Innovation systems · Clusters · Programme design · Evaluation

Knowledge into Action.

From strategy to programmes that get implemented.

We help innovation agencies, cluster organisations and public and development institutions turn knowledge and strategy into programmes that work, combining innovation policy and cluster expertise with strategic and service design and evaluation.

Let's collaborate Our expertise

TCI Global Conference Córdoba 2026. Places in motion. Knowledge into action. Illustration of Córdoba with ribbons of colour over the Suquía river. 27 to 30 October 2026, Córdoba, Argentina. FuturAct.

Perspective

Bringing the future into the present. From where an institution stands, many futures open. We turn knowledge into agency: the capacity to choose one of them and give it body.

Strategies rarely fail in the diagnosis. They fail in the passage to action.

Agency

Institutions rarely lack information. What they often lack is agency: the capacity to turn what they know into decisions and coordinated action. Building that capacity, inside the institution, is the purpose of our work.

Who we are

Different perspectives. Shared purpose.

FuturAct is a consultancy founded in Brazil, working internationally.

We combine extensive experience in innovation policy, productive development, strategic design, institutional transformation and applied research.

What sets us apart: we bring an economist’s understanding of innovation systems and clusters together with a designer’s practice of making programmes work on the ground, from strategy to the identity, communication and digital interfaces that make people use them.

We work directly with institutions and in consortia with partner organisations, on projects of different scales and durations.

Our expertise

Connecting knowledge, strategy and action.

Six areas of practice, often combined in one engagement. Open each one to see the questions we help answer and what we deliver.

Experience behind our practice

Experience across institutions, programmes and ecosystems.

Our founders bring professional background developed through research, public institutions, innovation programmes, entrepreneurship and strategic design.

Innovation & Deep-Tech Programmes
Statewide leadership and coordination of initiatives supporting science-based entrepreneurship, emerging technologies and innovation ecosystems, including Start Bio, Start IA, Start Deeptech, Start Mercado and Acelerando Cientistas.
Institutional Learning & Capacity Building
Design and coordination of professional development initiatives for innovation ecosystem managers, institutional leaders and public-sector professionals.
Territorial Development & Innovation Ecosystems
Experience in cluster competitiveness, territorial innovation, institutional collaboration and local innovation ecosystem development.
Public Service & Strategic Design
Human-centred research, collaborative methodologies, service design and innovation in public and institutional contexts.
Knowledge Systems & Applied Intelligence
Development of our own methods combining qualitative research with AI-assisted tools to organise institutional knowledge, retrieve evidence and support decision-making.

Selected work from the founders’ previous trajectories

Carried out by each founder in previous roles, before FuturAct.

Local innovation ecosystems in ten territories of São Paulo stateLeandro Pasini at Sebrae-SP, 2022 to 2024
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Conceived and led by Leandro: methodology, project leadership and workshop facilitation. In ABC, Alto Tietê, Araçatuba, Barretos, Piracicaba, Ribeirão Preto, Santos, São José dos Campos, São José do Rio Preto and Sorocaba, companies, startups, universities, local government and support organisations moved from fragmented action to a shared agenda, through engagement, diagnosis, co-creation and implementation. The work produced a diagnosis for each territory, a comparative reading of the ten ecosystems and roadmaps by horizon, from quick wins to three years.
State deep-tech programmes Start IA, Start Bio and Start DeeptechMaria Augusta Pimentel Miglino at Sebrae-SP
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Maria Augusta managed at state level Sebrae-SP’s programmes for science-based startups, delivered with IPT and ecosystem partners. She also coordinated the Startups do Futuro award (2022 to 2023), which mapped 531 science-based startups and recognised 103 as the most promising.
Evaluation of São Paulo City’s public innovation lab programmesLeandro Pasini for UNESCO, 2026
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Evaluation of the effects of the five programmes of the São Paulo City public innovation lab, contracted by UNESCO. Combining realist evaluation and contribution analysis, it reconstructed how each programme produces effects, for whom and in what context, delivered as a methodological plan, analysis by programme, journey map and final report.
Regional economic development in Latin America and the CaribbeanMaria Augusta Pimentel Miglino for FOMIN/IDB, 2013
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Maria Augusta took part as a specialist consultant in the SISTME and Mesopartner consortium that carried out the FOMIN/IDB thematic study on regional economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The founders' experience includes work with

UNESCO
Inter-American Development Bank (FOMIN)
GIZ
British Embassy (Prosperity Fund)
Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services (MDIC)
Ministry of Regional Development
Sebrae-SP
São Paulo City Hall
Mato Grosso do Sul State Department of Education
Embrapa
Port of Santos
Santos Technology Park
USP
Unesp
UNICAMP
IPT
FAPESP
FINEP
FIESP
ANPEI
Fundação Itaú
Wylinka
SISTME
Mesopartner

How we work

Understand complexity. Design possibilities. Enable action.

Four steps, from the first conversation to capabilities that stay in the institution. Each one ends with something concrete in your hands.

Engage and diagnose

Map actors, capabilities and bottlenecks with the people involved.

You get a shared diagnosis and clear priorities.

Co-design

Translate strategy into programme architecture, services and governance, designed with those who will run them.

You get programme design, service blueprints and a governance model.

Pilot and implement

Test before scaling and work alongside teams, giving the programme an identity, communication and digital channels people actually use.

You get tested pilots, a programme identity and launch, and a roadmap by horizon.

Evaluate and learn

Realist evaluation and contribution analysis: what works, for whom and why.

You get evidence for decisions and capabilities that stay in the institution.

For cluster organisations and innovation agencies, this often means

Turning a cluster roadmap into projects and services members actually use.
Designing support services for members and startups.
Giving clusters and programmes an identity, communication and digital channels members engage with.
Evaluating cluster and innovation programmes.
Building the capabilities of cluster managers and programme teams.

The founders

Complementary expertise. Integrated perspectives.

Maria Augusta Pimentel Miglino

Innovation Policy · Productive Development · Programme Design & Evaluation

Maria Augusta is a senior expert in innovation and productive development, with nearly 30 years at the intersection of innovation systems, territorial development and science, technology and innovation policy. Her work spans the full cycle of public programmes: research and diagnosis, evaluation, programme design, implementation and governance.

Over 16 years at Sebrae-SP she worked on cluster development and competitiveness, designed and oversaw complex innovation programmes and managed the state deep-tech programmes Start IA, Start Bio and Start Deeptech. She presented research on clusters at the 15th TCI Global Conference (2012).

Selected experience

State manager of the Sebrae for Startups deep-tech programmes Start IA, Start Bio and Start Deeptech, delivered with IPT and ecosystem partners.
Coordinator of the Startups do Futuro award (2022 to 2023): 531 science-based startups mapped and 103 recognised as the most promising.
State coordinator of the Incubadora-SP programme at Sebrae-SP.
Evaluation of results and impacts of R&D programmes at UNICAMP, including PROSAB (FINEP), published in Research Evaluation.
Research on local innovation systems, clusters and the evaluation of R&D programmes at UNICAMP.
Member of the FAPESP and FINEP project on a science, technology and innovation strategy for São Paulo (2006 to 2009).
Thematic Study of Regional Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, FOMIN/IDB (2013), as a specialist consultant in the SISTME and Mesopartner consortium.
Papers on local innovation systems and clusters at EUNIP conferences (2001 to 2003), the 15th TCI Global Conference (2012) and the Triple Helix Conference (2024).

Education

Economics, UNICAMP
Master's in Science and Technology Policy, UNICAMP
Executive International MBA, Saint Paul Business School and ESMT Berlin
Industrial Policy, University of Ferrara, Italy
Competitiveness Summer School, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC

Leandro Pasini

Strategic & Service Design · Public Innovation · Evaluation

Leandro is a strategic and service designer working on public innovation and institutional capacity. After a career in communication and design, since 2014 he has turned complex problems into programmes, services and governance arrangements, combining systems thinking, qualitative research and collaborative facilitation with public institutions, foundations and territorial networks.

He conceived and facilitated a local innovation ecosystems initiative in ten territories of São Paulo state, co-developed the Design Doing methodology and, in 2026, evaluated the programmes of São Paulo City’s public innovation lab for UNESCO.

Selected experience

UNESCO, individual consultant (2026): methodology, fieldwork, analysis and final recommendations for the evaluation of a São Paulo municipal public innovation laboratory.
Sebrae-SP, innovation projects specialist (2021 to 2026): local innovation ecosystems in ten territories, the São Paulo agricultural innovation corridor with Embrapa, APTA and universities, and the Barretos healthtech ecosystem.
Instituto Tellus, service designer (2014 to 2021): secondary-education public policy with Fundação Itaú in Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraíba and Amapá, including the training of 60 state network managers; ReDUS platform with GIZ; InovaJuntos public policy lab; the StartOut Brasil internationalisation programme with MDIC, ANPEI and the British Embassy.
Earlier career in digital creative direction and advertising (Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, JWT, F/Nazca), including one of the first Brazilian internet banking projects, in 1999.
Ongoing personal research on AI-enabled knowledge architectures for evidence organisation and decision support.

Education

Social Communication, PUC-Campinas
Postgraduate specialisation in Psychoanalytic Semiotics, PUC-SP
Design Thinking Action Lab and Mobile Health Without Borders, Stanford University
Service Innovation Journey, EISE

Collaboration

Let's turn collaboration into action.

FuturAct works with development organisations, innovation agencies, research institutions, cluster organisations, public institutions and consulting partners.

Joint projectsWith development organisations and consulting partners, from design to implementation.

Specialised advisoryFocused assignments in strategy, evaluation, programme design or learning.

International consortiaBrazilian expertise for multi-country proposals and programmes.

Collaborative initiativesResearch, events and learning initiatives with institutions that share our purpose.

Knowledge into Action.

Different perspectives. Shared purpose.

Connecting knowledge, strategy and action.

Innovation Systems & Productive Development

Strategy, Programme & Service Design

Research, Evaluation & Intelligence

Institutional Development & Governance

Learning & Knowledge Development

Digital Transformation & Applied AI