/EINPresswire.com/ -- SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/27/15 -- The Costa Rican Coalition for Development Initiatives (CINDE) held a forum on Research and Development, with the purpose of analyzing the potentialities of Costa Rica to grow investments related to this industry, as well as the challenges to assume in order to position as a globally preferred destination for such investments.

The event counted with the participation of the Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora; Marcelo Jenkins, Minister of Science, Technology and Telecommunications, the President of CINDE, José Rossi; the Director General of CINDE, Jorge Sequeira; as well as representatives of public and private universities of the country, corporate executives who currently apply research and development locally, and the special participation of several international scholars of the Georgia Institute of Technology, specialized in the topic.

The exhibitors indicated that one of the main conclusions of the dialog which included forums, panels and presentations, is that Costa Rica has a clear potential and experiences of initial projects for multinational companies to become and position itself as a competitive destination for activities related to research and development. This is due mainly to the sophistication achieved by Costa Rican human resource, which in turn, they concluded must be strengthened and developed further in new academic areas that are global trend.

Initial Hotbed

Some multinational companies like Intel, which announced this week its new department named: Client Computing Group, which will be part of the Research and Development Center; Boston Scientific, Sylvania, VITEC Avionyx, HPE, Hologic, among others, already carry out activities related to research and development as part of their operations in the country, obtaining very good results; however, the panelists invited to the Forum felt that there is a lot more room to grow.

The Minister of Foreign Trade, Alexander Mora, highlighted the great opportunity to enhance national development from knowledge-based activities.

"Costa Rica is widely recognized for the capabilities of its human talent. Today we have a great opportunity to continue growing in new areas of the industry, such as research and development, of high-value and sophistication. From foreign trade's portfolio we are committed to fostering well-articulated work with other government entities, and the academy, supported by the industry, allowing to make public policy a more concerned to promote the intellectual growth of Costa Ricans and afford to be an economy rooted heavily in pillars of innovation, with obvious benefits and conditions to raise the levels of prosperity in our nation," said Mora.

Jorge Sequeira, Director General of CINDE, explained, "Costa Rica has taken the first steps in the topic of research and development, but, we still have challenges and opportunities we must deal with to make the leap and turn Costa Rica into an economy more geared to innovation and with greater opportunities to bring the expertise of our talented human resource to a new level. Thanks to the experts who participated during the activity we were able to learn about which have been the experiences in other countries and the paths they have taken to develop this topic."

John Rogers, Professor and Director of the Research Value Allocation Program in the School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, said during the event: the secret of innovation is the human resource, and therefore everything that facilitates its training, collaboration and knowledge exchange, is key to developing a growing industry at a global level.

CINDE organized this first forum on research and development for the first time in the country bringing together around 70 representatives of universities, businesses, and Government.

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