Developing Inclusive Innovation Processes and Co-Evolutionary University-Society Approaches in Bolivia

Sammanfattning: This study is part of a worldwide debate on inclusive innovation systems in developingcountries and particularly on the co-evolutionary processes taking place, seen from theperspective of a public university. The increasing literature that discusses how innovationsystems and development can foster more inclusive and sustainable societies hasinspired this thesis work. Thus, the main problem handled in the research concerns thequestion how socially sensitive research practices and policies at a public university inBolivia can be stimulated within emerging innovation system dynamics. In that vein,empirical knowledge is developed at the Universidad Mayor de San SimoÅLn (UMSS),Cochabamba as a contribution to experience-based learning in the field. Analysis arenourished by a dialogue with the work of prominent Latin American scholars andpractitioners around the idea of a developmental university and the democratizationof knowledge. The reader will be able to recognize a recursive transit between theoryand practice, where a number of relevant concepts are contextualized and connectedin order to enable keys of critical interpretation and paths of practices amplificationfor social inclusion purposes established. The study shows how, based on a previousexperience, new competences and capacities for the Technology Transfer Unit (UTT)at UMSS were produced, in this case transforming itself into a University InnovationCentre. Main lessons gained in that experience came from two pilot cluster development(food and leather sectors) and a multidisciplinary researchers network (UMSSInnovation Team) where insights found can improve future collaborative relations betweenuniversity and society for inclusive innovation processes within the Boliviancontext.