Vinculación y transferencia tecnológica en pequeñas empresas. El caso de la levadura salvaje patagónica en la producción de cerveza artesanal.

Abstract

The activities of Vinculation and Technological Transfer (VyTT) that the universities and the organisms of Science and Technology (CyT) carry out with the productive sector appear as an area of increasing relevance in view of an economy of knowledge. The present research work proposes to analyze these activities as a two-way process, identifying the economic, cognitive and systemic benefits that can be obtained, as well as the obstacles that arise in these processes. In this way, the analysis aims to overcome the visions that conceive these activities in a unidirectional way, that is, as a contribution of knowledge from its generators towards the users or adopters. Using the case study method, the long VyTT process carried out between a research group and the Association of Craft Breweries of Bariloche and the Andean Zone (ACAB), in Río Negro province, Argentina, is analyzed. This process involved both the transfer of knowledge, through services, training and advice, and the licensing of technology developed for commercial use. After describing the origin of the link, the technological implications and the joint activities carried out, the socio-technical network is described, which allows, subsequently, to identify economic, infrastructure and objective obstacles and others of both institutional and cultural nature. The results indicate that this linkage between the academic and productive sectors has led to a virtuous feedback in which the three types of benefits detailed above have been identified for both parties.