Abstract for: University-Industry partnerships with a focus on BRIC countries: A systems perspective on the good, the bad and the ugly

National Innovation System (NIS) is the term used by scholars and policy makers to describe the emerging scientific and technological structures and processes of a nation that influence economic and social development through industry- university partnerships. The last decade has seen a growing research interest in the innovation systems of different economies in order to better understand the factors that determine their economic and social development. This paper addresses the complex industry-university relationship using as theoretical framework the NIS concepts and as an analytical method, System Dynamics (SD) which is specifically designed to evaluate complex systems. Later, some international comparisons between Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) are introduced in terms of industry-university partnerships.