Research and development expenditure in the business sector as indicator of knowledge economy: the Portuguese experience

The objective of the paper is to help to understand recent changes in the structure of R&D activities, by analyzing data on the expenditure of the business sector in research and development (R&D). The results are framed in an international context, through comparison with indicators from the most developed countries, divided by technological intensity and economic activity. The study reveals that the indicators of Portuguese R&D expenditure in the business sector are closely linked both to fiscal policy and to high foreign direct investment in knowledge-intensive industries. It also links these indicators to phenomena such as the abundance of skilled labor in pharmaceutical industries and the government intervention in some sectors of the economy (namely health and rail transportation)

Portugal

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020publishersversionpublishe

Results on fieldwork about digital labour in Portugal: outcomes of the project Deep View

This report contains a summary of the fieldwork from Portugal. The work consisted in 6 preliminary interviews to experts and virtual workers and 19 semi-structured interviews of up to 60 minutes with social partners. These interviews were conducted in the period of June 2018 to June 2019. The report is structured around three main headings that reflect the different fieldwork activities: peak-level social partners interviews, sectoral social partners interviews and mini-case studies. The latter two were subdivided into the tree sectors under analysis: ICT, financial and healthcare.publishersversionpublishe

Technology assessment in Non-PTA countries: an overview of recent developments in Europe

Paper based on the text to be published in Moniz, A.B. and Okuwada, K. (2016), Technology Assessment in Japan and Europe, Karlsruhe, KIT Scientific PublishingThis work aims to describe the latest developments in European countries or regions that lack a structure to develop Parliamentary Technology Assessment activities (named non-PTA). They are countries or regions where parliamentary-oriented technology assessment activities have not yet resulted in a formal structure, but where these activities can be detected to some extent. We will concentrate on activities in Portugal, Wallonia, and other Central and Eastern countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Catalonia is mentioned as a specific case where a formal PTA structure exists but the way it is organized and financed is similar to the national and regional experiences at the non-PTA countries. We can conclude that TA institutionalization in non-PTA countries appears to be dependent on the level of public production of knowledge. In fact, the presence or absence of Science & Technology (S&T) issues on the public agenda of these countries and regions affects the need for parliamentary policy advice: in their presence, S&T agenda pushes the need for TA advice by parliamentarians; in their absence, the promotion of innovation tries to keep up with globalization pressures and to generate economic growth, without significant demands for TA advice.KIT-ITAS, Japan Science and Technology Agenc

outcomes of the Deep View Project

UID/SOC/04647/2013Despite early legislation supporting telework contracts in 2003, virtual work is still not expressive in the labour market. The current labour minister stated that the government encourages the topic to be discussed through social dialogue and collective bargaining. Virtual work received little consideration from the social partners in social dialogue. Collective agreements considering virtual work were also meagre and mostly repeated parts of the labour law emphasizing the improvements of working conditions. We detected collective bargaining outputs in the computer programming activities and two company agreements in the health care sector but did not find any convention mentioning telework in the finance sector.publishersversionpublishe

a literature review

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020Despite having been one of the first countries in Europe to introduce provisions in the labour law to promote virtual work and having made strong investments in ICT infrastructure, the adoption of virtual work in Portugal lags significantly behind most European countries. This paper examines the literature, official documents and databases to understand this lag. We found that, notwithstanding the difficulty to measure virtual work, it is possible to say that there were 1.8% of workers in 2005 involved in virtual work. In 2010, less than 3% were involved in virtual work, and in 2015 it grew to 8.2%. The paper identifies two main factors hindering the growth of virtual work: the legal framework and the organisational aspects of work.publishersversionpublishe