Abstract:

Despite advances in investment, Mexican scientific research and innovation have not performed well for Mexico to be considered one of the world's leading science and technology producing countries. This points to the lack of an adequate assessment of the impacts, in terms of efficiency and performance, which allow to know the contribution of the investment in science and technology in public universities. The generation of knowledge is one of the main activities of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), currently this generation of knowledge can be measured by bibliometric analysis taking as source of information the international index databases such as SCOPUS and WEB OF SIENCE, these contributions of the scientists of the HEIs reflect productivity only in the generation of knowledge, however this information is far from being able to reflect how these investigations directly impact on the technological development that translates into innovations adopted by regional, national or international companies. The binomial generation of knowledge and technological development is difficult to measure, since there are no sources of information that reflect these indicators of technological development clearly. There are sources of information such as industrial protection databases, but this information is not enough, since there is no one that measures how many of these inventions become innovations, generating social and economic welfare. This work presents how the generation of knowledge of HEIs, translates into technological development and innovation, based mainly on an evaluation of the performance in the period 2009-2015 of HEIs that have been linked to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of the state of Sonora that have been supported by the CONACyT (National Council for Science and Technology) Innovation Incentives Program (IIP). When measuring the impact generated in these areas, information will be given to the different actors (companies, HEIs, government) to support decision making in the strategic lines to be developed and strengthened by each one.

The knowledge generation and technological development as a vector of economic development is closely linked to the higher education institutions, the ecosystems of innovation of the regions are underpinned in the Research and Development carried out by HEIs and research centers, in this context the present work develops an Analysis of the knowledge developed by the HEIs of the State of Sonora that is presented in scientific articles and how these articles are translated in turn into technological developments that are adopted by regional companies. It presents a classification according to the sectors and an indicator that measures how these contributions are absorbed by the companies. This paper presents the analysis of the generation of knowledge and technological development by the HEI of the State of Sonora and its impact on SMEs.

Keywords:

Knowledge generation, technological development, innovation.