Universities, Organizational Structure of the Research Activity and the Spin-off Formation: Lessons From Brazilian Case

The relationship between universities and enterprises is an important issue in the innovation process; efforts have been made by policy makers to increase this relation in Brazil. The contributions that universities can make for the innovation systems are very heterogeneous, including indirect contributions, related with teach and research missions and direct contributions in the case of the technology commercialization and spin-off formation. When we analyse different profiles of research groups from engineering departments in Brazilian universities, with heterogeneous level of research quality and institutional structure, we realize that the organization of research activity influence directly the partnership between these research groups and enterprises. When we focus in the creation of new technologies that can go trough market licensing or creating spin-offs to exploit them, the research groups with highest level of research activity seams to be more effective in this kind of activity. This paper presents data from High Education System in Brazil, the distribution of research activity in this system, its concentration and heterogeneous level of quality. Two in depth case studies about research groups from engineering field in two different universities are presented to illustrate the different models that can emerge in the university and industry relation when we have heterogeneous level of research activity.