With 28 resident small, medium and large companies, the Technological Park of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) is preparing to implement, starting this year, five more research units. They will be added to the approximately 34 that already exist, involving six of the institution’s own laboratories and others belonging to private companies.
The executive director, Vicente Ferreira, said that the 20 years of existence of the Park, celebrated this year, register numbers that constitute a good example of public policy. The park cost, in terms of public investment, R$ 30 million. Private companies invested around BRL 1 billion in the construction of their research centers. In the years the companies operated in the park, additional investments of R$ 250 million were made in research projects with the university. “I think these are tremendously expressive numbers when we talk about public investment encouraging private investment”, said Ferreira in an interview with Brazil Agency.
The UFRJ Park’s areas of activity include oil and gas, energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, transformation industries, information and communication, extractive industries, construction, education, health, smart cities, among other areas. The objective is to make the connection between academic knowledge and companies, to encourage innovation in the country. “Innovation and technology are the two flagships”, said Ferreira. Last year alone, R$ 6 million were invested in university/company cooperation, resulting in 113 patent applications. The number of patent applications made to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) reaches 371, from 2017 until today.
Focus
In the case of the UFRJ Park, Vicente Ferreira explained that the focus is on the deep tech (startups and ecosystems that embrace complex technologies or high-impact problem solving) and not ep tech (company responsible for developing software, or computer programs, to solve operationally complex problems). “Our business is not ep. It is a molecule, as I like to say, because, in fact, it has a much deeper impact on the production chain, since these are innovations that certainly contribute to the well-being of the population, with a much greater impact and a longer permanence time. ”. They are much more risky and time-consuming development processes.
The director highlighted that UFRJ has around 1,450 laboratories in the areas of engineering, health science, basic research. He added that, later this year, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a UFRJ partner, should consolidate a technology center within the Park. The idea is for it to be, in fact, a technology factory to make active ingredients, a scale up for production on an industrial scale, with special attention to the so-called neglected diseases, caused by infectious agents or parasites and considered endemic in low-income populations. Neglected diseases include leprosy, dengue, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, human rabies transmitted by dogs, scabies (scabies), Chagas disease, intestinal parasites and trachoma.
The Park hopes to begin the implementation of three more research units later this year. One of them will be sponsored by Petrogal, a company in the Portuguese oil sector, focused on decarbonization. The agreement has already been signed and work is expected to begin in the second half of the year. Another laboratory is sponsored by Shell and will operate in the area of biosynthetics. “The laboratory will be, in a way, shared with the UFRJ Innovation Ecosystem. It is something that we wanted to have in Rio de Janeiro for a long time”.
fertilizers
The start of implementation of the Center of Excellence in Fertilizers is also expected in 2023. “It’s a very old dream, especially for colleagues at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa)”. Vicente Ferreira pointed out that the National Fertilizer Plan foresees, among other things, the creation of a network of centers of excellence in fertilizers and also a main center of excellence such as hub (hub) of that network and that functions as a factory of startups (start-up companies) focused on agribusiness technology.
Brazil imports most of the fertilizers used in agriculture. The director believes that the centers of excellence for fertilizers will have a huge impact on the agribusiness production chain. The project involves the federal and state governments and the private sector. “The idea is to have technological development projects generated by the different centers and that come to the Park’s center of excellence already with demand from the private sector to be developed here”.
A fifth unit, proposed by the Faculty of Administration and Accounting Sciences, is an incubator for companies with a social and environmental impact, which should be implemented on the Park’s premises by the start of classes for the second semester. UFRJ already has two incubators. One belongs to the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering (Coppe/UFRJ), for technology-based companies; another is the Incubator of Technological Enterprises (Crios), from UFRJ Macaé.
Program
The opening ceremony of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the UFRJ Technological Park will take place today (4). All 20 Years Park activities will take place at Inovateca, a physical and virtual space to share content, connections and experimentation located within the Park, in Cidade Universitária. Shaped like a Magic Cube, Inovateca has a constructed area of 2,730 square meters and environments designed to stimulate creativity, the exchange of knowledge and innovation. All activities will also be broadcast live via YouTube.
The program will run throughout the year. It aims to promote the debate on innovation and technology with society and will have lectures, meetings and workshops on topics such as engineering, biotechnology, sustainability, industry 4.0, smart cities, mobility, automotive production, oil and gas, green energy, civil construction, games , sports, biotechnology in health, medical-hospital technology, society 5.0 and science in the country. There will also be an exhibition of UFRJ technologies and an art exhibition. The full program can be accessed in this link.
