This study is part of a worldwide debate on inclusive innovation systems in developing
countries and particularly on the co-evolutionary processes taking place, seen from the
perspective of a public university. The increasing literature that discusses how innovation
systems and development can foster more inclusive and sustainable societies has
inspired this thesis work. Thus, the main problem handled in the research concerns the
question how socially sensitive research practices and policies at a public university in
Bolivia can be stimulated within emerging innovation system dynamics. In that vein,
empirical knowledge is developed at the Universidad Mayor de San SimoÅLn (UMSS),
Cochabamba as a contribution to experience-based learning in the field. Analysis are
nourished by a dialogue with the work of prominent Latin American scholars and
practitioners around the idea of a developmental university and the democratization
of knowledge. The reader will be able to recognize a recursive transit between theory
and practice, where a number of relevant concepts are contextualized and connected
in order to enable keys of critical interpretation and paths of practices amplification
for social inclusion purposes established. The study shows how, based on a previous
experience, new competences and capacities for the Technology Transfer Unit (UTT)
at UMSS were produced, in this case transforming itself into a University Innovation
Centre. Main lessons gained in that experience came from two pilot cluster development
(food and leather sectors) and a multidisciplinary researchers network (UMSS
Innovation Team) where insights found can improve future collaborative relations between
university and society for inclusive innovation processes within the Bolivian
context.