Starting from the notion that the industrialization movement of the Estado Novo was accompanied by a technical modernization drive in the armed forces, the article affirms that Brazil's entry into the Second World War gave renewed impetus to that modernization, given the influence of the new North American institutional model on the new military initiatives in the technological field. In this context, a group of engineering officers at the fledgling Ministry of Aeronautics, seeking to learn from the mistakes made both in the industrialization process taking place at the time and in previous technical modernization efforts, launched a project for the establishing of an Engineering teaching and research institute. This initiative resulted in the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), the first institution of the later Technical Center of Aeronautics (CTA), which would come to have a revolutionary impact on higher education in the country and, above all, on the construction of the Brazilian technological vision. The article contends that the genesis and the early experience of the ITA/CTA continue to provide valuable insights into the dilemmas and challenges existent in current national scientific and technological policies.
Modernization; Technology; Armed forces; Engineering; Higher education