Brazil-Korea S&T knowledge production profiles and patterns of collaboration

Abstract

There have been two opposing views on the role of the government in science and technology (S&T) collaboration. While one view emphasizes active role of policy for collaboration to enhance national level S&T capabilities, the other view sees little role of policy support for collaborative S&T research at individual level (including research group or institutional levels) due to the self-organizing nature of S&T collaboration. Two views on S&T collaboration look at different levels, but existing research largely ignores the developing countries context. This dissertation proposes a logical framework to analyze S&T knowledge production and S&T collaborations applied to the context of two emerging countries in different stages of scientific development over the past decade: Brazil and Korea. This dissertation finds several issues, such as differences in strategic management on national science systems between each country and gaps between initiation and actual establishment of collaborative research at national and individual levels, differences in the focus areas of research, differences in resources and project planning, and nature of collaborations. The collaborative research activities at national level were initiated much before individual level but they were activated much later than the individual level. Moreover, focus areas of research were laid down earlier at national level, but individual collaborations focused different areas. Project types also remained different at each level i.e. top-down and bottom-up or slightly changing mix. It is suggested that appropriate policy measures, such as timely and effective information collection of activities at different levels and proactive coordination could have reduced the gaps in timing and alignment of research areas.