Provincial Technological Innovation Awards (2006-2010) in Guantanamo, Cuba

Abstract

Each territory must create knowledge production, dissemination and application capacities to foster economic, social, political and cultural development, thus favoring the link between innovation and local development. The outcome of such endeavor must be materialized in the form of technological innovation awards, which are presented in the province every year. In accordance with those aspirations, case studies were made in order to characterize the impact of the provincial awards in Guantanamo, Cuba, between 2006 and 2010, and their presumable  relationship with  local development strategies.   In   that   direction,   several   scientific   methods   and   techniques   were implemented, such as the historical and logical method, and induction-deduction. Additionally, surveys and interviews were applied to executives of related organizations and provincial and national outstanding innovators. Information was processed with descriptive and inferential statistics (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 20.0). No previous evidence was found of this type of studies in Cuba. Research relied mainly on Latin-American theoretical and conceptual referents of innovation systems. The results achieved offered a broad perspective of innovation in the province, particularly in the  materialization  of  the  awarded  results. It  also  made  possible  the  evaluation  of science and technological innovation in the province.