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Regional overview: Latin America and the Caribbean
Higher Education Policy 15 (2002) 277 – 290 www.elsevier.com/locate/highedpol
Regional overview: Latin America and the Caribbean Ra(ul Urz(ua∗ Centro de Analysis de Politicas Publicas, Universidad de Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 265 Torre 15, 1303 O cina, Santiago, Chile
1. Introduction Knowledge production and dissemination via research, teaching and outreach activities have traditionally been the main functions assigned to the universities all over the world. Information and knowledge has become the main source of productivity and power, as well as of personal and social development. Evidence shows that inter- and intra-country inequalities have been increased through the globalization process. Now and in the future sustainable economic, social and political development will depend mostly of the knowledge production and knowledge assimilation capacity of individual countries, and of the world system as a whole. A process of diversi3cation of knowledge producing institutions is taking place in the industrialized world. Less developed countries still follow the traditional pattern of knowledge production centered on the universities but, the semi-monopoly of scienti3c and technological research is now being a4ected by attempts to establish public or private 3nanced research centers independent from universities, as well as by the role played by research and development branches of international and transnational corporations operating in the region. At the same time, the growth in the number of secondary school graduates in the total population of more advanced third world countries has increased the demand for access to higher education as well as for more diversi3ed types of higher education institutions and curricula. Di4erences in economic growth and human development levels and inter-relations, plus long-term socio-demographic trends, make impossible to consider the LAC countries as a homogeneous whole. On the contrary, over and above historical, language, and cultural commonalties that provide a feeling of belonging to a common region, heterogeneity is as strong as homogeneity. The recognition of that heterogeneity is essential when dealing with what are considered to be common problems but that, under ∗
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closer scrutiny, turn out to be di4erent in their characteristics as well as in their context. The need to improve university scienti3c and technological research is one case in point. The nature of the problem, its policy priority compared to other problems, and the opportunities available for formulating and actually implementing policies and programs, clearly suggest the need to include regional heterogeneity as a factor to be taken into account when making recommendations for the region. Generally speaking, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have been making serious e4orts to meet the higher education challenge. The second half of the XXth century saw the rapid expansion of educational systems in the region. Though the pace varied from country to country, there was a marked reduction in illiteracy and the reach of secondary and tertiary education increased tremendously. A closer view shows large disparities among the LAC countries. The most recent comparative data available shows a 18.4% gross tertiary enrollment ratio for the year 1996. That expansion of tertiary education is mostly due to the explosive growth in the number of private tertiary education institutions, a process particularly notorious in the cases of Chile and Panama. What can be expected for the future is a much higher demand for tertiary education, derived from changes in age composition, larger numbers of secondary level graduates, and higher numbers of women applying for admission to tertiary level educational institutions. A major challenge is to substantially improve the quality of education o4ered to all students. There is consensus in the region that the expansion of education has not gone hand in hand with quality improvements. Access to good quality education at all levels is being segmented by socioeconomic brackets, urban–rural di4erences, and ethnic origins. In recent decades, the number of higher education students increased from around 500,000 in the 1970s, to over 7 million in the last decade. The increasing economic importance of knowledge and skills and the marked income di4erences between professionals and non-professional in the region are two additional and interrelated factors for a much higher demand for tertiary education in the region. The recent expansion of the higher education system in the region is in great part due to the creation of institutions that do not have the status of universities, such as polytechnic institutes, technical centers or institutes, teacher-training institutes, etc. They represent 85% of the total number of establishments, and are equally divided between public and private institutions (Garc(Ga Guadilla, 2000, Table 8.2). (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, pp. 26 –36.) However, the growth of enrolment rates has not been without imbalances. In the 3rst place, as we already mentioned, they are still very far from those of developed countries. Secondly, due in great part to still unsolved inequities at the primary and secondary levels, high-income groups are still over represented in university enrolments. (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 28). On the positive side, discrimination against women is no longer a serious problem in higher education enrolment: female enrolment is now more than four times larger than in 1970 and has reached almost the same level of male enrolment in that educational level (20 for males and 19 for females) (UNESCO, 1999, Table II.S.5.).
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The higher education system as a whole has thus become much more diversi3ed than in the recent past. During the last decade the number of students attending private universities grew from 30% to 45% of the total number of university students, and it should have reached one half of all the university enrolment the year 2000. Growth in the university system has gone together with a di4erentiation process. One of the now relevant di4erentiating factors is the internal complexity shown by individual universities. We may identify four major types of universities according to their internal complexity: (a) Complex universities where systematic research and undergraduate and graduate teaching activities in a signi3cant number of knowledge 3elds are conducted. (b) “Complete” universities. They give strong emphasis to professional training and o4er programs in the majority of the knowledge 3elds. (c) Incomplete universities. They o4er only teaching programs in a limited number of knowledge areas. (d) Specialized universities with teaching programs in only one area of knowledge. University functions and types of universities The demand for more teaching institutions has brought about a much clearer distinction between research universities and others devoted only to teaching. That is not necessarily a negative development since, the newly created private universities have alleviated the teaching task of research universities, and at least potentially allowed their full time professors to devote part of their time to research. The emergence of new institutional actors and of a more complex division of labour in the higher education system is clari3ed when the di4erent functions universities are playing are put on the table. Traditionally, the research, teaching and extension or outreach activities functions are considered three basic and essential university functions. That distinction continues being useful, provided that recognition is given to the empirical fact that not all institutions recognized as universities ful3ll equally well or give equal importance to those three functions. Nevertheless, the increasing internal complexity brought about by a more diversi3ed higher education system may justify the attempt to introduce other functional criteria, eventually to be used jointly with the more traditional one. One of the tentative conclusions one can suggest is that e4orts to strengthen scienti3c research within the LAC university system should be based on institutions that are already in the category of complex universities. Their main function and the one they cannot delegate is to contribute to the creation of scienti3c knowledge. Most of the new private universities fall in the category “incomplete”, that is, they do not o4er postgraduate degrees nor they conduct research projects. Besides, the majority of them have started their activities o4ering licenciate degrees only in “chalk and blackboard”, disciplines, such as law, psychology, social work and business administration. In many cases their teaching sta4 are professors of public universities in need to improve their monthly income, or practicing professionals who want to communicate their knowledge and experience to the younger generations.
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However, there are signals suggesting that the situation is changing. Although still covering a limited number of knowledge areas, some of the newly created private universities are adding research components to their teaching programs. Traditional complex universities are undergoing a process of adaptation to global and national societal transformations derived from the convergence of the predominant role now being played by knowledge, the new complexities of national and global systems, and the crisis on governance posed by a new sense of citizenship. 2. Research and current trends in knowledge production The historical heterogeneity of the LAC countries is also reMected in the characteristics and development of their university and scienti3c systems. With that caveat in mind, some common trends in the development of scienti3c and technological research can be identi3ed. Responses to those conMicting pressures tend to converge towards certain major lines: reinforcement of high level post graduate scienti3c and technical training; attempts to establish closer links with business and industry, new forms of relationship with the central government as well as with local governments, relatively less government participation in the 3nancing of public universities, generalization of evaluation and accountability. 2.1. The role played by universities in the generation of knowledge Investment in R&D: Universities have been the main producers of scienti3c knowledge 1 in the region. The question raised now is whether they continue playing that role, who are the other knowledge producers, how do knowledge producers relate among themselves and with knowledge users, which factors are a4ecting those relationships, and how can those factors be reinforced if they are positive, or eliminated if they are negative, etc. A 3rst indicator available for comparative studies is national investment in research and development (R&D) and in scienti3c and technological activities (STA). 2 Total R&D plus S&TA investment of the LAC countries amounted to more than US$ 15 billions in 1999. While still low if compared to Canada alone (US 12 billions only in R&D), not to mention the US (US $ 250 billions), the region’s investment had a 70% growth during the last decade, that is twice as fast the R&D investment growth of the European Union (32%) during the same period, and as fast as the rates of growth of the USA, Canada, Spain and Japan. However, the European Union and other developed countries continue investing proportions of their GDP three, four and even 3ve times larger than the LAC countries relative average investment. Average investment in R&D by the LAC countries was 0.59% of the GDP in 1999 and it has remained stable through the decade. A country by country analysis shows that 1
Data in this section is based on Red Iberoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnolog(Ga -RICYT- Novedades, http:www.ricyt.edu.ar/estadociencia/html. 2 De3nitions of R&D and of STA are taken from The Frascati Manual, OECD, 1993.
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only Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica and Chile had investments rates higher than the regional average in 1999, the 3rst three having invested over 0.75% of the GDP, and the fourth reaching 0.63% of it. None of the other countries reached the regional average. R&D personnel: A second indicator is the number of S&T personnel. Taken as a whole, research in science and technology in the LAC countries is low compared to the fully developed countries but relatively high when the comparison is made with other developing regions, and even with some developed countries. The 1990 –1999 period shows a 21% growth in the number researchers, a rate that is similar to those of Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the US during the same years. The LAC countries have succeeded in increasing their absolute numbers of researchers as well as in maintaining their proportion in a growing labour force, but the gap between them and the developed world in relation to the proportion of researchers in the labour force has widened. Sources of R&D expenditure: The most noteworthy characteristic of the LAC countries in this respect is the key role of the state in the 3nance of research. Almost two thirds of it comes from the public budget, and only one third from business 3rms. This is the opposite to the high relative importance of the business sector in R&D 3nancing in Japan (73%), the US (66%), or the European Union (54%). Higher education institutions still play the most decisive role by executing 42% of those activities in 1999. Nevertheless, perhaps signaling the emergence of a trend towards less university participation, that percentage is 10 points lower than in 1994. A less marked decline in their direct execution of R&D activities was experienced by non-academic public research institutions. On the contrary, the private business sector increased their participation from 20% to 36% during the same period. An analysis of the role played by the universities in the generation of knowledge shows di4erent trends by disciplines, around 57% of the research projects were in the area of the biological sciences, followed by chemistry (15%) and physics (10%). RICYD (see footnote 1) 3gures show that there was a 70% increase in the number of Master Degree graduates through the decade. An even faster growth was experienced in the number of doctorates: by 1999 there were 90% more doctorates, and 32% more doctorates in natural and exact sciences than in 1990. 2.2. Scienti c outputs The analysis of the scienti3c production of the LAC countries as it is reMected in scienti3c publications leads to the conclusion that the region as a whole makes a very modest contribution to the scienti3c mainstream (see footnote 1). Only 24,000 of the 946,000 publications registered in the Science Citation Index (SCI) 1998, that is, 2.5% of the total, were originated in the LAC countries. Scienti3c research in the region is highly concentrated in a few number of countries. In 1998 Brazil produced around 50% of all the Latin American scienti3c publications registered in the main databases. Furthermore, the addition of the contributions made by Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile to those of Brazil show that 90% of the total Latin American production comes from those six countries.
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The picture with regard to R&D in the region is not purely negative. There has been a growth in the number of R&D personnel as well as in that of people with advanced degrees in scienti3c disciplines. Further there has been a fairly rapid increase in the number of publications included in worldwide distributed scienti3c publications indexes. However, despite these advances, relative investment in R&D remains very low in the region. A regional strategy for strengthening scienti3c and technological research should give priority to help economically and socially more advanced countries to increase their investment in research and development. 2.3. Scienti c and technological research outside the universities There is a trend towards less absolute demand for national technological innovation, and for relatively more demand for short-term techno-scienti3c advice. The level of R&D in the region has been greatly inhibited by the fact that most 3rms in the region are small and lack the resources necessary to fund R&D investment. Further, the globalization of productive processes has considerably increased the number of 3rms operating on line with the main oSce and with licensing 3rms abroad, rather than using locally developed technology. Finally, in the industrial sector the new 3rms have discontinued or reduced R&D e4orts, and increased the utilization of imported technological inputs and foreign technological assistance. In other words, the trend is towards less absolute demand for national technological innovation, and for relatively more demand for short-term techno-scienti3c advice. In sum, unless corrective measures are taken, the techno-scienti3c gap between developed countries and the LAC countries will continue growing, and the role of the higher education institutions in scienti3c and technical knowledge production will increase in relative terms. However, for it to grow in absolute terms, which is what really matters, a considerable increase of funds will be necessary. 2.4. The state of university–industry cooperation and research For the reasons already given, the globalization of industrial activities conspires against closer links between university research and national industries. The increasing recognition of the need to strengthen university–industry cooperation is stimulating innovative institutional arrangements between the two. Examples of such arrangements are the Bureau for Research Development of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the National Laboratories for Research and Services (LANAIS) of the National University of Buenos Aires. 3 More generally speaking, in most complex universities of the region the faculties or schools of Agriculture, Engineering, Economics and, to a lesser degree, Social Sciences, provide consultancy services to the private sector, as well as specialized applied research centers include cooperation with the private sector as one of their objectives. Beyond attempts by particular universities to establish closer links with industry and the private sector, some countries have created applied research institutions serving as 3
http://serpiente.dgsca.unam.mx
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links between universities and public and private 3rms. One example of that type of institutions is the “Chile Foundation”. 2.5. Intellectual property issues The globalization process a4ecting national economies and technologies, and the increasing importance of scienti3c and technological inventions for development, are contributing to put intellectual property rights (including patent laws, trademark and copyright laws) as one of the main international issues, and potentially one of the most conMictive ones. 4 Fully industrialized countries concentrate most of the world scienti3c-technological research, and have an interest in protecting their inventions and innovations. Developing countries contribute only marginally to scienti3c inventions and technological innovations. With regard to intellectual property, developing countries’ main interest is to have access, at feasible costs, to products resulting from new inventions. However, currently most patents protect advances made in industrial countries, and licensing fees for product development based on new inventions are often prohibitively high (see footnote 4). Many developing economies believe that they should receive the technology transferred at lower charges and with less restrictions over use, and also that a greater quantum of useful technology should have been transferred to them. A 3rst rather obvious consideration to make is that in any particular country new technologies derive either from domestic innovative projects or from acquisition from abroad (technology transfer). What di4ers between countries is the relative importance of one or the other source of new technologies. Among developed countries technological innovations are most often than not nationally produced. Developing countries can be classi3ed into di4erent categories depending their ability for domestic innovation (Ladas, 1975). 5 The poorest among them use only technological transfers. An intermediate category is the largest group of countries of moderate economic development and a slow rate of improvement in technical ability. In these countries both domestic innovations and technological transfers are present, but the latter are quantitatively and qualitatively more important. Finally, there is a group of advanced developing countries with signi3cant technological capabilities, where both domestic innovations and technological transfers are supporting technological changes. Data available for the LAC countries show a clear trend towards an increment of technological transfers as the main channel for improving national technology. The number of patent applications requested by residents in those countries did not change from around 10,000 during the past decade. On the contrary, those submitted by non-residents increased from 20,000 in 1990 to 31,000 in 1999. Around 10,000 of those applications were approved, 84% of which had been submitted by non-residents. To modify that trend requires a lot more than a sliding scale for licensing agreements or subsidies given by international organizations to help poor countries to purchase 4
As The Task Force on Higher Education and Society (2000, p. 78) reminds us, the World Science Conference in Budapest was dominated by intellectual property issues. 5 As cited by Ruiz-Tagle (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 20).
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licenses, as some have proposed (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 78). The need is for a new international property rights regime. For progress to be made in the de3nition of a new international intellectual property rights regime, a common ground between the opposing views of developed and developing countries should be found. One possible solution is the adoption of a “di4usion-oriented perspective” (Ergas, 1987). 6 A di4usion-oriented policy is that which seeks to provide, through cooperative processes between developed and developing countries, a broadly based capacity for disseminating and encouraging technological change.
3. Institutional aspects 3.1. Research as an issue of institutional governance and management 3.1.1. The institutionalized science and technology system in Latin America and the Caribbean Practically without exceptions, countries in the LAC region have institutionalized a series of public organisms in charge of promoting, 3nancing and supervising scienti3c and technological research. The speci3c way in which that formalization takes place varies depending on the political and government structure and on di4erent views of the best way to make the system function e4ectively. However, there are suScient common elements among them as to allow speaking of a fairly similar science and technology system. The core of the system is the national version of an ONACYT, the Spanish abbreviation for National Organization for Science and Technology (CONICET in Argentina, NCST in Barbados, CNPq in Brazil, CONICYT in various countries, etc.). Depending on the country, these ONACYTs combine political and normative functions with strategic functions, or concentrate only in the latter. In all cases the function of executing and implementing scienti3c and technological projects is assigned to external organizations, such as university researchers and higher education research institutions, public and private research and technology institutes, laboratories or centers, etc. 3.1.2. Some comments on the university management of scienti c research The second level to analyze research, as an issue of institutional governance and management is that of individual universities. Even more so than at the national system level, this second level requires to examine both the formal organization for scienti3c research adopted by the universities (disciplinary departments, interdisciplinary institutes, research committees, publications committees, etc.) and the informal mechanisms to protect research from internal pressures and conMicts. Information on this is scarce 6
As quoted in Ruiz-Tagle (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000); Ruiz-Tagle V., Pablo (1995). Domestic technological innovation and technological transfer to developing countries. Yale Law School, New Haven, CT (p. 5).
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and unsystematic. Because of this nothing but educated guesses can be expected on this subject. An overview of recent modernization processes taking place in our universities allows to identify an already non-signi3cant number of changes which, taken as a whole, show that our universities are already transforming themselves: (a) The traditional humanistic emphasis is now giving way to technological careers. (b) Training is being drastically revised in order to accommodate changes in the labour market requiring more specialization, but at the same time Mexibility. (c) A proliferation of more Mexible kinds of academic units has increased the number of them: research centers, small research institutes, research nuclei, etc. (d) Increasing demands on academic sta4 and university research centers for consultancy and advisory services to be linked to more traditional teaching, research and outreach activities. (e) In response to an increasing demand, post graduate courses (M.A and Ph.D.) are being organized. (f) Open competition, and evaluation by independent peer review groups have become the institutionalized access to national and international research funds. (g) Scienti3c and technological academic career and promotion are now based mostly on research and publications rather than on teaching. Most of those innovations directly or indirectly a4ect the traditional structure and organization of complex universities. Taken as a whole, they can be considered as part of a modernization process that has as a goal what Gibbons has called “Mode 1” of knowledge production, that is, a disciplinary structure of knowledge, together with “a set of rules for accrediting new researchers, selecting new university faculty, and criteria for their advancement within academic life” (Gibbons, 1998). The recognition that we are participating in a global knowledge society, and that development is in great part based on technological innovations and adaptations, has had two immediate consequences. The 3rst is higher social legitimation of scienti3c research by the political elites and the professional strata, if not by all the population. The second is stronger public and private demand for technological knowledge as a basis for decision-making. That demand is concretely expressed in requests to universities for consultancies and technical advice, coming from the state, the private sector, and also from the “third sector”. Most often than, not the demanding parties expect concrete solutions to concrete problems. One of the main substantive challenge our universities are facing now is how to harmonize disciplinary specialization with multidisciplinary search for answers to relevant problems. Their need to adapt themselves to a new social and economic context is a4ecting the traditional institutional organization by disciplinary faculties of Latin American universities. To put it brieMy, societal problems and their solutions require the participation of experts from di4erent disciplines. In the region, as elsewhere, the teaching of graduate seminars by professors that have been or are involved in research projects, as well as the hiring of graduate students
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as research assistants, are usual ways of linking research to teaching. The increasing numbers of students pursuing masters and Ph.D programmes in the region have reinforced the importance of this channel for the transfer of research 3ndings. More recently, internet and, in general, information and communication technologies, are playing an important role in the di4usion of research 3ndings, and have become important teaching tools. However, the LAC countries are still far from making full use of the opportunities o4ered by the technological revolution. 3.2. Assessing research quality Research quality is assessed at two moments. The 3rst is when submitting a research project for evaluation in an open contest. In the LAC countries, open internal contests with peer review groups are now the procedure established by many universities to assign research funds coming from their own budget. A similar procedure is followed by national science and technology organizations (ONICYTS). The second takes place when the research project is 3nished and its results are communicated to the academic community. The scarcity of research funds has led to very tough competition among researchers, as a consequence of which objective evaluation has become a condition for the legitimacy of the whole system. The assessment of the quality of research 3ndings is mainly done by the scienti3c community. In countries with a small number of quali3ed scientists competing for scarce funds and who know each other well, absolute independence may be diScult to get. However, ONICYTS have developed procedures that attempt to minimize the risk of bias. At present, although the quality indicators may vary from one to another scienti3c discipline, the predominant trend is one derived from basic sciences, namely, international recognition via ISI, the Science Citation Index and other indices. A secondary criterion is publications in regional or national scienti3c journals with editorial committees. Their circulation as working documents or in textbook form is very rarely considered in itself a quality indicator. 3.3. Research careers Research careers are now closely linked to a number of quality indicators: academic degrees, recognized publications, winning of research proposals subjects to jury evaluation, active participation in international seminars. The most prestigious research universities have established a formal hierarchical system close to the one used by US universities, starting with the category of instructor and following with those of assistant professor, associate professor and full professor. In those cases, committees of full professors by faculties and at the level of the central government evaluate the academic production of researchers and propose or not their promotion to the next category. Basic remunerations are linked to academic category. They are most of the time considered to be low. To compensate this and as stimuli for research, the practice of assigning honoraria for researchers in project budgets is gaining wide acceptance. In
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the cases of the social sciences and of more technical disciplines, like engineering or economics, consultancies to private 3rms or the government help to increase researchers remunerations. The preference given to research over teaching in research universities has created disincentives for predominantly teaching careers. As it was mentioned earlier, to correct this e4orts are now being made to establish di4erent paths towards academic advancement and, eventually, seniority: one for those research-oriented professors, and the other for those who prefer teaching.
4. Funding issues A 3rst basic consideration when introducing funding issues in the discussion of university research, is the character of public goods universities have traditionally had in Latin America. State 3nancing of public universities and state contributions to the 3nancing of complex private universities have been a consequence of the recognition that it is in the public interest to 3nance them. Starting around 1975 and until the beginning of the last decade, the ups and downs of structural reforms aiming at the establishment of an economy more centered on the private sector and open to external competition, a4ected negatively state contributions to public universities. As a consequence of that, the average 3scal contribution to universities declined from around 1% to only 0.60% of GDP (Lavados Montes, 2000). Parallel to that relative decline in 3nancial terms a, at times, heated debate on the role of public and private universities, including in it the 3nancing of higher education, was taking place (Riveros unpublished). In the context of those general structural reforms, education was seen by many as one more area to undergo structural changes (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 25). Among the changes considered to be needed were the opening of higher education to the private sector, and the requirement of tuition fees by both private and public higher education institutions. At present a more middle of the road position tends to predominate. Many are now accepting that eScient regulatory and accreditation mechanisms would correct in great part market failures, and take proper care of the need to open the system to everybody with the required quali3cations. However, a condition for this to happen is that the system be state-regulated and that both public and private universities coexist. Furthermore, “public education must be of a quality level enough to constitute the standard of the system, and able to introduce real innovation”. A review of the sources of university funding reveals at least 3ve sources of them (Lavados Montes, 2000): (a) State funds transferred mostly but not exclusively to public universities (b) Competitive funds provided by international and national funding agencies • Research development funds—these are assigned for priority areas. Projects are submitted by institutions;
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• Research support funds: they 3nance scienti3c and technological research; • Technological development funds: in general, they are intended to stimulate industry–university contracts for the development of innovative projects (c) Tuition fees: Uncommon a few years ago among public universities, and still resisted by some of them, tuition fees are now beginning to have more acceptance for public and not only private universities (d) Contracts for technical assistance, technological transfer projects, permanent education, etc. (e) International cooperation, particularly through credits from international banks, such as IDB and the WB. These credits are usually for 3nancing infrastructures and training rather than research projects. A mention was just made of the most common types of costs covered by each source of funds. I shall now make reference to some negative consequences derived from the use or one or another of those sources. 7 Success in bidding for competitive funds and in establishing a line of research, as well as publications of their 3ndings in mainstream journals have become the principal factors taken into account for promotion and academic prestige. Under those circumstances, senior researchers try to avoid undergraduate teaching or delegate it to their assistants. The increasing 3nancing of studies and research via contracts with private 3rms or some government agencies has shown to cover short time and applied projects. In this case, it is high quality research that is usually adversely a4ected. Furthermore, undergraduate and graduate teaching can also be a4ected when salaries of researchers are increased with honoraria for participating in those projects. In sum, none of the available sources of 3nancing is free from having positive and negative consequences for the university functioning. Instead of ignoring them, a policy for the development of science in the universities should take into account all the possible sources of funds, and use them in an integrated form so as to maximize their positive impact. 5. Summary and Conclusions In approaching this review I have followed two basic guidelines. The 3rst was that the analysis of university scienti3c and technological research and management needed to include long-time trends a4ecting university structure and functions. The second that those trends are not the same in all LAC countries and, consequently, that intra-regional country di4erences should be speci3ed. Our review has put in evidence four major trends characterizing the recent evolution of university systems in the LAC countries: (1) the rapid increase in the number of institutions and of students; 7
For the development of this subject I will be based on Lavados, Jaime, “The Management of New Forms of Financing Science”, submitted to Forum II of the Science Conference (Budapest, June 26 –July 1, 1999. I thank Professor Lavados for having made available his notes for the purposes of this paper).
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(2) the “privatization” of the systems, as a consequence of the growth in the number of private universities; (3) a di4erentiation process as to the types of universities by degree of complexity; and (4) a modernization process along the lines of Gibbons’ Mode 1. Those are positive trends when attempting to further scienti3c and technological research. The evidence gathered shows that scienti3c research continues being mostly an academic activity, in large part done by complex (research) universities, and that a few universities concentrate the majority of research projects, both nationally and in the whole region. From a strategic perspective, those research universities should be invited to play a major role in a regionally concerted e4ort to improve the level of scienti3c and technological research and teaching of other universities. The implementation of a regional science and technology research policy will not be possible without the fuller utilization and reinforcement of scienti3c networks and collaborative programs. Among the 3rst, the oldest is the Latin American Biology Network (RELAB) created in 1975 with the sponsorship of UNESCO and PNUD. The network is composed of 14 national members, six regional members and two associate members. One of its better known programs is the Regional Program on Biotechnology which, on its turn, contributed to the establishment of the Argentinean-Brazilian Center on Biotechnology (CABBIO). In the area of Physics, the Latin American Network of Physics Associations was created in 1994, followed two years later by the Ibero American Union of Physics Associations. Similar networks exist in the areas of astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, etc. 8 The analysis of a series of research and development indicators has con3rmed the opinion that more vigorous e4orts will be needed for the region to shorten the distance separating it from the developed countries. Although some progress has been made, it is far from achieving that goal, and it is very unevenly distributed among countries. The region as a whole had a reasonable increase in the number of researchers during the last decade (21%). During the same period the number of Master and Ph.D. degree graduates experienced rapid rates of growth, but changes were much faster in the social sciences than in the natural and exact sciences. A research and development policy should aim at balancing the growth of both categories of sciences. More generally speaking and having in mind the high concentration of Ph.D.s in a few number of countries, other countries should give priority to 3ll that gap by means of scholarships to pursue studies at the Ph.D. level. The analysis made here does not allow to be optimistic about the possible growth of research outside the universities: factors derived from globalization processes as well as from the industrial sector structure in the region, conspire against the feasibility of
8
For a more detailed description of the existing networks, see Cetto, Ana ar(Ga and Vessuri, Hebe, America Latina y el Caribe. In: UNESCO, Informe Mundial sobre la Ciencia 1998, UNESCO:Santillana Ediciones (pp. 57–77).
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drastically changing the dominant role now played by the universities. What does seem possible is to strengthen university-industry cooperation and research. Innovation and technological transfers are strongly a4ected by intellectual property legislation and practice. Developed countries on one side, and developing countries on the other, have quite distinct views on how to deal with those issues. On the basis of that, a more wide-encompassing discussion than present debates on particular problems should be promoted, as part of current e4orts to strengthen scienti3c and technological development in third world countries. Our review has shown a university system in a rapid process of modernization. Research and development policies will unavoidably have to include measures to improve scienti3c and technological research. In that e4ort the search for coordination and complementarity between present modernizing trends and new more Mexible multidisciplinary academic units with a policy orientation become crucial. For that reason and for the central role research universities play in scienti3c and technological knowledge production, their active participation in the policy discussion and formulation process is a necessary condition for its legitimacy and eventual success. References Ergas, H. (1987). The importance of technology policy. In P. Dasgupta, & P. Stoneman (Eds.), Economic policy and technological performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garc(Ga Guadilla, C. (2000). Higher education research in a transformation context. In U. Teichler, & J. Sadlak (Eds.), Higher education research. Its relationships to policy and practice. (p. 109). UK: Pergamon Press. Gibbon, M. (1998). Higher education relevance in the 21st century (p. 4). The World Bank, Education. Ladas, S. (1975). Patents, trademarks and related rights: National and international protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lavados Montes, I. (2000). Financiamiento Universitario: Antecedentes y Perspectivas. Revista Estudios Sociales No. 105, Third Trimestre. Riveros, L. (unpublished). New universities for the centennial challenge: A view from the University of Chile, unpublished. The Task Force on Higher Education and Society (2000). Higher education in developing countries. Peril and promise, Washington, DC: The World Bank. UNESCO (1999). Statistical Yearbook, table 11.S.5.
Regional overview: Latin America and the Caribbean Ra(ul Urz(ua∗ Centro de Analysis de Politicas Publicas, Universidad de Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 265 Torre 15, 1303 O cina, Santiago, Chile
1. Introduction Knowledge production and dissemination via research, teaching and outreach activities have traditionally been the main functions assigned to the universities all over the world. Information and knowledge has become the main source of productivity and power, as well as of personal and social development. Evidence shows that inter- and intra-country inequalities have been increased through the globalization process. Now and in the future sustainable economic, social and political development will depend mostly of the knowledge production and knowledge assimilation capacity of individual countries, and of the world system as a whole. A process of diversi3cation of knowledge producing institutions is taking place in the industrialized world. Less developed countries still follow the traditional pattern of knowledge production centered on the universities but, the semi-monopoly of scienti3c and technological research is now being a4ected by attempts to establish public or private 3nanced research centers independent from universities, as well as by the role played by research and development branches of international and transnational corporations operating in the region. At the same time, the growth in the number of secondary school graduates in the total population of more advanced third world countries has increased the demand for access to higher education as well as for more diversi3ed types of higher education institutions and curricula. Di4erences in economic growth and human development levels and inter-relations, plus long-term socio-demographic trends, make impossible to consider the LAC countries as a homogeneous whole. On the contrary, over and above historical, language, and cultural commonalties that provide a feeling of belonging to a common region, heterogeneity is as strong as homogeneity. The recognition of that heterogeneity is essential when dealing with what are considered to be common problems but that, under ∗
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closer scrutiny, turn out to be di4erent in their characteristics as well as in their context. The need to improve university scienti3c and technological research is one case in point. The nature of the problem, its policy priority compared to other problems, and the opportunities available for formulating and actually implementing policies and programs, clearly suggest the need to include regional heterogeneity as a factor to be taken into account when making recommendations for the region. Generally speaking, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have been making serious e4orts to meet the higher education challenge. The second half of the XXth century saw the rapid expansion of educational systems in the region. Though the pace varied from country to country, there was a marked reduction in illiteracy and the reach of secondary and tertiary education increased tremendously. A closer view shows large disparities among the LAC countries. The most recent comparative data available shows a 18.4% gross tertiary enrollment ratio for the year 1996. That expansion of tertiary education is mostly due to the explosive growth in the number of private tertiary education institutions, a process particularly notorious in the cases of Chile and Panama. What can be expected for the future is a much higher demand for tertiary education, derived from changes in age composition, larger numbers of secondary level graduates, and higher numbers of women applying for admission to tertiary level educational institutions. A major challenge is to substantially improve the quality of education o4ered to all students. There is consensus in the region that the expansion of education has not gone hand in hand with quality improvements. Access to good quality education at all levels is being segmented by socioeconomic brackets, urban–rural di4erences, and ethnic origins. In recent decades, the number of higher education students increased from around 500,000 in the 1970s, to over 7 million in the last decade. The increasing economic importance of knowledge and skills and the marked income di4erences between professionals and non-professional in the region are two additional and interrelated factors for a much higher demand for tertiary education in the region. The recent expansion of the higher education system in the region is in great part due to the creation of institutions that do not have the status of universities, such as polytechnic institutes, technical centers or institutes, teacher-training institutes, etc. They represent 85% of the total number of establishments, and are equally divided between public and private institutions (Garc(Ga Guadilla, 2000, Table 8.2). (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, pp. 26 –36.) However, the growth of enrolment rates has not been without imbalances. In the 3rst place, as we already mentioned, they are still very far from those of developed countries. Secondly, due in great part to still unsolved inequities at the primary and secondary levels, high-income groups are still over represented in university enrolments. (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 28). On the positive side, discrimination against women is no longer a serious problem in higher education enrolment: female enrolment is now more than four times larger than in 1970 and has reached almost the same level of male enrolment in that educational level (20 for males and 19 for females) (UNESCO, 1999, Table II.S.5.).
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The higher education system as a whole has thus become much more diversi3ed than in the recent past. During the last decade the number of students attending private universities grew from 30% to 45% of the total number of university students, and it should have reached one half of all the university enrolment the year 2000. Growth in the university system has gone together with a di4erentiation process. One of the now relevant di4erentiating factors is the internal complexity shown by individual universities. We may identify four major types of universities according to their internal complexity: (a) Complex universities where systematic research and undergraduate and graduate teaching activities in a signi3cant number of knowledge 3elds are conducted. (b) “Complete” universities. They give strong emphasis to professional training and o4er programs in the majority of the knowledge 3elds. (c) Incomplete universities. They o4er only teaching programs in a limited number of knowledge areas. (d) Specialized universities with teaching programs in only one area of knowledge. University functions and types of universities The demand for more teaching institutions has brought about a much clearer distinction between research universities and others devoted only to teaching. That is not necessarily a negative development since, the newly created private universities have alleviated the teaching task of research universities, and at least potentially allowed their full time professors to devote part of their time to research. The emergence of new institutional actors and of a more complex division of labour in the higher education system is clari3ed when the di4erent functions universities are playing are put on the table. Traditionally, the research, teaching and extension or outreach activities functions are considered three basic and essential university functions. That distinction continues being useful, provided that recognition is given to the empirical fact that not all institutions recognized as universities ful3ll equally well or give equal importance to those three functions. Nevertheless, the increasing internal complexity brought about by a more diversi3ed higher education system may justify the attempt to introduce other functional criteria, eventually to be used jointly with the more traditional one. One of the tentative conclusions one can suggest is that e4orts to strengthen scienti3c research within the LAC university system should be based on institutions that are already in the category of complex universities. Their main function and the one they cannot delegate is to contribute to the creation of scienti3c knowledge. Most of the new private universities fall in the category “incomplete”, that is, they do not o4er postgraduate degrees nor they conduct research projects. Besides, the majority of them have started their activities o4ering licenciate degrees only in “chalk and blackboard”, disciplines, such as law, psychology, social work and business administration. In many cases their teaching sta4 are professors of public universities in need to improve their monthly income, or practicing professionals who want to communicate their knowledge and experience to the younger generations.
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However, there are signals suggesting that the situation is changing. Although still covering a limited number of knowledge areas, some of the newly created private universities are adding research components to their teaching programs. Traditional complex universities are undergoing a process of adaptation to global and national societal transformations derived from the convergence of the predominant role now being played by knowledge, the new complexities of national and global systems, and the crisis on governance posed by a new sense of citizenship. 2. Research and current trends in knowledge production The historical heterogeneity of the LAC countries is also reMected in the characteristics and development of their university and scienti3c systems. With that caveat in mind, some common trends in the development of scienti3c and technological research can be identi3ed. Responses to those conMicting pressures tend to converge towards certain major lines: reinforcement of high level post graduate scienti3c and technical training; attempts to establish closer links with business and industry, new forms of relationship with the central government as well as with local governments, relatively less government participation in the 3nancing of public universities, generalization of evaluation and accountability. 2.1. The role played by universities in the generation of knowledge Investment in R&D: Universities have been the main producers of scienti3c knowledge 1 in the region. The question raised now is whether they continue playing that role, who are the other knowledge producers, how do knowledge producers relate among themselves and with knowledge users, which factors are a4ecting those relationships, and how can those factors be reinforced if they are positive, or eliminated if they are negative, etc. A 3rst indicator available for comparative studies is national investment in research and development (R&D) and in scienti3c and technological activities (STA). 2 Total R&D plus S&TA investment of the LAC countries amounted to more than US$ 15 billions in 1999. While still low if compared to Canada alone (US 12 billions only in R&D), not to mention the US (US $ 250 billions), the region’s investment had a 70% growth during the last decade, that is twice as fast the R&D investment growth of the European Union (32%) during the same period, and as fast as the rates of growth of the USA, Canada, Spain and Japan. However, the European Union and other developed countries continue investing proportions of their GDP three, four and even 3ve times larger than the LAC countries relative average investment. Average investment in R&D by the LAC countries was 0.59% of the GDP in 1999 and it has remained stable through the decade. A country by country analysis shows that 1
Data in this section is based on Red Iberoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnolog(Ga -RICYT- Novedades, http:www.ricyt.edu.ar/estadociencia/html. 2 De3nitions of R&D and of STA are taken from The Frascati Manual, OECD, 1993.
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only Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica and Chile had investments rates higher than the regional average in 1999, the 3rst three having invested over 0.75% of the GDP, and the fourth reaching 0.63% of it. None of the other countries reached the regional average. R&D personnel: A second indicator is the number of S&T personnel. Taken as a whole, research in science and technology in the LAC countries is low compared to the fully developed countries but relatively high when the comparison is made with other developing regions, and even with some developed countries. The 1990 –1999 period shows a 21% growth in the number researchers, a rate that is similar to those of Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the US during the same years. The LAC countries have succeeded in increasing their absolute numbers of researchers as well as in maintaining their proportion in a growing labour force, but the gap between them and the developed world in relation to the proportion of researchers in the labour force has widened. Sources of R&D expenditure: The most noteworthy characteristic of the LAC countries in this respect is the key role of the state in the 3nance of research. Almost two thirds of it comes from the public budget, and only one third from business 3rms. This is the opposite to the high relative importance of the business sector in R&D 3nancing in Japan (73%), the US (66%), or the European Union (54%). Higher education institutions still play the most decisive role by executing 42% of those activities in 1999. Nevertheless, perhaps signaling the emergence of a trend towards less university participation, that percentage is 10 points lower than in 1994. A less marked decline in their direct execution of R&D activities was experienced by non-academic public research institutions. On the contrary, the private business sector increased their participation from 20% to 36% during the same period. An analysis of the role played by the universities in the generation of knowledge shows di4erent trends by disciplines, around 57% of the research projects were in the area of the biological sciences, followed by chemistry (15%) and physics (10%). RICYD (see footnote 1) 3gures show that there was a 70% increase in the number of Master Degree graduates through the decade. An even faster growth was experienced in the number of doctorates: by 1999 there were 90% more doctorates, and 32% more doctorates in natural and exact sciences than in 1990. 2.2. Scienti c outputs The analysis of the scienti3c production of the LAC countries as it is reMected in scienti3c publications leads to the conclusion that the region as a whole makes a very modest contribution to the scienti3c mainstream (see footnote 1). Only 24,000 of the 946,000 publications registered in the Science Citation Index (SCI) 1998, that is, 2.5% of the total, were originated in the LAC countries. Scienti3c research in the region is highly concentrated in a few number of countries. In 1998 Brazil produced around 50% of all the Latin American scienti3c publications registered in the main databases. Furthermore, the addition of the contributions made by Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile to those of Brazil show that 90% of the total Latin American production comes from those six countries.
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The picture with regard to R&D in the region is not purely negative. There has been a growth in the number of R&D personnel as well as in that of people with advanced degrees in scienti3c disciplines. Further there has been a fairly rapid increase in the number of publications included in worldwide distributed scienti3c publications indexes. However, despite these advances, relative investment in R&D remains very low in the region. A regional strategy for strengthening scienti3c and technological research should give priority to help economically and socially more advanced countries to increase their investment in research and development. 2.3. Scienti c and technological research outside the universities There is a trend towards less absolute demand for national technological innovation, and for relatively more demand for short-term techno-scienti3c advice. The level of R&D in the region has been greatly inhibited by the fact that most 3rms in the region are small and lack the resources necessary to fund R&D investment. Further, the globalization of productive processes has considerably increased the number of 3rms operating on line with the main oSce and with licensing 3rms abroad, rather than using locally developed technology. Finally, in the industrial sector the new 3rms have discontinued or reduced R&D e4orts, and increased the utilization of imported technological inputs and foreign technological assistance. In other words, the trend is towards less absolute demand for national technological innovation, and for relatively more demand for short-term techno-scienti3c advice. In sum, unless corrective measures are taken, the techno-scienti3c gap between developed countries and the LAC countries will continue growing, and the role of the higher education institutions in scienti3c and technical knowledge production will increase in relative terms. However, for it to grow in absolute terms, which is what really matters, a considerable increase of funds will be necessary. 2.4. The state of university–industry cooperation and research For the reasons already given, the globalization of industrial activities conspires against closer links between university research and national industries. The increasing recognition of the need to strengthen university–industry cooperation is stimulating innovative institutional arrangements between the two. Examples of such arrangements are the Bureau for Research Development of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the National Laboratories for Research and Services (LANAIS) of the National University of Buenos Aires. 3 More generally speaking, in most complex universities of the region the faculties or schools of Agriculture, Engineering, Economics and, to a lesser degree, Social Sciences, provide consultancy services to the private sector, as well as specialized applied research centers include cooperation with the private sector as one of their objectives. Beyond attempts by particular universities to establish closer links with industry and the private sector, some countries have created applied research institutions serving as 3
http://serpiente.dgsca.unam.mx
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links between universities and public and private 3rms. One example of that type of institutions is the “Chile Foundation”. 2.5. Intellectual property issues The globalization process a4ecting national economies and technologies, and the increasing importance of scienti3c and technological inventions for development, are contributing to put intellectual property rights (including patent laws, trademark and copyright laws) as one of the main international issues, and potentially one of the most conMictive ones. 4 Fully industrialized countries concentrate most of the world scienti3c-technological research, and have an interest in protecting their inventions and innovations. Developing countries contribute only marginally to scienti3c inventions and technological innovations. With regard to intellectual property, developing countries’ main interest is to have access, at feasible costs, to products resulting from new inventions. However, currently most patents protect advances made in industrial countries, and licensing fees for product development based on new inventions are often prohibitively high (see footnote 4). Many developing economies believe that they should receive the technology transferred at lower charges and with less restrictions over use, and also that a greater quantum of useful technology should have been transferred to them. A 3rst rather obvious consideration to make is that in any particular country new technologies derive either from domestic innovative projects or from acquisition from abroad (technology transfer). What di4ers between countries is the relative importance of one or the other source of new technologies. Among developed countries technological innovations are most often than not nationally produced. Developing countries can be classi3ed into di4erent categories depending their ability for domestic innovation (Ladas, 1975). 5 The poorest among them use only technological transfers. An intermediate category is the largest group of countries of moderate economic development and a slow rate of improvement in technical ability. In these countries both domestic innovations and technological transfers are present, but the latter are quantitatively and qualitatively more important. Finally, there is a group of advanced developing countries with signi3cant technological capabilities, where both domestic innovations and technological transfers are supporting technological changes. Data available for the LAC countries show a clear trend towards an increment of technological transfers as the main channel for improving national technology. The number of patent applications requested by residents in those countries did not change from around 10,000 during the past decade. On the contrary, those submitted by non-residents increased from 20,000 in 1990 to 31,000 in 1999. Around 10,000 of those applications were approved, 84% of which had been submitted by non-residents. To modify that trend requires a lot more than a sliding scale for licensing agreements or subsidies given by international organizations to help poor countries to purchase 4
As The Task Force on Higher Education and Society (2000, p. 78) reminds us, the World Science Conference in Budapest was dominated by intellectual property issues. 5 As cited by Ruiz-Tagle (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 20).
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licenses, as some have proposed (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 78). The need is for a new international property rights regime. For progress to be made in the de3nition of a new international intellectual property rights regime, a common ground between the opposing views of developed and developing countries should be found. One possible solution is the adoption of a “di4usion-oriented perspective” (Ergas, 1987). 6 A di4usion-oriented policy is that which seeks to provide, through cooperative processes between developed and developing countries, a broadly based capacity for disseminating and encouraging technological change.
3. Institutional aspects 3.1. Research as an issue of institutional governance and management 3.1.1. The institutionalized science and technology system in Latin America and the Caribbean Practically without exceptions, countries in the LAC region have institutionalized a series of public organisms in charge of promoting, 3nancing and supervising scienti3c and technological research. The speci3c way in which that formalization takes place varies depending on the political and government structure and on di4erent views of the best way to make the system function e4ectively. However, there are suScient common elements among them as to allow speaking of a fairly similar science and technology system. The core of the system is the national version of an ONACYT, the Spanish abbreviation for National Organization for Science and Technology (CONICET in Argentina, NCST in Barbados, CNPq in Brazil, CONICYT in various countries, etc.). Depending on the country, these ONACYTs combine political and normative functions with strategic functions, or concentrate only in the latter. In all cases the function of executing and implementing scienti3c and technological projects is assigned to external organizations, such as university researchers and higher education research institutions, public and private research and technology institutes, laboratories or centers, etc. 3.1.2. Some comments on the university management of scienti c research The second level to analyze research, as an issue of institutional governance and management is that of individual universities. Even more so than at the national system level, this second level requires to examine both the formal organization for scienti3c research adopted by the universities (disciplinary departments, interdisciplinary institutes, research committees, publications committees, etc.) and the informal mechanisms to protect research from internal pressures and conMicts. Information on this is scarce 6
As quoted in Ruiz-Tagle (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000); Ruiz-Tagle V., Pablo (1995). Domestic technological innovation and technological transfer to developing countries. Yale Law School, New Haven, CT (p. 5).
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and unsystematic. Because of this nothing but educated guesses can be expected on this subject. An overview of recent modernization processes taking place in our universities allows to identify an already non-signi3cant number of changes which, taken as a whole, show that our universities are already transforming themselves: (a) The traditional humanistic emphasis is now giving way to technological careers. (b) Training is being drastically revised in order to accommodate changes in the labour market requiring more specialization, but at the same time Mexibility. (c) A proliferation of more Mexible kinds of academic units has increased the number of them: research centers, small research institutes, research nuclei, etc. (d) Increasing demands on academic sta4 and university research centers for consultancy and advisory services to be linked to more traditional teaching, research and outreach activities. (e) In response to an increasing demand, post graduate courses (M.A and Ph.D.) are being organized. (f) Open competition, and evaluation by independent peer review groups have become the institutionalized access to national and international research funds. (g) Scienti3c and technological academic career and promotion are now based mostly on research and publications rather than on teaching. Most of those innovations directly or indirectly a4ect the traditional structure and organization of complex universities. Taken as a whole, they can be considered as part of a modernization process that has as a goal what Gibbons has called “Mode 1” of knowledge production, that is, a disciplinary structure of knowledge, together with “a set of rules for accrediting new researchers, selecting new university faculty, and criteria for their advancement within academic life” (Gibbons, 1998). The recognition that we are participating in a global knowledge society, and that development is in great part based on technological innovations and adaptations, has had two immediate consequences. The 3rst is higher social legitimation of scienti3c research by the political elites and the professional strata, if not by all the population. The second is stronger public and private demand for technological knowledge as a basis for decision-making. That demand is concretely expressed in requests to universities for consultancies and technical advice, coming from the state, the private sector, and also from the “third sector”. Most often than, not the demanding parties expect concrete solutions to concrete problems. One of the main substantive challenge our universities are facing now is how to harmonize disciplinary specialization with multidisciplinary search for answers to relevant problems. Their need to adapt themselves to a new social and economic context is a4ecting the traditional institutional organization by disciplinary faculties of Latin American universities. To put it brieMy, societal problems and their solutions require the participation of experts from di4erent disciplines. In the region, as elsewhere, the teaching of graduate seminars by professors that have been or are involved in research projects, as well as the hiring of graduate students
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as research assistants, are usual ways of linking research to teaching. The increasing numbers of students pursuing masters and Ph.D programmes in the region have reinforced the importance of this channel for the transfer of research 3ndings. More recently, internet and, in general, information and communication technologies, are playing an important role in the di4usion of research 3ndings, and have become important teaching tools. However, the LAC countries are still far from making full use of the opportunities o4ered by the technological revolution. 3.2. Assessing research quality Research quality is assessed at two moments. The 3rst is when submitting a research project for evaluation in an open contest. In the LAC countries, open internal contests with peer review groups are now the procedure established by many universities to assign research funds coming from their own budget. A similar procedure is followed by national science and technology organizations (ONICYTS). The second takes place when the research project is 3nished and its results are communicated to the academic community. The scarcity of research funds has led to very tough competition among researchers, as a consequence of which objective evaluation has become a condition for the legitimacy of the whole system. The assessment of the quality of research 3ndings is mainly done by the scienti3c community. In countries with a small number of quali3ed scientists competing for scarce funds and who know each other well, absolute independence may be diScult to get. However, ONICYTS have developed procedures that attempt to minimize the risk of bias. At present, although the quality indicators may vary from one to another scienti3c discipline, the predominant trend is one derived from basic sciences, namely, international recognition via ISI, the Science Citation Index and other indices. A secondary criterion is publications in regional or national scienti3c journals with editorial committees. Their circulation as working documents or in textbook form is very rarely considered in itself a quality indicator. 3.3. Research careers Research careers are now closely linked to a number of quality indicators: academic degrees, recognized publications, winning of research proposals subjects to jury evaluation, active participation in international seminars. The most prestigious research universities have established a formal hierarchical system close to the one used by US universities, starting with the category of instructor and following with those of assistant professor, associate professor and full professor. In those cases, committees of full professors by faculties and at the level of the central government evaluate the academic production of researchers and propose or not their promotion to the next category. Basic remunerations are linked to academic category. They are most of the time considered to be low. To compensate this and as stimuli for research, the practice of assigning honoraria for researchers in project budgets is gaining wide acceptance. In
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the cases of the social sciences and of more technical disciplines, like engineering or economics, consultancies to private 3rms or the government help to increase researchers remunerations. The preference given to research over teaching in research universities has created disincentives for predominantly teaching careers. As it was mentioned earlier, to correct this e4orts are now being made to establish di4erent paths towards academic advancement and, eventually, seniority: one for those research-oriented professors, and the other for those who prefer teaching.
4. Funding issues A 3rst basic consideration when introducing funding issues in the discussion of university research, is the character of public goods universities have traditionally had in Latin America. State 3nancing of public universities and state contributions to the 3nancing of complex private universities have been a consequence of the recognition that it is in the public interest to 3nance them. Starting around 1975 and until the beginning of the last decade, the ups and downs of structural reforms aiming at the establishment of an economy more centered on the private sector and open to external competition, a4ected negatively state contributions to public universities. As a consequence of that, the average 3scal contribution to universities declined from around 1% to only 0.60% of GDP (Lavados Montes, 2000). Parallel to that relative decline in 3nancial terms a, at times, heated debate on the role of public and private universities, including in it the 3nancing of higher education, was taking place (Riveros unpublished). In the context of those general structural reforms, education was seen by many as one more area to undergo structural changes (The Task Force on Higher Education and Society, 2000, p. 25). Among the changes considered to be needed were the opening of higher education to the private sector, and the requirement of tuition fees by both private and public higher education institutions. At present a more middle of the road position tends to predominate. Many are now accepting that eScient regulatory and accreditation mechanisms would correct in great part market failures, and take proper care of the need to open the system to everybody with the required quali3cations. However, a condition for this to happen is that the system be state-regulated and that both public and private universities coexist. Furthermore, “public education must be of a quality level enough to constitute the standard of the system, and able to introduce real innovation”. A review of the sources of university funding reveals at least 3ve sources of them (Lavados Montes, 2000): (a) State funds transferred mostly but not exclusively to public universities (b) Competitive funds provided by international and national funding agencies • Research development funds—these are assigned for priority areas. Projects are submitted by institutions;
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• Research support funds: they 3nance scienti3c and technological research; • Technological development funds: in general, they are intended to stimulate industry–university contracts for the development of innovative projects (c) Tuition fees: Uncommon a few years ago among public universities, and still resisted by some of them, tuition fees are now beginning to have more acceptance for public and not only private universities (d) Contracts for technical assistance, technological transfer projects, permanent education, etc. (e) International cooperation, particularly through credits from international banks, such as IDB and the WB. These credits are usually for 3nancing infrastructures and training rather than research projects. A mention was just made of the most common types of costs covered by each source of funds. I shall now make reference to some negative consequences derived from the use or one or another of those sources. 7 Success in bidding for competitive funds and in establishing a line of research, as well as publications of their 3ndings in mainstream journals have become the principal factors taken into account for promotion and academic prestige. Under those circumstances, senior researchers try to avoid undergraduate teaching or delegate it to their assistants. The increasing 3nancing of studies and research via contracts with private 3rms or some government agencies has shown to cover short time and applied projects. In this case, it is high quality research that is usually adversely a4ected. Furthermore, undergraduate and graduate teaching can also be a4ected when salaries of researchers are increased with honoraria for participating in those projects. In sum, none of the available sources of 3nancing is free from having positive and negative consequences for the university functioning. Instead of ignoring them, a policy for the development of science in the universities should take into account all the possible sources of funds, and use them in an integrated form so as to maximize their positive impact. 5. Summary and Conclusions In approaching this review I have followed two basic guidelines. The 3rst was that the analysis of university scienti3c and technological research and management needed to include long-time trends a4ecting university structure and functions. The second that those trends are not the same in all LAC countries and, consequently, that intra-regional country di4erences should be speci3ed. Our review has put in evidence four major trends characterizing the recent evolution of university systems in the LAC countries: (1) the rapid increase in the number of institutions and of students; 7
For the development of this subject I will be based on Lavados, Jaime, “The Management of New Forms of Financing Science”, submitted to Forum II of the Science Conference (Budapest, June 26 –July 1, 1999. I thank Professor Lavados for having made available his notes for the purposes of this paper).
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(2) the “privatization” of the systems, as a consequence of the growth in the number of private universities; (3) a di4erentiation process as to the types of universities by degree of complexity; and (4) a modernization process along the lines of Gibbons’ Mode 1. Those are positive trends when attempting to further scienti3c and technological research. The evidence gathered shows that scienti3c research continues being mostly an academic activity, in large part done by complex (research) universities, and that a few universities concentrate the majority of research projects, both nationally and in the whole region. From a strategic perspective, those research universities should be invited to play a major role in a regionally concerted e4ort to improve the level of scienti3c and technological research and teaching of other universities. The implementation of a regional science and technology research policy will not be possible without the fuller utilization and reinforcement of scienti3c networks and collaborative programs. Among the 3rst, the oldest is the Latin American Biology Network (RELAB) created in 1975 with the sponsorship of UNESCO and PNUD. The network is composed of 14 national members, six regional members and two associate members. One of its better known programs is the Regional Program on Biotechnology which, on its turn, contributed to the establishment of the Argentinean-Brazilian Center on Biotechnology (CABBIO). In the area of Physics, the Latin American Network of Physics Associations was created in 1994, followed two years later by the Ibero American Union of Physics Associations. Similar networks exist in the areas of astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, etc. 8 The analysis of a series of research and development indicators has con3rmed the opinion that more vigorous e4orts will be needed for the region to shorten the distance separating it from the developed countries. Although some progress has been made, it is far from achieving that goal, and it is very unevenly distributed among countries. The region as a whole had a reasonable increase in the number of researchers during the last decade (21%). During the same period the number of Master and Ph.D. degree graduates experienced rapid rates of growth, but changes were much faster in the social sciences than in the natural and exact sciences. A research and development policy should aim at balancing the growth of both categories of sciences. More generally speaking and having in mind the high concentration of Ph.D.s in a few number of countries, other countries should give priority to 3ll that gap by means of scholarships to pursue studies at the Ph.D. level. The analysis made here does not allow to be optimistic about the possible growth of research outside the universities: factors derived from globalization processes as well as from the industrial sector structure in the region, conspire against the feasibility of
8
For a more detailed description of the existing networks, see Cetto, Ana ar(Ga and Vessuri, Hebe, America Latina y el Caribe. In: UNESCO, Informe Mundial sobre la Ciencia 1998, UNESCO:Santillana Ediciones (pp. 57–77).
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drastically changing the dominant role now played by the universities. What does seem possible is to strengthen university-industry cooperation and research. Innovation and technological transfers are strongly a4ected by intellectual property legislation and practice. Developed countries on one side, and developing countries on the other, have quite distinct views on how to deal with those issues. On the basis of that, a more wide-encompassing discussion than present debates on particular problems should be promoted, as part of current e4orts to strengthen scienti3c and technological development in third world countries. Our review has shown a university system in a rapid process of modernization. Research and development policies will unavoidably have to include measures to improve scienti3c and technological research. In that e4ort the search for coordination and complementarity between present modernizing trends and new more Mexible multidisciplinary academic units with a policy orientation become crucial. For that reason and for the central role research universities play in scienti3c and technological knowledge production, their active participation in the policy discussion and formulation process is a necessary condition for its legitimacy and eventual success. References Ergas, H. (1987). The importance of technology policy. In P. Dasgupta, & P. Stoneman (Eds.), Economic policy and technological performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garc(Ga Guadilla, C. (2000). Higher education research in a transformation context. In U. Teichler, & J. Sadlak (Eds.), Higher education research. Its relationships to policy and practice. (p. 109). UK: Pergamon Press. Gibbon, M. (1998). Higher education relevance in the 21st century (p. 4). The World Bank, Education. Ladas, S. (1975). Patents, trademarks and related rights: National and international protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lavados Montes, I. (2000). Financiamiento Universitario: Antecedentes y Perspectivas. Revista Estudios Sociales No. 105, Third Trimestre. Riveros, L. (unpublished). New universities for the centennial challenge: A view from the University of Chile, unpublished. The Task Force on Higher Education and Society (2000). Higher education in developing countries. Peril and promise, Washington, DC: The World Bank. UNESCO (1999). Statistical Yearbook, table 11.S.5.