The university-industry cooperation: a critical comparative study of three São Paulo state universities

Abstract

In the last decades, the organization and activities related to Science and Technology (S&T) have been restructuring themselves. Agents have become recognized and incorporated into the context of the research and development activities, reconfiguring their own roles. Amidst that change, the relationship between universities and enterprises has become more dynamic. In seeking to better understand the object of the university-enterprise cooperation, this paper aims at analyzing the main strategies, norms, instruments and promotion mechanisms generated by the university, which, in turn, boost the university-enterprise cooperation model that exists on the three main public universities of the state of São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). In order to reach the goal of this study, which is exploratory by nature, and presents a qualitative approach, activities such as bibliographical research, documental research and surveys will be conducted. The key conceptual-analytical concepts, that will be explored, are derived from the integration of other concept and methods derived from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary sources, among which, the Public Policies and Organization Studies and the Neo-institutionalist Approach.