Mapping out Technological Capabilities in Research Institutions as Tool for Prospecting R&D Outsourcing Opportunities: A Methodology Developed for the R&D Centre of a Major Car Assembler

The paper discusses the results of a project aimed at developing and testing a methodology for the identification, qualification and classification of capabilities of Brazilian research groups in technologies applicable to the automotive industry. The project was commissioned by Renault´s Technocenter in Paris. The paper presents the context of the project, that is, the increasing de-centralization of R&D by multinational corporations, also in the form of R&D outsourcing to foreign research institutions (UNCTAD 2004). In the case of the automotive industry, it is argued that Brazilian research institutions are becoming an important basis for outsourcing. The paper describes the major steps of the methodology, discussing some of the critical difficulties: 1) definition of scope, strategy and concepts of the mapping out methodology; 2) identification of the potentially relevant research groups; 3) methods for approaching informers and collecting data; and 4) data treatment: organization of databank. The result of this project is a database with quantitative and qualitative information on technological competencies applicable to the automotive industry in the technological areas of Materials, Power-trains, Fuels, Manufacturing Technologies, Embedded Electronics and Ergonomics. The databank comprises approximately 200 research groups in various science and engineering disciplines