Abstract

NERI GUZMAN, Juan Carlos. Technological infrastructure in public universities as a basis for linking with the automotive industry: The case of the San Luis Potosi metropolitan area. Rev. econ. [online]. 2022, vol.39, n.98, pp.42-68.  Epub May 16, 2022. ISSN 2395-8715.  https://doi.org/10.33937/reveco.2022.249.

This study analyzes the relationship between the technological facilities installed in public institutions of higher education and those existing in companies belonging to the automotive industry located in the metropolitan area of San Luis Potosi, as a reference point to promote linkages as well as activities of scientific research, training, and technology transfer. In this study, an instrument was designed to register the 148 technologies (hardware and software) characteristic in the automotive industry, which were grouped into 11 types and three levels of technological maturity (Chui et al., 2017) to evaluate five higher education institutions and 28 companies in the the sector. The results show that the main difference is in the weight that high-optimal technologies (robotics and manufacturing cells) have in companies with respect to universities (29.7% vs 9.4%, respectively). Likewise, it was found that there i an interest on behalf of companies to carry out research and training activities with universities (18% and 28.6%, respectively). This study contributes to research on local technological capabilities, since there are no analyses at this level of detail and they are necessary to guide the country's technological policy and to redefine the role of higher education institutions to help improve the region's competitiveness. The study concludes that public universities have an insufficient technological infrastructure, particularly the one identified as high-optimal, which can represent a limit for an efficient linkage with enterprises.

Keywords : technological capabilities; automotive industry; universities-industry collaboration; technology maturity; metropolitan área of San Luis Potosi.