'A researcher's place is in the company'

Abstract

He helped found and directed some of the country's most important innovation initiatives, such as the UFRJ Technological Park, the COPPE-UFRJ Business Incubator (Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering), and ANPROTEC (National Association of Entities Promoting Innovative Enterprises). In addition to these actions, he was also president of IASP (International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation). For Maurício Guedes, it is necessary to assume innovation as one of the obligations of the public university, providing the area with budget, competitions, and career paths. The interviewee is a kind of child of the Pro-Alcohol program, a Brazilian technological innovation with international repercussions, and cites research on biological nitrogen fixation—conducted by Professor Johana Döbereiner in the 1960s—as the greatest scientific innovation that Brazil has offered to the world. “With this technology, Brazil saves billions of dollars on the import of nitrogen fertilizers,” he recalls. At the time of this interview, Maurício Guedes is in charge of the Superintendency of Innovation and Sustainability at the State Secretariat for Economic Development, Industry, Commerce and Services of Rio de Janeiro, where he dedicates himself, among other tasks, to strengthening the contact between academia and business. He says he did this for a long time at the university and that now he is in a secretariat with a history of relationships with companies, but with a “very, very, very limited” relationship with universities. Aware of the advances and bottlenecks, he harbors a hope: with the simplification brought about by the tax reform, Brazilian companies will stop hiring “battalions of tax lawyers” and will connect with the world of innovation. Guedes does not propose the adoption of any successful model from abroad, but defends a change of mentality that includes companies as a likely destination for master's and doctoral students. “Brazil holds the world record for the concentration of researchers in universities, (...) while in developed countries and those that have been developing in recent years, 70% to 80% of researchers are in companies. And these researchers are not unhappy (...). They produce vaccines, innovative products and services that improve people's lives, win Nobel Prizes and boost the economy.” Check out the interview: