In this paper, we use a combination of bibliometric, social network and econometric approaches to increase our knowledge of how research institutions interact with the private sector in Latin America (LA). We first study recent trends in scientific output and specialization. On average, LA countries have been reducing the gap with the world leading regions. They have also tended to specialize in fields related to economic activities based on natural resources, such as Agricultural and Plant and Animal Sciences. However, collaborations with the private sector remain scarce. In this paper, we have built scientific networks composed by what we define as Research Departments (RD). These RDs belong to universities, research institutes and government agencies. We model the intensity of collaboration of a RD with industry as a function of its size, previous performance, and its position in the LA and national scientific networks. Our results show that the RDs which higher diversity of research partners in their national scientific network work more intensively with industry. Additionally, collaborations with industry are influenced by previous interactions with the private sector.
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