Table 1 Challenges to be faced by Brazilian and North American STPs

Lack of positioning strategy and vision of future.

Overcoming commercialization challenges - to provide support services to ease the commercialization process.

Heavy reliance on public funds.

Limited experience in real estate and financial areas.

Difficulty of effective engagement of academic leaders.

Bridging cultural barriers between the academic and business communities and facilitating true partnership. Achieve greater integration with the university.

Need to articulate regional and national actions to prevent a ‘bubble’ of isolated initiatives with little chance of success and remarkable results.

Difficulty in tuning the implementation strategy of technology parks with regional and national priorities, as well as with international trends.

Need for significant financial funds to ‘make a difference’ in the global market and, at the same time, clear rules for intensive attraction of private equity

Obtaining funding for operations and buildings - the need for capital becomes even greater as research parks try to implement live-work-play models. Responding to increased competition owing to globalization and the changing nature of corporate R&D - the challenge to attract operations of foreign companies and to retain the R&D operations of US companies.

Lack of a national policy for STPs clearly establishing the role of various players: Federal Government, State Government/Region, Municipal Government/Local, universities, private sector, financial sector.