Public Procurement of Innovation in Latin America A Comparative Analysis of the most Innovative Countries

The present research aims to investigate the procedures of public procurement of innovation adopted by five countries ranked as the most innovative in Latin America, being: Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and Uruguay. The methodology adopted was a comparative analysis of the innovation procurement procedures used by the selected countries in accordance with the guidelines established in the European Guide on Public Procurement for Innovation 2021. To this end, the technique of structured analysis of government portals from a set of key words in Spanish and Portuguese was used for data collection. As a result, it was possible to structure a representative picture of the Comparative Panorama of Policies for Public Procurement of Innovation in Latin America. In this way, it was observed that Costa Rica, Brazil and Uruguay present a well-defined legal framework concerning public procurement of innovation, while Chile and Mexico contain few directives and guidelines that facilitate specific procurement procedures as promoters of innovation. In general, the selected countries use the traditional procedures for procurement of innovation suggested by the European Guide presenting some differences in their application. Finally, it points to a research agenda on the application of innovation policies with interdisciplinary approaches in interpreting the innovation systems of each Latin American nation, case studies on the application of these mechanisms and also research on new international standards for procurement of innovation procedures for Latin America.