Renowned academics, scientists, intellectuals, and personalities based in this capital joined the initiative of their colleagues from other provinces to evaluate the significance of the future Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) Law.
All members of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country (SEAP) expressed numerous opinions in a workshop on progress in the development of the aforementioned law, led by Jorge Núñez Jover, who directs the Economics and Sciences Section and the Science, Technology, Society, and Innovation Chair at the University of Havana, and is also an advisor to the president of the National Innovation Council.
The institution provided extensive information on the debate, and in a lively introduction, Agustín Lage Dávila, advisor to the BioCubaFarma Group, presented his views on the key points to consider in the development of this important legislation.
Lage Dávila opined that the main challenge today, not only for Socialism, but for the very existence of the Cuban nation, lies in the economy: “What we do in drafting this Law directly depends on how much it contributes to achieving the victory the people expect in the economic battle.”
He considered that to win in such a strategic field, it is essential to resume economic growth and foreign currency acquisition, integrate it into the global economy, grow with high-value-added products and services, and do so with quality without expanding social inequalities and reducing those formed in recent years.
Such objectives, he continued, depend on Science, Technology, and Innovation, even if we were able to recover energy generation and transportation, with advantageous agreements with friendly countries, and increase food production based on territorial self-sufficiency.
According to the speaker himself, economic growth must be export-oriented, high- and medium-tech, connected to global value and distribution chains. He added that for these reasons, the law must be innovative, capable of leading to a positive discontinuity, because if it were “more of the same”—that is, limited to an improvement of what we have done up to now, even if it is an improvement—it would not be up to what the country needs right now.
We must understand that technological innovation does not generate economic growth unless it is accompanied by managerial innovation, which must be commensurate with the complexity of the problems we face today, he indicated.
Lage Dávila estimated that it must be binding; that is, it must establish the specific responsibilities of each actor, within and outside of what is usually called the Science, Technology, and Innovation System (SCTI), and it is not the responsibility of this system or its agency (CITMA), but of all Cuban society to accelerate economic growth through Science, Technology, and Innovation. Furthermore, it must prioritize the promotion function and entrepreneurship over the control function, in order to increase the impact of STI on the economy, not to better control it, but to give state-owned enterprises a leading role as actors in this effort, as established by the Constitution of the Republic.
Other aspects of this are related to the foundations and legal framework for a diversified STI financing system, in both national and foreign currency, establishing the roles of high-tech companies and those in incubation, technology-based MSMEs, Technology Parks, Interface entities, Science, Technology, and Innovation entities, and “Special Purpose Vehicles.”
Likewise, it must lay the groundwork for differentiated treatment for entities and companies that demonstrate greater dynamism and are closer to achieving the goals of exporting advanced technology goods and services, include accountability processes for their results to the Government and the National Assembly of People’s Power, and establish measurable objectives. Another panelist, Rolando Pérez Rodríguez, Vice President of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and Scientific Advisor to the BioCubaFarma Group, also outlined his views on the STI Law from the perspective of the high-tech business sector, according to which, “it should promote and legally support the transition to a knowledge-based economy in Cuba.”
He emphasized that the effective and efficient transformation of knowledge into value requires both technological and organizational innovation, encompassing finance, marketing, production organization, and human resources, among others.
He recalled that in Cuba, since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, a major investment in education and science has begun. Over the years, dozens of higher education centers and research institutes have been created, along with the national science and technology system. At the beginning of the 21st century, a supply-based model of the system predominated.
However, he warned, many of these results lacked an analysis of economic and financial feasibility; that is, an analysis of the market in Cuba and abroad, industrial scalability, investment capacity, among others.
For Pérez Rodríguez, the solution to this phenomenon of disconnection between the academic and business sectors requires a transition from a supply-based model to a demand-driven science and technology system. In practice, this process has been occurring in our country for more than a decade. Finally, he emphasized that the technological development strategy at any level must first define the main transformations in the production of goods and services and public management, identify technological gaps and opportunities for the assimilation of new technologies, and apply appropriate incentives to each of the actors in the scientific, technological, productive, social, commercial, and financial spheres.
And create advisory bodies and technological surveillance and intelligence systems, and consolidate a network of service providers in the value chain to ensure the sustainability of the process of creating and assimilation of new technologies.
The State will promote the development of the knowledge economy through investment, financial incentives, and a flexible legal and regulatory framework that fosters the growth of high-tech sectors such as the healthcare industry, the biopharmaceutical industry, agricultural biotechnology, nanotechnologies, neurotechnologies, information and communications technologies (ICT), and artificial intelligence, among others. High-tech sectors contribute to the increase in high and medium value-added exports, GDP growth, integration into global value chains in strategic markets, the growth of intellectual property, and the commercialization of intangible assets.
Source: www.acn.cu
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