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Patterns of university–industry interactions in Brazil: an exploratory analysis using the instrumental of graph theory

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Abstract

The article seeks to explore the evidence related to the sectoral patterns of structuring of the university–industry relations in Brazil, departing from the information extracted from the database of the Brazil Survey Research, with the analytical contribution of graph theory and its centrality measures. The empirical results allow us to identify some important constraints of the university–industry interactions in Brazil. In particular, we highlight the importance of locational aspects in conditioning the actions of universities as producers of science and technology for the productive sector and a tendency to relatively more intense interaction with less knowledge-intensive sectors, compared to so-called science based sectors.

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Notes

  1. CNPq is the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. For a more detailed analysis of the database directory of CNPq Research Groups, see Rapini (2007)

  2. It should be noted that the degree centrality for universities is lower than those observed in the industrial sectors due to some limitations of the database. In fact, in the questionnaire applied to collect the data, the companies answered in which university they cooperate, while direct cooperation between universities have not been asked.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematics Institute, UFF, Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Renata R. Del-Vecchio

  2. Department of Economics, UFF, Niteroi, Brazil

    Jorge Britto

  3. UFF, Niteroi, Brazil

    Bruno F. de Oliveira

Authors
  1. Renata R. Del-Vecchio
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  2. Jorge Britto
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  3. Bruno F. de Oliveira
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Correspondence to Renata R. Del-Vecchio.

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Research supported in part by CNPq and FAPERJ.

Appendix

Appendix

See Appendix Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7 Centrality measures for interaction between universities and businesses
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Table 8 List of acronyms
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Del-Vecchio, R.R., Britto, J. & de Oliveira, B.F. Patterns of university–industry interactions in Brazil: an exploratory analysis using the instrumental of graph theory. Qual Quant 48, 1867–1892 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9857-x

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