used in requests for patents or through the crossing of information published in scientific literature, bibliometric methods can be used to examine the links between science, technology and innovation activities and patents. For years, bibliometric indicators have been used in comparisons of national productivity, institutional and individual assessment and in the analysis of the impact of international publications. As any indicator, it is not free from criticism and therefore its results should be interpreted with caution. The main criticism that is usually made is linked to the bias vis-à-vis publications that are not in English and that are not among a select group of journals that, from this perspective are categorized as “mainstream.” During the last decade, sophisticated mathematical models of co-authorship networks and trees of cross references have been developed, enabling a very precise study of evolution over time of international scientific cooperation to be made. These analyses have a direct application in the

ences accumulated between 1998 and 2007 in the SCOPUS database, per million inhabitants according to each of UNESCO’s administrative regions (see Appendix 7). It may easily be seen how scientific knowledge published in mainstream scientific journals is overwhelmingly generated in Europe and North America. It should be noted that

design of institutional, national and regional strategies for the production of new knowledge. Some of these mathematical copublication models, assuming the hypothesis of “preferential link”, where the scientists tend to co-publish with members of networks with greater visibility, confirm the old hypothesis of Robert Merton (1968) on the so-called “Matthew Effect.” Lemarchand (2007, 2008) showed the existence of more than 300 self-organized co-publication networks -in mathematical terms- between each of the countries of LAC with another 44 countries both in and outside the region. The data showed the existence of “preferential attachments” particularly with the US. LAC researchers usually copublish with scientists from the USA, United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany, as the scientific production of these latter countries is usually more visible than the production of other countries. This association increases international visibility of their work and in this way; the dynamics of the “Matthew Effect” are replicated. GAL

in both graphs the respective scientific output has been standardized with the population of each region. These graphs are complementary to graph 5 which simply showed the percentage distribution of publications per UNESCO administrative area. Likewise, table 7 shows the figures accumulated between 1996 and 2008 of numbers of scientific articles, bibliographical references and other impact indica63

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

BOX 8: Latin American and Caribbean Scientific Journals. Presently, in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean over 12,000 titles of scientific journals are published annually . This amazing figure, growing every year, is much greater than even those knowledgeable about the subject could ever have suspected a little more than a decade ago. In fact, knowledge of science produced and published in the region has a track record of being scarce. The numerous local or regional databases that used to publish hard copies gave a partial account of, for the most part invisible, disseminated production, while international indexes and information services have been characterized by gathering a very low percentage of Latin American titles. Today the scenario is different in many respects: i) there is ample updated information on current titles produced in the region; ii) growing attention to this scientific production is to be observed on the part of institutions; iii) editorial quality standards exist and are applied throughout the region; iv) there is evidence of increased quality in editorial work; v) there are various programmes supporting quality scientific journals based on national cores or registries; v) excellent quality journals are produced although in a limited number; vi) efforts are being made to increase the presence of these journals in international indexes; vii) every day digital versions appear on-line of existing titles and newly created electronic journals; viii) newspaper libraries or online collections have multiplied, providing orga64

nized access to the content of journals with additional services. It is hoped that these and other initiatives will contribute to solving problems and gaps that still affect most of the journals in the region, such as: the difficulty of receiving original and quality material, limited circulation and low visibility, lack of stability and funding and lack of professionalism in editorial work. The main statistical data provided by Latindex on the journals in the region are as follows: the Directory that records journals published in 30 countries, presently records 13,511 titles, of which 12,050 are current. Of these titles, close on 48% correspond to research journals, 30% to technical-professional journals and 22% to journals for scientific dissemination. Roughly, distribution by disciplines or areas of knowledge is the following: 44% of the journals registered by Latindex correspond to social sciences and humanities, 17% to medical sciences, 12% to exact and natural sciences and an equal percentage to arts and humanities; agricultural science journals represent 6%; engineering sciences another 6% and finally, multi-disciplinary journals 3%. The Catalogue, that only contains those journals fulfilling a plethora of parameters concerning editorial quality, presently reports 2,757 titles, corresponding to 23% of the total. The best represented disciplines are, in decreasing order: social sciences (44%); medical sciences (20%); exact and natural sciences (12%); the arts and humani-

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

ties (11%); agricultural science (5%); engineering science (5%) and multidisciplinary (3%). The index of electronic journals provides links to 2,658 titles, corresponding to 22% of the total. The proportion of journals with electronic support as compared to the total has risen from 1.6% in the year 2000 to 22% in 2009. The presence of these journals in the main indexing services operating in the region is as follows: CLASE 1,611 titles (social sciences and humanities), PERIÓDICA 1,416 (science, medicine, technology), IRESIE 780 (education) and LILACS 661 (biomedicine and health) Regarding directories and indexing services produced outside the region, there are great variations in coverage of Latin American titles. Ulrich’s directory reports some scant 9,023 titles, of which 878 correspond to refereed journals. Additionally, indexes and specialized summaries by area are available. In social sciences and humanities the following are worth noting: HAPI with 207 titles (34% of the total of the database), Philosopher’s Index with 119 (21% of the total), Francis with 165 (6.1%) and ERIC with 205 (15%). In natural and exact sciences, medicine and technology, the following: INIS with 223 (11%), Zoological Record with 329 (6%) and ASFA with 284 (6%). On the other hand, there are international indexing services for bibliometric purposes, centred on high profile journals, where the presence of Latin American journals is much scanter: 185

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

in the Web of Science (1.6% of the total) and 274 in SCOPUS (1.7% of the total). The fact that the recording of journals in these indexes is used as an indicator for university ranking, has led to various institutions in the region stepping up efforts to strengthen their journals with the aim of achieving incorporation into these services. Among the virtual journal libraries with open access produced outside the region, the Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ, contains 878 Latin American titles, a respectable 20% of the total. Virtual libraries produced in the region usu-

ally provide open access to the content of the journals. Among the initiatives in this area are the SciELO virtual library, that as a whole contain 644 titles and 207,000 full text articles and REDALYC, with 550 titles and 115.000 full text articles. Important areas of knowledge exist both in exact and natural sciences and in social sciences and humanities in which the scientists of Latin America and the Caribbean have something specific to contribute to the world. There is nothing better than having quality instruments to make

these inputs known and to promote their dissemination.

Ana María Cetto, Institute of Physics, UNAM, President of Latindex, Deputy Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency [email protected] José Octavio Alonso-Gamboa General Libraries Directorate, UNAM, General coordinator for Latindex [email protected]

Graph 30: Distribution of publications accumulated between 1996-2008 in mainstream science and technology journals per million inhabitants, distributed by UNESCO administrative regions (see Appendix 7). Source: prepared and calculated by the author on the basis of data on accumulated publications by country taken from the SCOPUS database and data on population by country taken from the United Nations Statistics Division.

tors for each LAC country having figures over

edge among the various countries of LAC we

150 articles accumulated over said period.

may observe that 85% of all the mainstream

Furthermore, if we use the SCI, SSCI and

scientific publications originating from LAC

A&HCI databases to estimate the accumulated

authors between 1973 and 2009 was pro-

productivity in the generation of new knowl-

duced in 4 countries alone (Brazil, Mexico, 65

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 31: Distribution of citations accumulated between 1996 – 2008 in mainstream science and technology journals per million inhabitants by UNESCO administrative regions (see Appendix 7). Source: prepared by the author on the basis of citations accumulated by country on the SCOPUS database and data on population by country taken from the United Nations Division of Statistics.

Argentina and Chile). Graph 32 shows this accumulated distribution. Graph 33 shows on a semi-logarithmic scale the annual production of mainstream scientific publications, listed in the three SCI, SSCI and A&HCI bases between 1973 and 2009. It is easy to see that in most of the cases, exponential type growth processes are to be observed in the dynamics of scientific article publication. Furthermore, this type of graph is very useful to see at what point in time a country became more productive than another, or the turning points in the growth of publications that generally respond to the economic and political situation of the countries and, in some special cases, to the implementation of explicit STI policies that change the dynamics of knowledge production. Graph 34 shows the annual production of mainstream scientific publications, listed in the three SCI, SSCI and A&HCI databases between 1973 and 2009, per million inhabitants. Here it will clearly be observed that Chile, followed by Argentina, Uruguay and 66

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

recently, Brazil, are the countries with the greatest number of scientific publications per million inhabitants. This type of graph is very useful to detach indicators from the size of the country and to make these indicators more comparable among the different countries. Graph 35 shows geo-referential distribution in the number of articles published in 2008 listed in SCI per 100,000 inhabitants. Finally graph 36 shows the percentage of mainstream publications that were listed in the SCI between 1990 and 2008 for the whole of LAC over the total of world publications. In this case it may clearly be seen that over the period under examination, the number of LAC publications grew faster than the number of world publications listed in the same database. This fact strengthens the vision that over the past decade the fraction of world investment in R&D expenditure made by LAC, the number of EFT researchers, and the fraction of the total number of world mainstream publications in the region grew faster than in the rest of the world (see Box 2).

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Table 7: Number of scientific publications accumulated between 1996-2008, publications that could be cited, number of citations, self-citations, citations per publication and H index, appearing in the SCOPUS database. Source: SCImago. (2008). SJR — SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Obtained on 2 February 2009, http://www.scimagojr.com Number of publications

Country

1

Brazil

2

Publications that could be cited

Number of citations

Number of selfcitations

Citations per Publication

H Index(*)

235,216

229,522

1,509,255

479,730

7.93

212

Mexico

95,770

93,880

658,587

150,985

7.93

160

3

Argentina

73,427

71,725

587,707

137,155

8.68

153

4

Chile

36,986

36,228

330,684

65,577

10.75

138

5

Venezuela; Bolivarian Republic of

17,436

17,077

109,618

18,473

6.8

97

6

Cuba

15,153

14,789

62,320

16,327

4.46

66

7

Colombia

14,590

14,229

90,768

13,913

8.34

84

8

Puerto Rico

6,696

6,550

75,872

6,473

12.45

90

(**)

9

Uruguay

5,562

5,412

54,141

8,353

11.41

78

10

Peru

4,456

4,314

40,249

4,730

11.38

70

11

Costa Rica

3,935

3,845

40,770

5,102

11.38

72

12

Ecuador

2,422

2,336

19,975

2,734

10.08

55

13

Jamaica

2,290

2,161

15,599

2,202

7.76

42

14

Trinidad & Tobago

2,125

2,011

11,184

1,236

6.26

39

15

Panama

1,985

1,909

34,880

4,011

22.86

78

16

Bolivia, Pluri-national State of

1,584

1,558

13,755

1,672

10.22

43

17

Guatemala

872

832

7,646

483

9.71

36

18

Barbados

761

705

6,137

530

8.98

35

19

Guadalupe

612

594

5,008

571

9.16

31

20

Nicaragua

529

515

4,208

398

9.86

28

21

El Salvador

515

506

3,431

89

6.99

28

22

Paraguay

474

463

3,926

203

9.6

30

23

French Guyana

420

402

3,944

391

11.32

28

24

Dominican Republic

412

399

3,535

196

10.34

30

25

Honduras

394

386

3,502

212

9.29

28

26

The Bermudas

311

300

7,141

624

23.56

42

27

Martinique

276

266

1,685

78

5.89

18

28

Netherlands Antilles

266

250

2,406

155

11.2

27

29

Granada

246

223

1,013

60

10.15

16

30

Guyana

232

219

1,535

98

7.91

18

31

Haiti

218

199

2,604

196

16.29

25

The “H” index is an indicator of the impact of an individual’s scientific output and also, in an aggregate manner, for institutions and countries (Hirsch, 2005). (*)

Puerto Rico as an Associate State of the United States of America is not usually included in LAC aggregate statistics. (**)

67

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Graph 32: Percentage distribution by country of all mainstream scientific publications accumulated between 1973 and 2008 in the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). Source: Prepared by the author. 68

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Graph 33: Long-term performance on the annual number of mainstream scientific publications (19732009) listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), represented in a logarithmic scale in function of time. Source: prepared by the author

Graph 34: Long-term performance on the annual number of mainstream scientific publications (19732009) listed in the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) per million inhabitants, represented on a logarithmic scale, in function of time. Source: prepared by the author. 69

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

0.1 to 5.0 per hundred thousand inhabitants 5.1 to 10.0 per hundred thousand inhabitants 10.1 to 15.0 per hundred thousand inhabitants 15.1 to 20.0 per hundred thousand inhabitants 20.1 or more per hundred thousand inhabitants No available data

Graph 35: Geo-referenced distribution of publications in the Science Citation Index (SCI) for the year 2008 per 100,000 inhabitants. Source: prepared by the author.

70

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Number of annual LAC publications in the SCI, as a percentage of the total number of world publications in the SCI

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

Graph 36: Total number of annual publications in the Science Citation Index (SCI) for the whole of LAC as a percentage of the total number of publications worldwide listed in the SCI between 1990 y 2007. Source: Prepared by the author.

9. Co-authorship networks in LAC The major bibliometric networks enable a great variety of studies to be made, among them the determination of the science cooperation dynamics during the production of new knowledge (co-authorship). Studies show that, over the past decade, co-publication in LAC countries with their peers in the region has grown in a sustained manner. (See for example: http://spin.unesco.org.uy). When co-authorship patterns are analyzed for the 10 countries with the greatest number of articles in mainstream scientific journals in LAC on the integrated lists of the SCI, SSCI and A&HCI databases between 1973 and 2007, with the other 45 countries having the greatest number of publications in the rest of the world, the analysis shows the existence of self-organized co-publication networks following very long term quadratic growth patterns (Lemarchand, 2008a).

This study observed the existence of 282 different co-publication networks, among peer countries, shown the same self-organized patterns mentioned above. This group of countries, concentrates its co-publications mainly with the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Brazil (see table 8). The greatest proportion of LAC co-publications is generated with countries outside the region. The above mentioned study shows that, during the last decade, an interesting increase in the levels of intra-regional cooperation has taken place, as well as the appearance of new, non-traditional cooperation countries (South Korea, the Russian Federation and China). The increase in co-publications with LAC countries could be explained with the growth of new cooperation agreements and regional programmes established during the past decade. The appearance of the second group of cooperating countries could respond to the 71

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Venezuela

Uruguay

Peru

Panama

Mexico

Jamaica

Cuba

Costa Rica

Colombia

Chile

Brazil

Argentina

 

Table 8: Percentage distribution of mainstream co-publications listed in SCI, SSCI and A&HCI (19732006) for a set of LAC countries (columns) compared to another set of countries (rows). The values are expressed in the percentage of the total publications of the country column over the same period. Source: adapted from Lemarchand (2007).

Alemania

2.7

2.9

4.6

4.0

4.2

4.4

0.5

2.2

3.0

3.2

14.9

1.7

Argentina

----

1.5

2.4

3.7

1.4

1.3

0.1

0.7

0.6

2.8

6.7

1.5

Brazil

3.2

----

2.6

6.4

3.3

4.2

3.1

1.0

2.5

5.0

3.3

2.3

Canada

1.3

1.8

2.0

2.6

2.8

1.6

1.8

2.3

2.4

2.3

5.6

1.6

Chile

1.3

0.6

----

1.9

0.9

1.0

0.1

0.5

0.8

2.5

2.9

0.9

Spain

4.1

1.4

4.8

7.9

2.8

10.8

0.4

2.8

2.8

6.5

2.5

3.9

France

3.0

3.7

4.6

5.5

4.1

2.5

0.5

2.7

0.8

3.8

2.3

4.3

Italy

1.8

1.9

2.0

1.6

1.2

3.2

0.3

1.4

0.4

1.6

1.5

1.9

Mexico

1.1

0.7

1.4

5.4

4.9

7.9

0.3

~

0.7

2.4

0.8

2.0

Netherlands

0.7

0.8

1.0

2.1

3.1

0.5

0.2

0.6

0.4

1.2

10.0

0.5

Sweden

0.6

0.6

0.9

1.5

2.7

1.0

0.2

0.5

0.5

1.0

3.3

0.5

Switzerland

0.6

0.7

0.8

1.7

0.7

0.8

0.3

0.7

1.7

1.5

0.6

0.5

2.1

3.5

3.3

6.6

3.2

2.1

4.1

2.0

3.5

5.2

10.9

3.7

9.7

11.6

15.0

26.6

27.8

4.3

66.9

46.4

26.7

27.9

7.9

16.2

Number of Latin American publications (P) listed in the SCI (1991-1995)

UK USA

Number of co-authors from different countries (S)

Graph 37: This shows distribution of mainstream publications (links) written by LAC authors, listed in the SCI (1991-1995), compared to the number of different countries that appear as co-authors of the articles. The graph shows the power law distribution that is a characteristic of the dynamics of a scale-free social network in the terms of Barabási-Albert (2002).Source: Lemarchand (2008a). 72

Science Policy Studies and Documents in LAC, Vol. 1.

Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Past Six Decades - Guillermo A. Lemarchand

globalization of knowledge production processes. Lemarchand (2008a) showed that, when analyzing the distribution of co-published articles by authors from 2, 3, 4, 14 different countries their distribution followed a power-law (see graph 37). This fact is a characteristic of the performance of a complex system dominated by scale-free self-organization. Here each country appears as a node in the network and each co-publication as a link. This is a characteristic property of complex artificial or natural networks from internet to protein folding (Barabási-Albert, 2002).

The above-mentioned study analyzed the patterns of co-publication for 12 Ibero-American countries having the largest scientific production between 1973 and 2007. Through this table, the surrounding conditions that triggered off the co-authorship self-organized

Percentage of the number of co-publications listed in SCI+SSCI+A&HCI for a selection of countries with others from a sample of 22 Ibero-American countries

Applying these concepts, Lemarchand (2008a) developed a mathematical model to study evolution over time of co-authorship networks, which predicts that the number of

joint publications between a pair of countries, represented in function of time, grows quadratically (see graph 38). Here the evolution over time is shown of the percentage of co-published papers for Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Spain with other countries of the region as compared to the total number of papers of the countries listed in the SCI, SSCI and A&HCI databases between 1973 and 2007.As will be seen from this graph, the levels of regional co-authorship have grown quadratically over the last decades.

Chile

Argentina

Mexico

Brazil

Spain

Graph 38: Evolution over time of mainstream scientific publications between 1973 and 2007 for Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile, each with a list of 22 of the most productive countries of Ibero-America and the Caribbean in aggregate form. The vertical axis represents the percentage of co-publications with countries of the above mentioned region (LAC + Spain and Portugal). It may be observed that Spain and Brazil work as real hubs, concentrating most of the fractions of co-publications of the rest of the countries of LAC. Source: Lemarchand (2008a). 73

National Science, Technology and Innovation Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

networks can be determined. Empirically the predictions of the mathematical model were corroborated, finding 352 sets of networks between pairs of countries. From the analysis of available data, co-authorship networks show an excellent consistency between the mathematical model and the empirical data throughout a 34 year period. For example, 47% of the 352 networks had values with correlation coefficients of R2> 0.94; 27%, with values of 0.94> R2> 0.90, 18% with values of 0.90> R2> 0.84 and 8% with values of R2