23 de Setembro de 2025 às 13:35

According to a study, Senai Institutes add R$985 to GDP per capita and contribute 0.6% of GDP

Researchers from Lund University and two Fraunhofer institutes (IPK and ISI) geographically demonstrated a causal effect of the economic impact of Senai's innovation network from 2012 to 2019

A study by Sweden's Lund University showed that Senai Institutes of Innovation (Senai ISI) added R$985 to GDP per capita (i.e., per person) and contributed on average with 0.66% of Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The research (read more here) was carried out in partnership with two Fraunhofer institutes (IPK and ISI), Europe's largest applied research organization. It showed that the 26 innovation institutes were responsible for an addition to GDP per capita from 2012 to 2019 — the average GDP per capita during the analyzed period was R$52,000.

“Our results confirm that public research organizations can have profound impacts on the economy,” write authors Torben Schubert, Denilton Darold, and Markus Will. "Focusing on productivity, we estimate that the average treatment effect in the treated regions (ATT), in terms of GDP per capita, is at least 985 reais."

According to them, the effect proved to be robust in the face of "several specification alternatives" and economically significant, "given that it implies that about 0.66% of Brazil's total GDP can be attributed to Senai ISI institutes".

Senai has existed for 80 years. However, the service's innovation network was established in 2012, according to the entity, at the initiative of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), in response to the need for a national network capable of transforming scientific research into innovation and enhancing productivity for the industrial sector.

"The study points out that Senai managed to create a relevant and operational structure for the industry to innovate. The network was created based on a real demand from our industry. Senai not only met the demand but also became a strategic partner of the companies, and this is the role of the Industry System", highlights the president of CNI, Ricardo Alban.

How the study was done

To achieve a 0.66% contribution to GDP, the researchers compared the GDP growth of regions with institutes or in the immediate areas of their client companies with similar regions without any involvement of the institutes, a methodological approach known as the difference-in-differences (DiD) method.

The technique has gained traction in economic research because it offers a relatively simple and transparent way of establishing causality in authentic contexts, occasions when controlled experiments are seldom feasible.

This allowed for the exploration of the gradual deployment of ISIs across the country, comparing treated and untreated regions over time. This strategy, unusual in science and innovation studies, allowed the isolation of the effect of ISIs on regional GDP and overcoming the difficulty of distinguishing correlation from causality.

With the considerable impact of the pandemic on GDP and private R&D investments, the researchers delimited the analysis period from 2012 to 2019, the year in which 26 of the 28 institutes were already in operation.

The researchers used two primary sources of data:

• Regional macroeconomic statistics: including GDP per microregion and population data, from IBGE;

• Senai administrative data: data of the institutes, projects, categories, and location of the clients.

"Senai institutes are an exemplary case for measuring the economic effects of scientific research due to their unique configuration, which minimizes pre-existing regional differences, ensuring reliable results. In addition, the institutes' focus on applied research and collaboration with industry directly links economic effects with scientific advances”, the researchers say.

What are the Senai Institutes?

The network of Senai Innovation Institutes began in 2012 and has since reached 27 units in operation — one in the Federal District is under construction.

According to the entity, by the middle of this year, the network had developed approximately 3,350 research, development, and innovation (RD&I) projects, with a total value of R$3.15 billion. More than half of these projects were carried out by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In these environments, the idea is that institutes develop projects based on specific industry demands.

Among the solutions already delivered, says Senai in a note, are an autonomous underwater vehicle for 3D visual inspections in deep waters to produce oil and gas, algae biofuel from hydroelectric plants, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production processes, as well as participation in the development of the first nanosatellite of the national industry.

"The network created an unprecedented structure of applied research for the industry, which is fundamental for the development of innovation and for it to reach the market. Until then, few non-university institutions did research and development for the productive sector. What the study shows us is that investment in innovation has evident returns not only for companies, but for the economy as a whole", says Senai's general director, Gustavo Leal.

According to Leal, the location of the institutes followed two criteria: pre-existing technical capacities and geographical decentralization.

Initially, the criterion was the technical capacity of Senai units: high-performance units, with previous experience with technological services, willing to implement R&D, where the skills developed in professional education converged with priority technologies.

In a second moment, the regional development criterion was established, contemplating states such as Amazonas, Pará, and Mato Grosso do Sul.

Multiplier effect

In their article, the foreign researchers also consider the multiplier effect of investing in innovation identified in the study to be very high.

CNI reports that the network was allocated R$1.1 billion in investments from the Industry System, with a portion of these funds provided through a loan from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).

"At the same time, it is known that the returns from activities related to innovation and knowledge are very high," they write, citing the economic literature, which shows high multipliers, from 10 to 30, for the return on investments in innovation.

The researchers note that these effects can be further amplified in an emerging economy like Brazil.

"It is not unreasonable to assume that Senai ISI institutes have closed a systemic gap in the Brazilian innovation system, which explains the considerable returns", they say. “Of course, once ISI activities expand sufficiently, diminishing returns may come into play. However, at least if spending remains at its current limited level, our results suggest that additional investments seem economically justified.”