This article explains the role of scientific communities for the regional innovation, and the importance to seek scientific excellence, but also seek the relevance of their work in their socio-economic context. We study the case of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. For this purpose we were applied a questionnaire to 95 researchers. The results demonstrate that the scientific community has acquired national leadership for the quality of their contributions, however, its impact seldom goes beyond the academic environment. From this perspective, we argue that it is vital that the researchers not only strive for the quality of scientific publications, but they also look for meeting the local and regional development requirements.