Post on 27-Jun-2020
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CFP - ECPR 2016 section on 'Politics of Higher Education, Research, and
Innovation'
Margarida Chagas Lopes – SOCIUS/CSG – ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics
and Management, Universidade de Lisboa (www.gmail.com)
“The politicization of knowledge policies – the Portuguese case”
Abstract
The evolution of the Portuguese process of knowledge development in modern times
has been sharply influenced by institutions responsible for education, their design, and
the ideology which embed them. Despite radical changes regarding the conception of
the role of knowledge, science, and research, in society, as well as the definition and
launching of relevant public policies, these institutions and their lasting inertia have
been hampering knowledge development in Portugal. Now that a new democratic
government has been elected, for which knowledge and research are seen as social
assets that are to be democratically redistributed and shared, it is important to assess
how far the inertia of these institutions is, or is not, being redressed. This is especially
important with regards to the persistence of traditional values and culture through which
institutional lobbies attempt to maintain their previous influence.
Key words: knowledge development; new internal and external challenges; the role of
institutions; inertia; Portugal.
J.E.L. Classification: I23; O32; O33; O38.
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1. Introduction: A brief historical review in which ideology and institutions
became prominent…
1.1.- The heritage of the Estado Novo
The democratic revolution of 1974 put an end to four decades of an authoritarian,
conservative, and mono-party regime - the Estado Novo, which condemned large parts
of the Portuguese population to obscurity and illiteracy. Under very strong ideological
pressure, the education system was segmented into “high schools” (Liceus), for the
education and permanence of the elite, and “technical schools”, for all the remaining
children.
By 1970, just 4 years before the democratic revolution took place, 26% of the
Portuguese population was illiterate (PORDATA). Likewise, unsurprisingly, one of the
main goals of the new democratic government, which was legitimized by the
Constituição da República Portuguesa (Constitution of the Portuguese Republic (CPR))
of 1976, was related to education: in Article No. 43 of the Constitution, regarding the
“Freedom of Learning and Teaching” (Liberdade de Aprender e Ensinar), the CPR
explicitly established that the government “should not plan education and culture in
accordance to any philosophical, aesthetic, political, ideological, or religious principles”,
and also that public teaching would not be religious.
This apparently ultra-aseptic concept of education was the immediate reaction to the
strongly ideological commitment of the preceding period. Now, it was possible to benefit
from some of the very positive educational experiences that the intellectuals had
learned during their years in exile in Europe. New educational theories were then
tested, and alternative forms of organization were implemented in schools, and a great
diversity of educational projects havebeen launched. This experimental phase led to
important national debates on education which lasted for about 10 years, up until the
adoption of the National Statutes for the Educational System (Estatuto Nacional do
Sistema Educativo) in 1986.
Among the leading changes in the educational system which accompanied the
instauration of democracy was the abolishment of technical-vocational education.
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Behind this decision was the ideological objective of ending the previous discrimination
between this kind of education, and that of the elites, which was provided by the Liceus.
Nevertheless, the technical, scientific, and educational goals of the technical-vocational
education were not taken into consideration, and this kind of education remained being
even further underdeveloped than “regular education”. This is one of the main reasons
why engineering and other scientific-technological areas developed so modestly in
Portugal over a large period of time.
In the meantime, the first Portuguese Agency for Science and Technology (Junta
Nacional para a Investigação Científica e Tecnológica) was launched in 1967, which
was replaced by the National Institute for Scientific Research (Instituto Nacional de
Investigação Científica) in 1977, which, for most researchers, marks the beginning of
Science and Technology (S&T) policies in Portugal (Ruivo,1995). Besides serving as an
advisory board to the government about what had to do with the very incipient scientific
and technological policies and its coordination, this Institute was in charge of the
supervision and funding of the very few public university research institutions. Most of
its work had to do with the evaluation of the eligibility of PhD candidates for public
grants, and it had almost nothing to do with any decisive progress in the design of
scientific and technological policies.
The universities entitled to carry out research and development during the Estado Novo
dictatorship had not developed enough critical research, nor had they established sound
partnerships with national, let alone international universities. Therefore, at the
beginning of the democratic regime, these universities suffered from the generalized
economic and social crisis and the scarcity of funding. Most of all, no trace of a true
knowledge strategy could be evidenced at this time.
The percentage of graduates in tertiary education among the Portuguese population
progressed very slowly: in 1970 only 0.9% of Portuguese women and men aged 15
years and over had completed a tertiary degree, the corresponding value for 1981 being
2.4%, and 8.4% for 2001 (PORDATA). By 2009, at the time of the creation of the
European Monetary Union, which Portugal joined right at the beginning, the country
exhibited the lowest share of graduates among the population from 55 to 64 years old
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within an OECD 36-countries group, which included Brazil, Turkey, and Mexico (OCDE
2011).
In 1982, the global share of researchers (FTE) involved in R&D activities was no higher
than 0.4/1000, being a value which rose to 0.7/1000 in 2001, and then fell to less than
0.4/100 in 2009. Research and Development remained mostly exclusively a task and a
duty for higher education professors and researchers, as well as for State-run
laboratories and departments. In either case, few research contacts were established
with the business sector, and international research projects in which the country took
place were but a few.
1.2. A critical core of intellectuals and the upsurge of modern knowledge
policies
In the meanwhile, a very rich “human capital” was developing, which had been mainly
educated in other European countries and which had established a very beneficial
recognition from important international universities and research centers. This was the
seed for the development of modern knowledge policies in Portugal. Among these
intellectuals, José Mariano Gago stands out, who had been president of INIC from 1986
to 1989, and then became Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education. He
remained in this post for more time that any other minister, during the Portuguese
Socialist governments between 1995 and 2002, and 2005 and 2011.
Indeed, by the mid/end of the 90´s, two important factors contributed to what may be
called the upsurge of the modern phase of knowledge development in Portugal: the
Socialist government and the first cabinet of Mariano Gago as Minister for Science,
Technology and Higher Education; and also the Bologne Reform.
One of the most striking decisions of the Socialist minister and his cabinet was the
adoption of the Manifest for Science (Manifesto para a Ciência em Portugal), for which
he had been one of the co-authors some years before, which was a guideline for action
in the domain of science, research, and development. The Manifesto especially stated
that:
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(…) only throughout the generalization of a social debate on the development of
the scientific culture could the large delay of the scientific process in Portugal become
evident (…).
The Manifesto proposed the leading lines for scientific development process, which
would rely on the renewal of the education system, the foundation of a scientific culture,
and the breakout from the preceding scientific isolationism. Taking science as a social
challenge, the document aimed to promote a truly well-informed social and democratic
dialogue. In the Minister’s words, there was an absolute need to “give open access to
non-scientists for the main scientific methodologies and results” (Candeias, 2016).
Accordingly, the defense and re-implementation of experimental learning, the building of
a modern scientific system, the development and renewal of the higher education sub
system, the launching of a set of systematic S&T and R&D policies, the struggle
towards the internationalization of the Portuguese research and scientific processes,
together with the deeply rooted conception of science and knowledge as being truly
public and social assets, which are indispensable for the deepening of the democratic
process, all remain among the landmarks of this Socialist minister’s legacy (Rodrigues
& Heitor org., 2015).
As a consequence, the Portuguese government budget allocations for R&D relative to
GDP increased by 50% between 1995 and 2002, and the global expenditure in R&D
activities increased 2.22 times during the same time interval. At the same time, the
number of researchers in R&D per thousand of the active population increased by 1.5
times, the number of scientific publications per 1,000 inhabitants more than doubled,
and international co-authorship studies took off - more than tripling in the case of British
and Spanish researchers and research institutions between 1995 and 2002. A major
determinant of this performance has been the new policy for allocation of public grants
for the development of R&D projects and for PhD students; this new emphasis on an
educational and research social policy happened during a moment when the Bologne
Reform was imposing the development of 2nd and 3rd Cycles in higher education, on
account of the shortening and social devaluation of the 1st Cycle.
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The above results also reflect the important increase in funding which the Portuguese
government received from the European Union during the 1990’s, but the true revolution
had to do with universities: in 1997, the Minister for Science, Technology, and Higher
Education reformed the previous INIC, and founded FCT – the Portuguese Agency for
Science, Technology, and Innovation – whose mission and values promised:
“the systematic advancement of scientific and technological knowledge in Portugal,
towards the highest international quality and competitiveness standards in all the
scientific domains (…) as well as the diffusion of the corresponding results throughout
society as a whole, and the productive structure (Fundação para a Ciência e
Tecnologia, 1997), (http://www.fct.pt/fct/).
To achieve its purposes, FCT regularly launched peer-evaluated public contests for the
attribution of grants and the funding of research contracts, and the funding of eligible
projects and competitive research centers, as well as for basic scientific infrastructures.
After a brief period of a Social Democratic government, between 2002 and 2005,
Socialist governments were again elected to power, and with them came the previous
cabinet for science, technology, and innovation, which returned to duty from 2005 to
2011. During this period, the global number of publically-funded PhD scholarships
provided by FCT increased by 36%: 26% for Engineering and Technologies, 36% for
Social Sciences, 44% for Health Sciences, and 65% for Humanities, among other
scientific domains (PORDATA). The share of the public budget allocated to education
increased by 7% per capita, but remained stable at 4.5% as a percentage of GDP. Still
during the period of 2005-2011, the number of completed PhDs per 100,000 inhabitants
increased by 54%, and among them, the number of those that were obtained abroad
increased by 70% during the same period.
The results in terms of S&T were also very encouraging: the global number of scientific
publications more than doubled, as well as the number of those in co-authorship with
other countries’ researchers. The global number of researchers in FTE increased by
2.09, with the corresponding breakdown by scientific area being 2.89 times higher for
Health Sciences, 2.39 for Engineering and Technologies, and 2.35 for Social Sciences
and Humanities (PORDATA). Nevertheless, the main result to be noticed has to do with
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the deep change in the breakdown of the number of FTE researchers by sector: from
2005 to 2011, the number of FTE researchers in the business sector increased 2.61
times, and by about 2.18 times in higher education, whilst in the public sector, there was
a reduction of about 30%. This trend follows a natural and positive evolution, as
government progressively gave way to research and businesses, although provided that
it does not neglect its role as the leading actor in the process of regulation of the
national education and knowledge processes.
In 2011, a coalition between the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties
won the elections in Portugal, after three years of economic and social crisis. As a
consequence of the latter, the country was about to face bankruptcy, and a troika
composed of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank
intervened openly. For several reasons, this put an end to the previous development of
research and knowledge policies, as we will refer to in the next section.
2. Crisis and neo-liberalism versus knowledge development
When the economic crisis hit the country in 2008, there were already signs that the
previous very positive progress towards a democratic conception of knowledge
development was about to face important obstacles.
2.1. – Globalization and competitiveness
One of these obstacles had to do with the hyper-bureaucratization and increased
competitiveness that the Bologne Reform was imposing on universities and research
centers. There was certainly a strong need for social accountability and a systematic
evaluation of publically-funded universities, for which procedures were still in their
infancy. However, with the reinforcement of globalization and international
competitiveness, both accountability and evaluation became more and more redesigned
and shaped according to the dominant conception of research and knowledge that is
embraced by the neo-liberal wave.
On one hand, universities were obliged to internationalize – which is, of course, a very
positive feature – in order to be able to correspond to the increasing international
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mobility of students, researchers, and teaching staff alike. However, the very principles
of this internationalization soon became subverted, as, for example, when national
languages were progressively substituted by generalized teaching in English.
Competition to attract students from abroad obliged this change, and progressively
national values and culture also became subsumed to the “transferrable and credited
knowledge”, that is to say, the official neo-liberal knowledge (Apple, M.W., 2014).
Critical thinking in Portuguese universities – but also in another countries’1 - had to
comply with dominant knowledge, or else international markets and competitiveness
would not validate the production of Portuguese universities. Accreditation and Quality
Control with international organizations completed the picture – by the American
AACSB, for instance.
With regards to Portuguese research centers, international but also national
competitiveness also became the overall rule. On account of the economic restrictions
imposed by the crisis, and the even more restrictive intervention imposed by the
“Troika”, the Portuguese right-wing government - as an “obedient student” – started to
launch pro-cyclical policies in almost all public domains. The scarcity of funding severely
affected both universities and research centers.
2.2. – When the Public Agency subverts scientific and democratic truth
FCT, the already referred-to Portuguese Agency for Science and Technology, now
became one of the leading instruments for these pro-cyclical policies with regards to
advanced studies, and research and development. Eligibility criteria for access to public
funding became hyper-bureaucratized, were always changing, and were not clearly
applied. One or two public contests were launched by FCT between 2011 and 2014,
which were later considered to be illegal, and they had to be repeated after general
disproval by researchers and research centers.
Furthermore, on one hand, scarcity of funding led to an ever-increasing competitiveness
among research institutions, making it totally impossible to attempt any cooperation
There is being a strong criticism by students towards some official U.K. Universitary curricula, as BBC, for instance, is broadcasting.
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between them, at odds with the true scientific culture. On the other hand, FCT’s policy
pursued a true hierarchization of scientific domains, by means of according priority to
funding for projects in partnership with the “hard” scientific domains – such as
Engineering – and also the large multinational corporations. As social sciences and
humanities are not so likely to produce marketable outputs, these were systematically
sub-funded during several public contests.
Actually, there was no need for such substantial funding support for the partnerships
between universities or research centers, government, and large business. The “triple
helix” (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000) had worked well in Portugal since the ‘80s, with
the upsurge of some very dynamic startups at universities such as the University of
Aveiro, and the Technical and New Universities of Lisbon, amongst others. This does
not mean that such a good relationship translated into a democratic appropriation of the
knowledge process and output, but rather, as a matter of fact, there was not a true
development strategy for which the main regulator – the government – could supervise
the entire system and act towards the open socialization of the process of knowledge
development. Therefore, the easiest way to act as a “regulator, was through FCT, by
means of selective funding referred to above.
Besides FCT, other public institutions and policies severely contributed to the setback of
the previous process of knowledge development. Some of the leading institutions in this
process, namely the Ministry for Education and the Ministry for Science, Technology,
and Higher Education, were kept apart and were not able to act collaboratively on a
retention basis for which knowledge development could be developed sustainably. The
Ministry for Education drastically restricted grants and allowances for both higher
education and advanced studies. Accordingly, dropout rates in Portuguese Tertiary
Education took off, now that most students and families had to face an increasing
budgetary burden: with the social devaluation of the compacted 1st Cycles brought
about by the Bologne Reform, whereby attending and completing 2nd and 3rd Cycles
education became mandatory. However, no social policy was launched to compensate
students and families for these accrued costs and spending.
How great was the damage? Let us consider briefly some very telling indicators.
Firstly, the trend in the global share of R&D expenditures by institutional sector:
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Figure 1:
The upsurge of R&D development becomes quite obvious from Figure 1, especially since
2005. From this year onwards, the effort made by the business sector – Enterprises –
clearly surpassed universities’, most of which were subject to public funding. Soon
afterwards, in 2009, the effects of the crisis were felt: cuts to R&D activities in business
started to increase, and the global effort of this institutional sector fell in 2014 to a value
comparable to that achieved 8 years earlier, in 2006. Severe restrictions in funding were
also imposed for R&D in universities and their research centers, as well as for
government-run laboratories of the sector, for which retrograded by about 17 years due to
a decrease in funding.
Nevertheless, some of the leading outputs of the R&D process, such as the number of
scientific publications per 100,000 inhabitants, continued to increase (albeit at a more
moderate rate), especially in the areas of Health, Engineering, and other “Exact Sciences”.
The number of researchers (FTE) per institutional sector showed a very varied pattern: it
decreased systematically in the government sector, and by 2014 its value was even less
than the corresponding one for the initial year of the statistical series - 1982! In the
business sector the evolution oscillated considerably, but in 2014 the overall decrease
seemed to have been reverted. In higher education, it almost stagnated between 2008
and 2012, and has demonstrated an oscillating trend since then. We must emphasize that
Portuguese researchers have not only suffered from unemployment, but especially from
very unstable and highly deteriorated work contractual conditions, a feature which the
newly-elected Socialist government has as a high priority in its agenda.
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Accordingly, there is a reason to state that Portuguese researchers are not only very
resilient, but are especially highly qualified, whose performance carried on increasing,
despite economic and ideological restrictions.
In higher education and advanced studies, the trend has been quite negative. The
percentage of 1st Cycle grant-assisted students decreased sharply between 2009 and
2012, both in public and private universities.
Figure 2 very efficiently describes the situation regarding PhD grants, showing that the
number of PhD grants allocated has decreased to a value close to that of 2004,
representing a setback of about 8 years:
Figure 2:
As a consequence of such a policy, the number of graduates of the 1st and 2nd Cycles in
Portuguese higher education notably decreased: by 4.7% for the 1st Cycle in public
universities, and 18.8% in private universities, from 2012-2013 to 2013-2014; and the
average global number of Masters graduates decreased by about 8.8% during the same
period. The corresponding average decrease for all PhD programmes was about 5%
(DGEEC 2016).
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3. A tentative theoretical explanation
So far, we believe that we have shed enough light on the importance of the role played by
Portuguese public institutions in the process of knowledge development. Neo-institutional
theories can help us explain some of the more striking features of this influence.
Contrary to what is mostly taken for granted, the institutions governing education are
contingent and are subject to criticism. They do not – or should not – evolve following an
isomorphic pattern, rather they should redefine and readjust their mission and working
methodologies in order to retain their efficiency in the changing and unstable frameworks
that we face nowadays. Accordingly, there is no design of an institution can maintain its
level of performance forever.
With regards to institutions governing education and research in Portugal, inertia
characterizes some of the most important institutional factors. That is the case, for
example, of the lasting separation between the Ministry for Education and the Ministry for
Science, Technology, and Higher Education, which is mostly a result of a persistent model
of staff organization which is no longer adequate. In the old days of very high illiteracy
rates, such as in the 70´s and 80’s, there was a reason for keeping the Ministry of
Education autonomous, however, after the positive evolution which we have described
above, the adequate institutional design should now consider the integration of the
different institutions for skills development and knowledge building. This same
organizational inertia, in parallel with different models and sources of funding, is also
responsible for the partition of responsibilities relative to apprenticeship in vocational
education among the Ministries of Education, Economy, and Labour. We could advance
numerous other examples which illustrate the main obstacles to the development of a true
knowledge strategy in Portugal.
According to neo-institutional theorists, institutional design must be checked against the
successive challenges that institutions have to face. For two among of these challenges
facing the institutions governing research are especially important to meet, namely:
increasing accountability, towards national and international (mostly EU) commitments,
and diversity of research institutions Meyer& Rowan (2006) and their agents. Increased
competitiveness and accountability requirements impose the adoption of adequate
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accountability rules and the launching of scientifically irreproachable public research
contests, whose evaluation processes need to be subject to highly qualified peer-review
panels, amongst other factors. The diversity of research institutions and sectors –
government laboratories, research centers, universities, the business sector, and non-
profit research organizations, for instance – calls for an overall regulation process which
can be supported by a vision of the whole knowledge system and the nature of the
articulations among its composite institutions. In other words, it strongly depends on the
existence of a strategy for skills’ and knowledge’ development.
In either domain, FCT clearly failed during the previous right-wing government, as we have
described. According to neo-institutionalist authors, the evaluation of public research
institutions and their global articulation should nevertheless go beyond the performance
criteria described above. Knowledge is, actually, an arena where power and conflict of
interests are always present (Brown, M. (2015). Likewise, one should investigate which
kind of specific goals public policies and research institutions are mainly pursuing, and
which groups are more favoured by them.
As a matter of fact, the previous Portuguese government was conditioned by a neo-liberal
ideology, according to which “There Is (was) No Alternative” (TINA) to the strict control of
the public deficit. Accordingly, the latter objective suppressed the pursuit of all other social
goals, and imposed severe cuts on education and research funding and completely
distorted the equilibrium among the scientific areas, yet, of course, this strategy obediently
respected the EU rules and treaties. However, we also need to examine the other face of
the coin: by giving priority in funding to projects and research centers where engineering,
technological and health sciences predominate, FCT and public research policies clearly
favoured the marketable outputs of research, thereby reinforcing the business sector and
international business. At the same time, this contributed to marginalizing more and more
social and human sciences, that is to say, those scientific domains from where political
criticism usually comes.
Accordingly, science and knowledge development evolved inside elite groups and were
kept apart from the general population. This result derives, of course, from the
politicization of science throughout the neo-liberal ideology professed by the Social
Democratic and Christian Democratic parties which formed the government coalition and
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which pursued truly partisan politics (Jungblut, 2016). The coalition proceeded with the
adoption and reinforcement of official knowledge within universities and research centers,
being a fundamental vehicle for the submission of public institutions’ mission and values to
the whims of the market. FCT strongly contributed to this aim, as we have already
described, but did not manage to overcome the conflicts of interests which arose between
researchers’ freedom and scientific truth, and the aims of the increased competitiveness
both in national and international research settings.
4.- New developments and concluding remarks
In November 2015, a new coalition among Socialist, Communist and left-wing parties won
the elections in Portugal. The Socialist Minister for Science, Technology, and Higher
Education (MSTHE) had been the President of FCT during the Socialist governments
when Mariano Gago was the Minister. Through the constitution of his cabinet, the current
Minister is trying to recuperate most of the work previously carried out by previous
Socialist governments, and above all the conception of science and knowledge as being
truly social and democratic assets. This mission was already clearly stated in the Socialist
party’s electoral manifest which the other coalition parties supported as well.
Under the overall banner “Knowledge for All” (“Conhecimento para todos”), several
national meetings open to the public participation have been held, and the 1st Meeting of
the European Innovation Council was also hosted by Portugal recently. Among the leading
principles which guide “Knowledge for All”, one can read that:
“The access to science and knowledge becomes indispensable for the building of a society
which has to be better informed and deeply aware of the surrounding world, but has also
to be more humanised, with greater justice and democracy, and where well-being can be
accessible to everyone. The access to knowledge, together with the ensured access to
education and training, are not only fundamental rights, but also decisive factors in
enhancing social mobility and valorisation, as well as leading to democratisation factors
that are indispensable for today’s democratic societies” (MCTES 2016, own translation).
The above sentence expresses a conception of knowledge and science which is clearly at
odds with the previous government’s one.
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Still within the framework of “Knowledge for All”, the new MSTHE has launched the “Public
Participation Laboratories” (“Laboratórios de Participação Pública - LPP) programme. The
purpose of this kind of institution is to encourage people and communities to participate in
open debate about public policies for research and technology, in order for them to
become aware of their potential role in local development, as well as improving the
process of knowledge diffusion. The first LPP has been planned for the Trás-os-Montes
region, in the northeastern part of the country, and some others are about to be launched
in other regions. Very recently, and in compliment to the LPP policy, government and
research public institutions are proposing and discussing with local authorities the
possibility of developing participatory budgeting for science and research, which is an
initiative which is still in its infancy.
One of the first measures adopted by the actual MSTHE (MCTES) was the reform of FCT
and the substitution of its governing board, after an evaluation process for which involved
both national and international experts. The results of the redesign of this institution are
already evident with regards to the de-bureaucratization and clarity and rigour of the
eligibility criteria, which has thus eased the application process for researchers and
research centers for grants and public contests for funding.
Besides this initiative, other important measures are in the process of being implemented,
among which we select the following public policies and decisions:
- Commitment to Knowledge and Science (Compromisso com o Conhecimento e a
Ciência): whose mission defines the commitment to knowledge as a structural and
lasting governmental goal, to be supported by a multi-annual funding plan, the
development of autonomous and robust scientific institutions, and the forging of
scientific employment, with the aim of systematic progress towards the boundary of
knowledge, in order to be able to meet the societal, financial, and cultural challenges
that are faced by the country, and also by Europe (adapted translation);
- With regards to the new FCT eligibility criteria: these have to encompass from now
on the possibility of opening new research institutions, the reinforcement of existing
laboratories with a special emphasis on the State-owned ones, and the launching of
“collaborative laboratories”. The latter, which are a new kind of research institution,
are especially devoted to the articulation and merger between science (mostly
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engineering and technologies) and the social, productive and artistic layers of
Portuguese society, as well as with the public administration (adapted translation);
- Accountability: a new overall evaluation of research institutions is to take place in
2017. The criteria and mission of its scientific board have already been designed,
which embrace very strict and rigorous methodologies to support the participation of
invited external experts, the composition of evaluation panels, and the writing of a
final very detailed report wich will be discussed within the scientific community.
Furthermore, the process of the general evaluation of the Portuguese Scientific
System is already in place, which is controlled in partnership with the OECD and the
Portuguese MSTHE.
Let us now draw some Concluding Remarks. There is no doubt that a new conception
of the process of knowledge development has been reintroduced by the current
governmental executive. This conception is rooted in the principles of former Socialist
governments and their ideology, for which knowledge development has to be a pre-
requisite for democratic development. Accordingly, the benefits of knowledge must be
adequately diffused, in order for them to become widely-known and accessible to
society as a whole. Only by this means will it be possible to implement the progressive
appropriation of science and knowledge by all of society.
The global view of the current strategy for knowledge development appears to be
clearly defined and adhered to by the present executive. At least, this is what we can
infer from the successive initiatives in science and technology which have been
described above, although, to date, few results are already available. Those initiatives
that require articulated action between ministries, especially between the MSTHE and
the Ministry for Education, are now more frequent, and they point to the non-existence
of notable conceptual divergence between them both.
Nevertheless, institutional inertia seems to remain an important aspect of the
Portuguese knowledge system. The persisting divide between ministries and public
agencies responsible for skills and knowledge development has not been tackled yet,
mostly on account of the strong resistance and traditions of the different institutional
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cultures and values embedded in each institution. As we have seen, the institutions are
treated as one and all, rather they are compelled to re-design and re-define their
missions, values and methodologies as new challenges appear. If they do not do this,
they will no longer be efficient, but will rather become an obstacle to knowledge
development.
In our opinion, institutional change is the most important task that the MSTHE has to
carry out, as it is already beginning to happen with FCT. Inertia in organization models
and personal seniority leads to very resilient lobbies within ministries and other public
departments, together with the permanence of a heritage of ill-defined career and
retirement policies, which all contribute to delaying the modernization of institutions, and
a deep change in invested group interests, which it will inevitably bring about.
Accordingly, a lot of work has yet to be done in progressing the path towards a true and
systematic scientific culture, which is a key foundation for the process of knowledge
democratization.
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Brown, Mark, B. (2015). Politicizing science: Conceptions of politics in science
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Candeias, A.F. (2016). Mariano Gago, um fazedor de pontes. Arquivo de Ciência
e Tecnologia da Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, 2016 (www.act.fct.p).
Direcção Geral de Estatísticas de Educação e Ciência (2016). Expenditure in
R&D by Sector of Performance. (www.dgeec.mctes.pt).
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