October the 16th 2013 - Chilean Embassy, Brussels
Seminar on Chilean Initiatives on Science & Technology and Innovation
1st lecture: Chilean policy on Science, Technology and innovation
Speaker: Mr. Juan Manuel Santa Cruz, Head of Policy on Innovation Division - Ministry of Economy
Today, Chile’s GDP per capita is the highest of all Latino-American country, having just overtaken Argentina, and the country has set up plans to keep growing further. Furthermore, Chile managed not to suffer too heavily from the 2008 financial crisis and has enjoyed a strong recovery since then. The country tries hard to extend its degree of openness to world thanks to a wide range of effective free-trade agreements. In this way, Chile is freely connected to about 85% of the world’s GDP and its level of connectedness is even higher than the USA’s one. Finally, the country has achieved an average 5%/year growth rate for 25 years. All these good statistics allow the country to score well in several worldwide rankings:
7th out of 179 countries in terms of economic freedom
37th out of 185 in terms of ease of doing business
34th out of 148 in terms of economic competitiveness
20th out of 176 in terms of low corruption
17th out of 141 in terms of attractiveness of investments
38th out of 125 in terms of innovation
However, Chile is still lagging behind for several matters so that there are still plenty of things to improve in the country. For example, there are three possibilities for a region to keep on achieving sustainable growth. They can step in either at the level of capital investments, either at the level of labor investments, or at the level of efficiency and productivity improvements. So, it should be relevant that Chile focuses on adding value to what firms already have which means that they should try to improve the efficiency and productivity of their existing capital and labor factors before embarking on making new investments. What’s more, although the country has always been rather isolated geographically but also culturally, Chilean firms need to continuously extend their level of connectedness to the world since everything is now thought globally.
For all these reasons, at the instigation of the Ministry of Economy, Chilean authorities have worked out the “National Innovation Policy 2010 - 2014”. This policy, which rests on 8 pillars, aims at spreading innovation throughout the whole territory. Here are the main pillars promoted by the National Innovation Policy:
Funding: Need of funding to support growth.
Research & Development: While private sector accounts for about 2/3 of the R&D expenditures in developed countries, it is the opposite case in Chile where it is the public sector that characterizes 2/3 of the R&D expenditures. Another Chilean particularity is that they have set up a tax incentive related to investments in R&D. However, as this instrument wasn’t flexible enough, it has been readjusted.
Technology transfer: At this level, the biggest problem in Chile is the huge gap there is between the academic and the entrepreneurial world. To reduce this gap, Chile has launched the “International Center of Excellence” Program which aims at importing centers of excellence to Chile in order to bring foreign expertise in specific activity sectors. In addition to that, the competent authorities have granted that they would reduce collaboration costs between universities and firms.
Entrepreneurship: From 2007 to 2013 there has been a continuous increase in the creation of new companies, which demonstrates the dynamic nature of Chilean economy. Moreover, this trend has further been enhanced in 2013 thanks to a new law that fosters new company creation. With this new law, administrative procedures are strongly minimized thanks to online services that allow the creation of new companies in one day and at zero costs
Global connection: Chile has always been isolated, geographically as well as culturally, so that Chilean citizens are used to think too locally. Since the government realized that Chileans needed to open further their mind, it has launched the “Start-Up Chile” program with a view to bucking the trend. In concrete terms, the program aims at attracting world-class early stages entrepreneurs to start their business in Chile by providing them with funds and a visa valid for one year. In view of the excellent results delivered by the “Start-Up Chile” program, “The Economist” magazine coined the “Chilecon Valley” expression in one of its last releases. On the other hand, Chilean authorities launched another program that encourages skilled Chilean entrepreneurs to set up shop abroad. Nevertheless, due to Chilean mentality of thinking too locally, there were much more foreign applicants for the “Start-Up Chile” program than Chilean applicants for the opposite program.
Human capital: The core element of the “National Innovation Policy 2010 - 2014” is people. Indeed, all measures that are taken focus on people.
Culture and environment: 2013 is a key year for the “National Innovation Policy 2010 - 2014” since it was chosen as the year of innovation. In this context, the country launched the “Imagine Chile” program that supports innovative and creative projects in the whole country.
2nd lecture: Chilean initiatives on Research in Science and Technology
Speaker: Ms. Maria Mesonero, National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT)
This second lecture highlighted the numerous plans implemented by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT). Currently, the challenge that Chile is facing is that they must be able to raise at the same time the number of R&D investments in terms of GDP, but also in terms of the launch of new research projects. Otherwise, if it only increases in value but not in volume, current research projects might become overfunded. So, when it comes to R&D investments, it is crucial to take two pillars into account: funding of research projects and development of human capital. Generally speaking, there are no national priority areas, except for two thematic programs launched for two strategic sectors: astronomy and health. For instance, thanks to the high-purity sky and enlightening, Chile has become the best country in the world to carry out astronomic research projects. And, given the excellent natural conditions favorable for high-quality science researches that the country offers, CONICYT has issued a wide range of programs aims at fostering scientific and technological research by replicating what has been successfully achieved in the astronomy field. Here is a sample of a few programs proposed by CONICYT:
If acceptance criteria are met, scholarships are granted to Chileans willing to do a PhD degree outside Chile or to foreigners doing it in Chile
There is a support program that facilitates the return to their home country of qualified Chilean researchers and scientists practicing abroad.
On the other hand, another program aims at attracting advanced human capital from abroad to Chile.
For large projects, it is possible to set up international joint research projects.
Several FONDAP research centers specialized in specific thematic areas are established in the country.
A last program tries to facilitate the insertion of PhD’s in companies. For example, firms have the possibility to hire Chilean or foreign PhD’s while these ones’ salaries are initially funded by CONICYT. The main objective of this program is to bridge the existing gap between academic and business world.
This is obviously a non-exhaustive list of the many opportunities offered by CONICYT. You can find out plenty of others advantageous programs on their website that might perfectly meet your needs and expectations, especially for Chilean nationals:
3rd lecture: Initiatives on Innovation
Speaker: Mr. Alan Garcia Clydesale, CORFO - Ministry of Economy
This last lecture tackled the fact that Chile wants to become an innovation hub in Latin America and illustrated this point by presenting some actions taken by CORFO, the Chilean Economic Development Agency. CORFO’s mission is to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness with an eye to improving Chile’s productivity, and to achieve globally competitive leadership positions. To be successful in their mission, the agency has established public policies that promote innovation and entrepreneurship. In terms of fund resources, Chilean entrepreneurs and/or scientists can often rely on the private sector. In addition to that, CORFO makes public funds available for early-stage and/or high-risk projects that present a high potential of success but that can’t get funding from private investors because they are too risky. Nevertheless, CORFO’s activities aren’t limited to those of a public bank since the agency also tries to add value to projects by connecting players together. As the agency realized that connection and networking are essential to be successful, CORFO does not only provide funds, but they also connect external fund resources with Chilean entrepreneurs and scientists.
Another challenge that CORFO has to tackle is to close, or at least reduce, the gap from science to market. For that purpose, was recently launched an “Applied R&D Program” that highlights all four stages involved in a R&D process. And, according to the level of development a project has already reached, the focus is put upon a specific stage rather than another. Although each R&D project isn’t necessarily characterized by all four stages presented below, those steps are the following:
- Market assessment and market research: Phase of analyzing our basis market on the whole.
- Investigation phase: Core of the R&D project
- IP strategy: This step refers to intellectual property and patenting.
- Technology transfer and packaging: This last important phase deals with the transition from the scientific aspects of a R&D project to its effective use on the market. Thus, it is on this last stage that CORFO must focus to try to minimize the current gap between science and market.
Among other programs supported by CORFO, we can still mention the Technological Consortiums 2.0 the purpose of which is to group knowledge, know-how and expertise of a few companies and/or research centers in order to launch more qualitative projects. At last, under certain conditions, firms can benefit from a 35% tax credit on all their R&D expenditures. To find further information on this matter, check out CORFO’s website: