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Brazil Research in State-Owned Corporations
Research in State-Owned Corporations
About 10 percent of the public investments in research and development
in Brazil are made by a small group of state-owned corporations
and holdings in the fields of telecommunications,
oil,
electric
energy, mining,
metallurgy, and aeronautics. Several of these corporations have
created their own research and development centers, the best known
being Petrobrás's Research and Development Center (Centro
de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento--Cenpes), Telebrás's Research
and Development Center (Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento--CPqD),
Eletrobrás's Electric Power Research Center (Centro de Pesquisas
de Energia Elétrica--Cepel), the Technology Center (Centro
de Tecnologia) of the Rio Dôce Valley Company (Companhia Vale
do Rio Dôce--CVRD), and the CTA (Aerospace Technical Center),
associated with the Brazilian Aeronautics Company (Empresa Brasileira
Aeronáutica--Embraer), the state-owned aircraft manufacturer.
At their best, these research centers are linked with the companies'
suppliers and are responsible for establishing standards of quality
and providing technical know-how. They also communicate with other
research and development groups in government and universities in
order to exchange ideas and information and bolster professional
competence. These research centers played important roles in the
1970s and early 1980s. They saved foreign currency that would have
been spent on technical assistance and royalties, improved their
companies' operational capabilities, better utilized Brazil's natural
resources, strengthened the private sector's competence, and provided
resources to universities through research contracts and programs
of technical assistance and training.
The oldest and largest of these centers is Cenpes, which, under
different names, has existed since the creation of Petrobrás
in the mid-1950s. Cenpes's most significant achievement was the
development of state-of-the-art technologies for deep-sea oil drilling,
in association with Coppe at the UFRJ (Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro) and several other Brazilian universities. Cenpes,
which is located on the UFRJ campus, maintains links with research
institutions in the United States, Britain, and other countries
and provides research services for other clients. Nonetheless, the
proportion of resources spent by Petrobrás on research and
development is significantly lower than the international average
for large oil companies. In 1994 Cenpes had 1,656 employees. Its
annual budget has ranged from US$134.2 million in 1987 to US$102.7
million in 1991, which corresponds to a figure of between 0.5 percent
and 0.8 percent of Petrobrás's gross revenues.
Telebrás's research center, the CPqD, has played an important
role in setting the standards for Brazil's telecommunication systems.
Foreign companies in Brazil are requested to adopt these standards,
local companies receive support to train personnel and to develop
technological competence, and the government guarantees the purchase
of products that meet Telebrás's standards. The consequence
has been the creation of several dozens firms linked to the Telebrás
system and protected from competition. The CPqD's budget is around
US$50 million a year, and it has 1,200 employees.
These research centers usually are much better endowed with equipment,
staff, and resources than research groups in universities and academic
institutes. However, because they are shielded from outside review
and from financial constraints, it is uncertain whether their performance
is commensurate with their costs. Because of economic stagnation,
their budgets were reduced in the late 1980s,
and lower salaries led to the loss of their best researchers. In
the new environment, they have been compelled to redefine their
functions in two ways. First, they have had to stay much closer
to the direct operational needs of their institutions and forsake
long-term and technologically more ambitious projects; second, they
have had to look for independent sources of support, whether by
selling their services or by establishing associations with the
private sector and other research and development institutions.
Privatization has led to the shutdown of some of these research
groups, as happened in some steel companies.
Data as of April 1997
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