The Economic Value of Innovation

Since 2012, Fraunhofer IPK and other partners have been supporting the Brazilian National Service for Industrial Training (SENAI) in setting up a national research network. By 2024, 26 SENAI Innovation Institutes were up and running. The question now is: Is this massive investment in innovation that Brazil is conducting with the innovation institutes paying off economically? The answer is yes.

Using the staggered rollout of the SENAI Innovation Institutes (ISI) across the country, Fraunhofer researchers were able to isolate and quantify their economic contribution. The idea behind the approach is on a general level rather intuitive: compare the development of GDP over time in regions in which ISI institutes were founded with the development of GDP in regions without ISI institutes and thereby infer to the economic impact of the ISI institutes. After roughly 10 years of operation, this impact is surprisingly large and positive: The SENAI ISI network is contributes to  0.66% of Brazil’s GDP.

Fraunhofer IPK has published an executive summary of the study as a separate brochure that concisely summarizes the most important findings. Visit the info box to download both the executive summary and the full version of the study.