LOCAL SYSTEMS OF INNOVATION IN MERCOSUR COUNTRIES

This paper discusses two related issues. One refers to the use of the notion of systems of innovation in environments characterized by relatively poor domestic innovation processes and relatively high levels of diversity. The other relates to the analysis of the empirical results of an on-going research (involving a network of researchers in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) investigating how the macroeconomic transformations of the 1990s have affected the evolutionary trajectory of local productive arrangements, especially in what refers to their capacity to generate, absorb and diffuse innovations.