PREFACE

v.9 n. 1 Set.2022/Fev.2023

 

 

This P2P&Inovação Journal issueĺ is being published at a time of great expectations in Brazilian society, due to the general elections that include the choice of the President of the Republic. After two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, with over 600,000 dead, Brazil is immersed in a deep social and economic crisis, with unemployment and hunger. There is a lot of pain and suffering spread in a sum of tragedies.

Our magazine proposes to hold discussions around democracy and well-being, collaborative production, innovation, solidarity economy, environmental sustainability. Information Sciences are in a transdisciplinary territory, mainly between the social and human sciences, where their own issues emerge, such as information management, knowledge organization and scientific communication.

In this presentation, we would like to highlight the centers of gravity of most of the articles published here: the solidarity economy, innovation and environmental sustainability. This issue opens with an article on the challenges of rural female entrepreneurship, with a case study on the association of colonies. Then, an exploratory study of management in solidarity economy enterprises is presented. Finally, cooperativism is discussed as a way of strengthening the small farmer in urban centers and on their outskirts.

The second cluster of articles is built on innovation, especially scientific and technological innovation. The first article in this group addresses innovation in the context of federal public universities, which are an important part and protagonist in the research and development network in Brazil. The second article deals with the role of communication in innovation. It is more a discussion on the interaction through language between researchers as facilitators and inducers for innovation.

The third group of articles addresses sustainability issues, particularly environmental sustainability. This group opens with the proposition of assessing the sustainability of organizations. It follows with a discussion about the waters of the Amazon region, discussing the use grants. The issues of sustainability of life and work in the Amazon are of global interest, and strongly interfere with Brazil's position in the world.

The journal concludes with two articles on information systems. One of the articles addresses decision support systems, linking their use to the improvement of an organization in the electricity sector. The other article discusses the relevant and emerging issue of information security management. Cyber defense policies and strategies for data and information protection in the Brazilian public administration are presented and discussed.

The day after the election of the next president, the discussion begins on possible conditions of action for the rational reconstruction of life in society. The Covid-19 pandemic has left us deep wounds. The international economic crisis only made life difficult for Brazilians. National mismanagement has facilitated the dismantling of industry, the unemployment of tens of millions of people, the return of monetary inflation and food insecurity for 35 million Brazilians, alongside staggering levels of environmental devastation and the criminal invasion of indigenous lands. The social debt owed to workers, the poor, women, blacks and Indians is enormous.

One of the important social characteristics of recent years in Brazil has been the denial of science. The height of this outbreak of denialism was the refusal of vaccinations in general, particularly Covid-19 vaccines. It is estimated that the delay of this vaccination in 2021 has facilitated 400 thousand deaths. This extreme denial of science includes the denial of evolution, with the myth of intelligent design, and the stubbornness about the Earth being flat. In the age of the Internet, false information spreads quickly.

Thus, one of the most important political tasks for the next period is the rescue of science as the foundation of public policies in democratic and pluralistic societies. This is how we will equate the creation of tens of millions of jobs, monetary stability, the guarantee of food on the plate, with the protection of natural resources and the preservation of the environment. It is in this process that we want to insert ourselves, contributing to the discussion with our critical and propositional agenda.

All societies were founded on knowledge, just as modernity is founded on rational knowledge and science. However, only contemporary society has information as the center of its dynamics. Our way of acting, interacting and creating bonds are associated not only with the use of language, but also with the production of information, as well as its dissemination, circulation and use. Our society is an information society.

The task of rationally building a democratic and pluralist society in Brazil has many difficulties. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened up our inequalities, old and new. Jeca is not like that, he was made to be like that!, said Monteiro Lobato. Despite the popularization of cell phones, tens of millions of Brazilians are excluded from accessing the Internet, or with precarious and limited access.

We will be together in this construction, in solidarity and generosity. We are not afraid to be happy.

 

 

Rio de Janeiro, September 27 2022

 

Clovis Ricardo Montenegro de Lima

Editor