Luis Diego Soto Kiewit and Bianca Vienni Baptista
This paper aims to analyse innovation models and interdisciplinarity in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Costa Rica between 2015 and 2021. The core focus is to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse innovation models and interdisciplinarity in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Costa Rica between 2015 and 2021. The core focus is to evaluate the public policy in light of the groundwork that sustains the designed and proposed actions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied a qualitative approach to build a set of dimensions and conducted content-analysis of selected documents. The analysis encompasses all current STI public policy documents in Costa Rica, including the planning instruments of the Central Government and the National Policy on STI.
Findings
The main findings show that STI policy in Costa Rica is based on different innovation models, but the projects and instruments themselves show the predominance of the reductionist model. Innovation receives a residual role. In turn, interdisciplinarity is based on the concept of convergence, which limits disciplinary collaboration to the natural, physical and engineering sciences, minimising contributions from other fields of knowledge to an instrumental role in innovation processes.
Practical implications
The authors conclude that the interlinkage between open innovation models, the participation of diverse societal actors and the inclusion of an interdisciplinary perspective leads to inclusive and more democratic public policy, allowing more sectors and organisations to benefit from innovation processes. This would imply a greater reach and impact of the policy, conditions that translate into innovation achievements and a better return on public investment.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to current discussions on STI policy by studying the implications of the link among policies, innovation models and interdisciplinarity.
Details
Keywords
This paper presents the preliminary results of a research which relates two main strands: first, the socialization of scientific knowledge and second, the archaeological heritage…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents the preliminary results of a research which relates two main strands: first, the socialization of scientific knowledge and second, the archaeological heritage. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the socialization process by integrating an “inter-approach” strategy in order to cope with the research problem. It also evaluates the potential of an interdisciplinary approach following the hypothesis that it strengthens the democratization process of scientific knowledge production.
Design/methodology/approach
The combination, integration and convergence of different bodies of knowledge seek to collaborate in the construction of an enriching process looking for a stronger relationship between science and society. This is applied to a particular case study: the archaeological heritage of Uruguay. This study relates the concept of socialization of scientific knowledge to the strand of archaeological heritage through the construction of a common structure.
Findings
In this sense, the authors study the socialization process of scientific knowledge in a way that helps illustrate its current features in Uruguay. It also permits us to consider socialization as a more committed process of identity construction in Uruguayan society.
Originality/value
Socialization processes help to build the identity of a society in the interaction with science; socialization of Uruguayan archaeological heritage allows the creation of a shared memory embedded into the historical processes of the country. However, it requires an integrated and multivocal perspective to cope with its inherent complexity. In this sense, this research fills a void.