Scientific activities of transnational companies located in Brazil measured by bibliometric indicators

Considering Basic Science as part of technological innovation process, this paper presents an analysis of scientific production of transnational companies in Brazil by using bibliometric indicators. These data are compared to China and India, important competitors of Brazil in attraction of foreign direct investments. This study was developed for a period of ten years (1996 to 2005) with SCI/ISI data base and under two perspectives of cross-country comparison: (i) general bibliometric indicators under country level (national) and (ii) publication by authors from transnational companies located in each of the three considered countries. The results show that, even with an increasing growth of data in the considered period, Brazilian position is inferior to China and India. This illustrates that foreign companies located in these two countries seems to be more involved in R&D activities than the Brazilian subsidiaries of them.