04913nam a2200265 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001910000190006024501460007926001840022530000190040950000180042852039630044665000260440965000200443565000300445565000160448565000150450165000230451665300210453965300170456065300190457765300320459670000190462819264262020-01-23       2012    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d1 aBAMBINI, M. D.  aCoordination strategies at RD&I networksbInnovation Sociology concepts applied to the case-study of Agritempo system.h[electronic resource]  aIn: JORNADAS LATINOAMERICANAS DE ESTUDIOS DE LA CIENCIA Y LA TECNOLOGÍA, 9., 2012, Ciudad de México. Balance del campo ESOCITE en América Latina y Desafíos. [S.l.: s.n.]c2012  aNão paginado.  aESOCITE 2012.  aThis article describes the coordination strategies undertaken in the context of Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) networks. The conceptual approach selected for the study was Innovation Sociology and its associated concepts (Callon, Laredo and Rabeharisoa, 1992; Callon, Laredo and Mustar, 1995). A key concept employed in Innovation Sociology is the Techno-Economic Network - TEN, defined as a coordinated ensemble, grouping several categories of actors such as public laboratories, technical research centers, companies, funding organisms, end users, and government departments, in order to generate innovations. This concept highlights the need for flexible and adaptive forms of coordination of heterogeneous actors so that they could collectively generate and diffuse technological innovations. Coordination strategies are represented by governance forms involving management strategies, contractual models, knowledge sharing practices and communication flows. The methodology employed to understand the phenomena of innovation generation is the Case Study (Yin, 2010). The case under analysis focuses a specific RD&I network, formed mainly to build the Agrometeorological Monitoring System - Agritempo (Agritempo, 2012). Agritempo was the first system in Brazil to offer free access to a broad range of agrometeorological products comprising all of its States. Its target audience is represented by individuals and institutions that need to obtain data and information about the weather conditions to support decisions regarding farm management and also agricultural policy making. This system was published on the Internet in 2003 and consists of an important technological innovation as it is a virtual product with improved performance characteristics. It also established a significant innovation regarding the processes related to convey, receive and store meteorological data as well as their conversion into agrometeorological information, sometimes customized to attend different agricultural audiences such as farmers, research institutes, and Government Departments. The research conducted has a qualitative nature. Data were collected through document research and interviews with actors, aiming to give them voice in order to understand the dynamics of the Techno-Economic Network and identify the different coordination strategies employed. An important actor that participates of this network is the Brazilian Agricultural Research Public Corporation - Embrapa. The corporation has about 9.250 employees, a complex organizational structure and an institutional strategy that encourages the creation of RD&I networks (Embrapa, 2011). Several research centers of Embrapa and some external partners (a total of 40 institutions) worked collaboratively to generate Agritempo system and to strengthen its meteorological data base. The continental proportions of the Brazilian territory - 8,5 million km2 - explains the difficulty of having meteorological data coverage regarding the entire country. The partnerships established to share meteorological data and strengthen Agritempo's database were essential in order to generate agrometeorological products for all the Brazilian regions. This study revealed a convergent arrangement with a highly developed scientific pole that strongly interacts with the network's technological and market poles. Several coordination instruments were employed such as trust based relationships; institutional and individual leadership actions; legal instruments (contracts); and the institutional context of Embrapa that provided several management practices that were followed by most of the actors of the network. The durability of this arrangement - from 2002 to 2011 - can be explained by the effectiveness of the coordination strategies established and by the content of the heterogeneous relationships, interactions and intermediaries: competences, skills, information and financial resources.  aAgricultural research  aAgrometeorology  aCommunications technology  aInformation  aInovação  aPesquisa Agrícola  aAgrometeorologia  aInformação  aNew technology  aTecnologia da comunicação1 aFURTADO, A. T.