Dissertation Reserach: Building Agro-Biotechnology Capabilities in Small Countries

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This Research on Science and Technology Dissertation Improvement Grant is aimed at analyzing the role of the surrounding institutional environment on the building of technological capabilities at the firm and sectoral level in agricultural biotechnology in small countries. It argues that the characteristics of the institutional environment related to agricultural biotechnology, including policies, institutions (rules of the game) and the web of related organizations (players of the game), strongly determine the type of technological capabilities built by firms. This study's focus on small countries with an important agricultural sector and on agricultural biotechnology attempts to provide an interesting combination by including a highly knowledge-intensive sector, but closely connected to the primary production of agriculture.The analysis is framed by the concept of the 'sectoral system of innovation and production' (Malerba 2002). To examine the impact of institutions on the building of technological capabilities, the study will draw on case studies of three small countries, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Uruguay. First, it will map the main characteristics of the agricultural biotechnology system in the three countries, including its core and boundaries, its constitutive actors and their relationships, and the performance and evolution of the sector in the 1980s and 1990s. This first stage will be drawn on secondary data. The second phase will attempt to establish the causal mechanisms between the institutional environment and the building of technological capabilities. It will rely mainly on in-depth interviews with the actors of the sectoral system, as well as on secondary data about the institutions and their evolution over time. For these purposes, the researcher plans to stay one month in each country. The broader impacts of this research are the followings: (i) it will contribute with suggesting directions for public policy in innovation-related factors, such as funding, training, education, as well as regarding the articulation of the different actors of the system; (ii) it will also be an important guide for the allocation of resources and priority-setting, based on the analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the system; (iii) it will represent a learning tool as it will illustrate the experiences of other small countries; and (iv) finally a better understanding of the process of building technological capabilities will impact the prospects for economic growth of these small countries.