Flexible R&D Promotion Instruments as a Way to Develop the Space Industry in Brazil

Abstract

The space sector is technology-intensive with high-cost, risky and long-term projects. Encouraging technological development in the sector therefore requires specific policies capable of overcoming the sector’s characteristics. Due to budgetary issues or rules that imposed greater accountability on the public manager in case of failure of technological development projects, the Brazilian space sector could not use the existing instruments for financing R&D. However, with the change in the National Innovation Law and the introduction of the technological ordering instrument (ETEC), this type of instrument began to be used by the Brazilian Space Agency in the contracting of technological projects. ETEC is a milestone, as it allows the public sector to accept that the development project may not be successful, without the public manager being held responsible for the failure. And the release of budgetary resources from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development allowed the adoption of subsidy notices to encourage innovation directly by private companies, a drastic historical change, since space investments were carried out through the use of public research institutes. The use of new instruments opens up new possibilities for direct incentives for the Brazilian space industry.