Strategic position of federal innovation incentives in Mexico

Abstract

The main purpose of industrial policy is to align resources and efforts at the government level to favor strategic sectors that allow a country to increase its competitive advantage. The implementation of industrial policy is not an easy assignment, since it r equires evaluation systems that measure the level of implementation and alignment of resources with the objectives of the policy. In the last couple of decades, Mexico has improved its efforts to increase investment in research and development activities. However, it has not been possible to build a system for such activities at the national level. In turn, federal public funds have been designed to encourage the industry to carry out activities in strategic industrial sectors. The objective of this study i s to analyze and evaluate the industrial policy in Mexico and to determine if there is alignment between public funds and national priority activities by examining one source of federal funding. The results show that there is an implicit industrial policy determined by each federal entity, as well as a partial alignment of the projects approved for funding with the national priorities. This study concludes with the necessity to implement systems and tools to evaluate the generated impact of the projects app roved for funding beyond the year in which the stimuli are identified. In addition, it is recommended an independent policy - making system that fosters transparency in innovation public funds grant processes.