Redes de colaboração da fruticultura na Bahia: uma análise do estado da ciência, tecnologia e inovaçao através das coautorias e coparticipações

Abstract

The integration between science, technology and innovation (CT&I) emerges as an essential factor to guarantee competitiveness in any economic segment, especially in agriculture where Brazil has historically stood out. In this scenario, success is no longer associated with the creation of knowledge, but with the domain of the flow of this knowledge through relationships. The aim of this study was to analyze the state of science, technology and innovation of fruticulture in Bahia under the perspective of established collaboration networks. To achieve this goal, a documentary research was constructed based on the public data available on the Lattes platform, using techniques and tools of social network analysis already widely used by the scientific community for different purposes, including to study the relationship between researchers and organizations in the innovation process. The stages consisted in the identification of the main researchers in the area of fruticulture in Bahia, identification of scientific and technological production and respective coauthories and co-participation, construction of representative graphs of co-authoring and coparticipation networks and finally the analysis of the networks. Collaboration networks generated in the development of scientific production were grouped by institution and by fruit. Embrapa Mandioca and Fruticultura occupied a more central position in the scientific network, articulating itself immediately in its adjectives with UFRB, UESC and UESB and in more peripheral positions with 11 other institutions. Among the fruits, banana and passion fruit obtained the best indicators, considering cohesion, centrality and representativeness. The indicators also pointed out that the institution where the researcher work exerts more influence in co-authoring with his peers than the studied fruit. The technological networks obtained with the same methodology were very incipient with very low cohesion, being represented by only 6 institutions that were organized predominantly in intrainstitutional networks that did not communicate with each other. There were no researchers in the area of fruticulture working in productive sector, and practically all of them work in public research institutions. The fragility of the technological network when compared to the scientific network evidenced the historical stance of CT&I policies that prioritized only scientific research through scholarships and research projects, hoping that science would generate technology and innovation. In the current systemic model of innovation, the instruments used by CT&I policies should be more diversified to change the scenario of fruticulture orcharding in Bahia.