Introduction

Knowledge production is recognized as an important factor for innovation and technological progress. Consequently, governments invest in science, technology and education expecting, to reap social and economic benefits from them (Steward, 2002). Universities play a central role in this process (e.g. Carayannis et al., 1998; Rosenberg, 2002; Bok, 2003). Their role is relevant not only in countries with a strong research base such as the US, where universities perform an increasing share of the research and development activities in the science and technology system (Conceição et al., 2007, in press), but also in countries that are striving to upgrade their knowledge base to international standards (Conceição and Heitor, 2005).

This paper analyzes the main challenges to improving a university research base when operating within a developing science, technology and higher education system. The case study is a technical university with strong national research relevance and in a country with a relatively low investment in science: the Technical University of Lisbon (UTL), in Portugal. The focus on a technical university is explained by its performance of research in areas of science and engineering that contribute decisively to the technological development of national innovation systems (NAE, 2003). Empirical evidence is built upon data from national statistic offices, UTL and other universities. This is supplemented by 55 interviews conducted with coordinators of Research and Development (R&D) units, university managers of UTL schools and experts of the Portuguese science and technology system.¹

The paper is structured as follows. The next section presents an overview on the role of universities as drivers of the European science effort. Then, a brief context of the higher education and science and technology (S&T) system evolution is provided and the challenges that limit a university research base are identified and discussed. The penultimate section addresses the need to understand the challenges that both the university, as a whole, and the schools alone face as well as the need to have flexible and inclusive scientific policies. The last section states the conclusions.

A Race for Knowledge and the Increasingly Important Role of Universities

In European S&T policy, universities are recognized as main performers within science, technology and innovation agendas (EC, 2003a). European science policy, with the Lisbon and the Barcelona agenda in mind (EC, 2002), stresses the need for high-quality research as well as more efficient mechanisms to transfer knowledge to other institutions of the innovation system. Above all, it is recognized that there is a need to reinforce the research capability of European universities, making them stronger and more internationally competitive (Figel, 2005), especially when the knowledge competitiveness gap between Europe and the US seems to be enlarging (EC, 2003b).

This gap is particularly evident in terms of funding of science, number of researchers and turning scientific knowledge into economic growth (van Vught, 2004). Nonetheless, the European Union has surpassed the US recently in terms of scientific publications, becoming the world's largest producer of scientific publications (King, 2004). Other research also demonstrated that the quality gap in international publications between the US and the European Union as measured by citations has been shrinking (Horta and Veloso, 2007) and European researchers are publishing more often in high-quality international journals (Sheldon and Holdridge, 2004). These achievements are most likely to be the result of an effort made by European universities, as they perform 80% of European fundamental research (van Vught, 2004). Increasing the university's knowledge-producing capabilities is thus critical to sustain the modern learning society and to meet European and national public policy and economic goals (EC, 2003a).

In this context where producing and transferring knowledge is critical, the concept of the research university becomes a model for universities that are struggling to improve their scientific capabilities (Conceição et al., 2007, in press). In Europe, only a few older universities with a strong research tradition such as Oxford or Cambridge are able to compete internationally with major US research universities.² These higher education institutions complement a rooted R&D culture with enough resources to perform world-class research. Over time they have amassed more resources, in terms of funding, researchers and postgraduate students, to undertake R&D activities. Besides the accumulated intellectual and learning capabilities, these universities have created a social infrastructure with appropriate incentives that foster creation and understanding, and use complex codified knowledge (see Conceição and Heitor, 1999). And finally, as social systems, these universities use reputation and prestige to obtain resources, such as high-quality researchers, students and research funding (Debackere and Rappa, 1995).

Resources, Legacy and Organizational Characteristics: Challenges to Fostering the University Research Base

In European countries with a less developed scientific base, primarily only the older universities are able to maintain superiority at the national level. This is the case of the UTL in Portugal.

Both the Portuguese S&T system and higher education system are developing at a very fast rate. This considerable growth was greatly influenced by the country's integration in the European Union and strongly promoted since the early 1990s. This effort led to Portugal joining the elite group of countries that produce the top 1% of most cited publications (King, 2004).

However, although Portugal reports one of the highest levels of growth in most indicators of research and development within the European Union, the S&T system continues to have low human and material resources by international standards (OECD, 2004). In terms of material resources, in 2003, the gross expenditure on research and development in Portugal had not reached the mark of 1% of the GDP (Portugal: 0.78%; EU15 countries: 1.97%; MSTHE, 2006). Based on Murteira and Branquinho (1968) projections in the 1960s, even in the most pessimistic scenario, this figure should have been achieved by 1980. In terms of human resources, in 2003, the number of full-time equivalent Portuguese researchers per 1,000 inhabitants was 3.7, while the European average was 4.9 (MSTHE, 2006). Perhaps more important is the fact that many university researchers in Portugal still hold academic qualifications considered inadequate by international standards for the practice of research and teaching. For example, in 2004, only 58% of university professors held a Ph.D. (MSTHE, 2006).

The resource (but also structural) deficiencies of the system derive extensively from the Estado Novo period that lasted for most of the 20th century (from 1926 until 1974). During the Estado Novo period, freedom of thought and initiative were strongly restricted, promoting an organizational inertia within academia and a deficit of scientific culture in the Portuguese society (Gago, 1990). The country's political, economic and cultural stagnation retarded the Portuguese S&T system in terms of its organization and international presence (Ruivo, 1995).

Besides the late start, science policies for the most of the last century were characterized by a lack of strategic scientific guidance or by under-funded scientific agendas (Heitor et al., 2004). This funding pattern generated for most of the century a non-articulated growth of the S&T system, especially in relation to the higher education system. As argued by Heitor et al. (2004), this unstrategic growth led to a progressive homogenization of research and educational institutions. Additionally, the dependence of research institutions and universities on the state for funding severely hampered their autonomy, and created a set of weak, poorly diversified and somewhat isolated institutions (Heitor et al., 2004).

The Portuguese higher education system started to expand at a very fast rate from the 1970s onward (as did other European countries: see Neave, 2000). For example, the number of enrolled students increased from 30,000 in the 1960s to 400,000 at the end of the century (Heitor and Horta, 2004). During this period, a university private sector and a polytechnic higher education sector emerged (both with public and private institutions). The accelerated growth of the higher education system did not change the state control over universities due to their total dependence on public funding. All in all, during the 20th century, the small dimension of the system, the continuous shortage of resources and the dependency on the state contributed to the utter lack of autonomy of Portuguese universities, leading them to have an ossified structure characterized by social and academic retreat and organizational inertia (Crespo, 1993; Torgal, 1999; Heitor and Horta, 2004).

It is in this S&T and higher education system context that we examine UTL's case. Our analysis focused on the challenge of qualification of human resources and promotion of scientific employment. The focus on this challenge is explained by (1) its critical importance for the evolution of the science, technology and higher education system in Portugal (see Heitor and Horta, 2004; Heitor et al., 2004), (2) its growing importance when the yearly number of new doctorates more than tripled in the period between 1990 and 2004, and incentives are being implemented to further support this growth (OECD, 2006), and (3) the dangers and opportunities that this challenge holds for the development of the knowledge base of the Portuguese universities. Following Heitor et al. (2004) and Heitor and Horta (2004) analyses of the Portuguese science, technology and higher education system, this challenge is going to be analyzed based on three critical aspects identified by these authors: resources, faculty inbreeding and academic structure and progression incentives.

On resources

UTL is one of the oldest Portuguese universities. It was created in 1930, integrating independent schools of veterinary medicine, agronomy, engineering and economy, in a government drive for standardization, socio-political control and limitation of institutional autonomy (Crespo, 1993; Torgal, 1999). Nowadays, it is one of the largest Portuguese universities, with about 20,000 graduate and 3,000 postgraduate enrolled students accounting for 13% of the overall students of the public university higher education sector. In 2001, UTL employed 1,734 professors, nearly 13% of the Portuguese university faculty (UTL, 2003).

Scientific publications in international journals per UTL researcher grew by a factor of 3.5 between 1990 and 2000. The percentage of UTL publications in relation to the total national production in international journals for all areas (excluding health sciences) increased from 9% in 1981 to 29% in 2002.³ In the 1990s, UTL scientific papers were cited twice as frequently as UTL scientific papers in the 1980s. Finally, of the 96 Portuguese-authored articles in the top 1% of the world's highly cited scientific publications between 1997 and 2001, 26% were from UTL (UTL, 2005).

These results indicate a university knowledge base that is growing fast and transforming itself. The increased international scientific output and impact of UTL resulted from increased collaboration by its researchers. In the 1970s, 92% of the scientific papers produced by UTL's researchers were written by only one author, while in the 1980s this figure fell to 72% and to 52% in the 1990s. In 2003, 35% of the whole scientific output of UTL researchers in international journals was done in collaboration with researchers from international institutions (below the national average of 46%) while 25% was done in collaboration with researchers from national institutions. This was the result of the nationwide 1990s push towards international publication and increased collaboration driven by the following:

(1) A growing integration into the international scientific community. This is a much internationalized school, every group, every unit works in collaboration and integrates networks with other international institutions...what is necessary is that in each field of research, fundamental or applied, excellent or great quality research is performed. That this research attains international quality leading to publications: books, invited papers, conferences...that is, internationally recognized. (University manager, Engineering School)

(2) The fact that publishing internationally was one of the critical factors emphasized in the Portuguese government's R&D unit's national assessment (run by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia — FCT). The fact that FCT emphasized the publication of scientific results in highly scientific quality journals, as a privileged factor to obtain future R&D projects, became an additional incentive to publish besides the incentive associated to career progression. (University manager, Agrarian Sciences School)

The national assessment exercise of university research units is not only a mechanism with which to measure quality and performance of the R&D units but is also the major source (for the great majority of university-based R&D units the only source) of funding for research activities in Portuguese higher education. This assessment is important not only for research performed in universities but also for the S&T system, because the higher education sector is the largest performer of research in Portugal (performing 39% of all S&T research in 2005; OECD, 2006). For this assessment, commissions of international experts review and evaluate all public and private university research units recognized by the public funding agency for research and development (i.e., FCT). The assessment determines the amount of public funding the research unit will receive based on two measures: (a) base funding, indexed to the number of researchers holding a doctorate degree integrated in the R&D units and to the evaluation of the performed scientific activity,⁴ and (b) special programmatic funding for specific needs (see FCT, 2002). In the evaluation assessment of 2002, only UTL and two other universities (University of Lisbon and University of Aveiro) had above 80% of the total university researchers in R&D units graded as Excellent and Very good. This means that the R&D units in which these researchers are based in received the highest or near-highest funding made available to them through this public funding mechanism.⁵

To the above results, postgraduate training was decisive, especially at Ph.D. level, where learning and socialization are strongly embedded in research practices (Golde and Dore, 2001). In the 1990s, UTL trained 965 doctoral students, doubling the number of doctoral students trained during the 1980s (456 Ph.D. degrees), and increasing by almost 17 times the number of doctorate degrees granted in the 1970s (58 Ph.D. degrees). UTL was responsible for training 17% of the total number of Portuguese Ph.D. holders between 1970 and 2002 (OCES, 2004). UTL trained 19% of the total number of Portuguese doctorates in the 1990s, up from 8% in the 1970s. The funding from FCT through fellowships was a major factor in Ph.D. production. In 2004, UTL students held 10% of all FCT-sponsored doctoral fellowships and 18% of all FCT post-doctoral fellowships.⁶ But despite the increased funding and fellowships, R&D coordinators indicated a lack of qualified human resources and postgraduate students at UTL to perform research: Doctoral students are one of our problems, I think they are too few, the core of an R&D unit should be based on doctoral students...unfortunately, most of our research is based on master students and undergraduate students in the last year of the course, which is awful. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School

This suggests that despite UTL's role as a major national performer of R&D, it still does not have its research core supported by doctoral students, but by a mix of students from varied academic levels, including many undergraduate students. This suggests that increasing the number of postgraduate students, especially at doctoral level, is necessary if UTL wants to further improve its knowledge base and potential. In European and North-American research universities with a strong international consolidation, postgraduate students represent a substantial share of the student population, which is essential to support the research effort in these universities (Table 1). For example, from the 4,437 postgraduate students from ETH Zurich, 2,794 are doctoral students, a number that is almost the size of the total number of postgraduate students at UTL.

Table 1 - Proportion of graduate to undergraduate students in a sample of universities for the latest year available.

Full table

The proportion and the absolute number of postgraduate students in these research-oriented universities suggest that a greater number (and improved quality) of these students is essential to assure critical mass to undertake research activities (Austin, 2002). It is also a necessary feature to attract highly productive faculty and researchers as well as brilliant students all over the world (Barbezat and Hughes, 2001) that competing universities struggle to attract (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997) in order to sustain and foster their research capability (Lombardi et al., 2001). As Table 1 shows, the UTL student structure is still based upon graduate students. This situation still contributes the public funding formula for higher education institutions in Portugal (see Caraça et al., 2000) and the difficulty in attracting postgraduate students, especially international students: We have had some foreign students, mostly Brazilians and from other places, but we lack attractiveness capable of bringing European students...the competition from other universities and European countries is too strong. (University manager, Veterinary Medicine School)

Thus, a major challenge for UTL is to foster postgraduate studies, which will in turn enhance UTL's research capability. Currently, only a few R&D units organized under the form of Laboratórios Associados (Associate Laboratories) are able to attract many national and international postgraduate students: We here are privileged for having senior foreign researchers from the best world universities, and for attracting also foreign doctoral students...about a third of our doctoral students are foreign, which is unusual in Portugal. (Laboratório Associado Coordinator, Engineering School)

Laboratórios Associados are institutions of recognized scientific quality according to international criteria of quality and evaluated periodically by external committees, which the Portuguese government deem as essential for attaining specific objectives in the national S&T policy. Through a contract with the government that can last up to 10 years, during which time funding is guaranteed, Laboratórios Associados are able to develop a medium/long term scientific agenda and actively participate in activities embedded in international research networks of excellence, bringing to the university senior foreign faculty that help to create a nurturing research environment that can attract postgraduate students, especially at Ph.D. level. The conditions offered at Laboratórios Associados for conducting research are the ones most mentioned in the literature as the required ones to guarantee high-quality research and also the ones to prepare for future successful scientific careers of postgraduate students (e.g. Hagstrom, 1971; Freidson, 1975; Bland and Schmitz, 1986). Three of the main objectives in the creation of these institutions are to provide a network of excellent R&D units with stability (in terms of funding) to reinforce their research capability, organize scientific agendas and promote scientific employment. However, Laboratórios Associados are an exceptional case in the Portuguese university and not the norm. Some of the problems that the creation of the Laboratórios Associados aims to solve (on a limited scale) are critical problems for most of UTL-based R&D units. These are related to high levels of uncertainty in obtaining financial resources, which negatively affect the establishment of medium-range scientific agendas, attractiveness of human resources and in some cases — in the experimental sciences — the maintenance of conditions to develop research and teaching activities: I would say in the first place, the erratic oscillation of funding rules and budgets, which makes it very difficult to have a long-range strategic management, and makes it very difficult...to hire people, new people, and that is a problem. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)
The computational and the experimental equipment is very old. We submitted a re-equipment proposal two years ago, but still we have no answer. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)

But in the UTL, factors hampering the attraction and retention of postgraduate students and young researchers not only are financial, but also stem from spatial limitations and a faculty with lack of adequate qualifications. Many R&D coordinators indicated a strong involvement of R&D units in the teaching effort of the university that goes beyond the fact that most members of R&D units are university professors. This support is extensive and wide (see also Heitor, 2001). It includes the acquisition and maintenance of university laboratory equipment with research funds, incorporation of students in experimental learning activities and outreach projects, updating the curricula, and creating new courses and disciplines (both at postgraduate and graduate levels). But all of these activities combining research and teaching are also carried out under inadequate physical spatial conditions (see UTL, 2005). These impede a greater impact of these activities by restricting the potential of research-teaching learning synergies and, ultimately, the students' learning experience. So far these activities are limited to a few students, which also constrain the growth of the university research potential: These facilities determine, for example, things as simple as not to expand...not to expand because even if we have the possibility to support X post-docs, or get X fellowships, we are not going to put them on top of one other. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)

In this context, several UTL R&D unit coordinators added that physical infrastructures, where teaching and research activities can be combined, are needed to better integrate education and research processes. The perceptions of the UTL R&D coordinators are aligned with Rigden's (1998) argument that the quality of university activities can be achieved through the integration of several components of the university activity, namely teaching and research. On this subject, several R&D unit coordinators highlighted the almost non-existent power that the R&D units have in the university management framework, and the need for the schools and the university management to re-organize resources and build up an inclusive scientific agenda that allows them to enhance the quality of the fundamental activities of the university: Let us listen to the coordinators, the directive commission, to what they have to say...it is not only important for the school, but also for the proper reorganization of resources...the scientific policy does not take R&D units into account. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)

Finally, one thing that was constantly referred to in these interviews was that UTL still needs to improve the qualifications of its faculty. In the main US and European universities, a Ph.D. is the minimum acceptable requirement to enter a professorial research career. This requirement has spread to other universities around the world (Bazeley, 2003). Nowadays, the great majority of faculty at any research university holds a Ph.D. degree. However, not all universities are in a position to make this claim since their scientific base started to be developed at a later period. These universities are still in the process of training their faculty. This is the case for UTL. Nationwide, UTL has the most qualified faculty in Portugal, and many of its departments consist entirely of Ph.D. holders. However, the university's teaching body still has low qualifications when compared internationally. There was an improvement of faculty qualifications in the 1990s due to scholarship programs aimed at increasing qualifications of the national research base (see Heitor and Horta, 2004). The effects of these programs can start to be seen now. In 2004, the percentage of faculty in public universities holding a Ph.D. degree in Portugal was 55%, while in 1994 it was 32%.⁷ In 2004, the percentage of faculty holding a Ph.D. in UTL was 66%, while in 1994 it was 41% (OCES, 2004).

Not surprisingly, the three universities with the most qualified faculty are exactly the ones that have more than 80% of their researchers in R&D units evaluated by the national assessment of R&D units as Excellent and Very good (UTL, University of Lisbon and University of Aveiro).

On faculty inbreeding

As seen previously, attracting human resources is a difficult task for UTL. Lack of resources and existing working conditions limit the ability to attract promising young faculty to a minimum vis-a-vis other international universities. This limitation is further enhanced by bureaucratic constraints that are standard to all Portuguese public universities. Since professors at public universities are public servants and must abide by public administration rules, the universities are unable to offer job packages with different income levels and preferential working conditions or develop hiring processes other than the ones determined by law. This, besides revealing a lack of institutional autonomy, also contributes to the difficulty of attracting human resources internationally: When we see international offerings for faculty positions by the big European and US universities...they offer a set of conditions that we cannot offer, they offer a laboratory, human resources...we offer a place with a fixed wage and nothing more, and we still demand a bunch of bureaucratic specifications...it is absurd. (University manager, Engineering School)

However, the hiring of doctorates (or faculty members) from other national universities is not a common practice either. When there are vacancies available, these are usually filled by doctoral students from the same institution. Figure 1 shows the faculty inbreeding rate of two Portuguese universities (one of them is UTL; the two US research universities are in the figure as references) calculated through the percentage of assistant professors who were hired per year holding a Ph.D. from the same institution.

Figure 1.

Inbreeding rate for the Oporto University, Technical University of Lisbon, University of Wisconsin (Madison) and University of Texas (Austin), 1990–2002.
Note: Data to the Technical University of Lisbon and to the Oporto University refer to each university engineering school. Source: UTL, 2005.

Full figure and legend (119K)

The two Portuguese universities report extensive recruitment of their own Ph.D. students. High levels of faculty inbreeding are particularly stressed by UTL R&D unit coordinators as a limitation to the reform that is required to be undertaken to transform UTL's scientific organization into a flexible structure that can correspond to the requirements of the knowledge society. Researchers should not be hired by the schools where they are trained, but rather should be taught to be mobile, with the aim of increasing mobility and employment perspectives and correcting detrimental phenomena associated to inbreeding. (R&D unit coordinator, Veterinary Medicine School)

In this context, UTL R&D units are the main contributors to the mobility of Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers because inter-institutional mobility occurs mainly under their scope (see UTL, 2005). The role of R&D units in promoting the mobility of young Ph.D. holders has been fostering dynamics of change in the university (Heitor, 2001), but so far with little impact on the overall university structure (UTL, 2005). Faculty inbreeding practices are strongly embedded and are responsible to a large extent for the academic and social retreat that still characterizes Portuguese universities (Heitor and Horta, 2004). However, the ageing of the university faculty and the pressing need to renew it became so urgent that to a certain extent inbreeding practices are considered as a possible option, and a lesser evil: Inbreeding can be a very worrying problem at national level because in several places that has led many people to be hired not because they have quality but because they were formed in-house...we do not have the means to hire people of very high quality...our students would like to stay and do research here and we would like them to stay...which would be inbreeding, but positive inbreeding. Keep high quality people to assure rejuvenation. (University manager, Engineering School)

If one takes into account that the competitive advantage of universities depends on the continued supply of talented researchers and students, and their retention and progression within the university (Ackers and Gill, 2005), academic inbreeding in developing countries⁸ may be a last resort to assure competitive advantage or at least to maintain it, in the face of hiring impediments. This may turn out to be a short-term solution with grave consequences because in the long-run academic inbreeding phenomenon represents a major obstacle to the reform of higher education institutions favoring organizational ossification (Ogren, 1949) and structural inertia (Hannan and Freeman, 1984). It is also a hiring process that is known for hampering inter-institutional mobility (Rogers, 1995) and impeding the diffusion of new forms of research organization and knowledge (EC, 1995). An organization that is too inert usually fails to respond to social needs, placing its social utility and legitimacy in jeopardy (Scott, 1995). This is further enhanced for a research-oriented university, since it is well known that the development of modern science should be understood as the result of institutional reactions to emerging opportunities and challenges (Nelson, 2004).

In this sense, faculty inbreeding has also proven to be detrimental to scientific productivity (Soler, 2001), and is a powerful hindrance to the scientific development of universities. Horta et al. (2007, forthcoming) while analyzing the Mexican higher education system empirically demonstrated that inbred faculty not only produce less scientific output than non-inbred faculty, but also strongly privilege exchange of scholarly related information within the university rather than with other national and international institutions contributing to its institutional closure. Adopting this practice is particularly dangerous for a university struggling to improve its research base, especially when other studies confirm the benefits resulting from academic job mobility and collaboration between universities and industry to improve scholarly or technological productivity (e.g. Laundry et al., 1996; Dietz and Bozeman, 2005).

Academic structure and progression incentives

Academic inbreeding seems to be coupled with a pre-determined university career structure. In UTL, as in other Portuguese universities, the number of assistant professors is usually much larger than the other academic ranks such as associate and full professors. This structure forms a hierarchical pyramid that facilitates the overload of assistant professors with administrative and teaching duties (see Athans, 2001; UTL, 2005). This constrains research production since these assistant professors are the younger elements of the faculty and in general the most productive (Over, 1982).

The problem is that it is very difficult for the younger faculty to balance research activities with both national and international scope and manage the heavy teaching load (see Heitor, 2001). Moreover, career progression in this structure can easily be stalled, regardless of the merit of the professor, since career progression is dependent upon vacancies usually created by professors' retirement. Due to public budget restrictions, the opening of vacancies, both for hiring and promotion of faculty, has been severely limited. This was identified by R&D unit coordinators as severely encumbering the attractiveness of scientific careers in Portugal, revealing the need to change the hiring practices and career progression of university professors in accordance with existing practices in more developed S&T systems: 'I am going to be a researcher for life' is bound to end. It will be a temporary career for a determined amount of time...obviously, what can control this is the university, it is to give careers prospects, but in Portugal you do not see — no matter who is in the government — any concern about creating new university careers, or renew the existing university careers. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)

In terms of careers, the interviews confirmed what previous analyses identified as difficulties in the Portuguese university to improve its knowledge potential, which are related to the rigidity of the career structure and especially with the inability to reward merit of academics. It was patently clear in the interviews that much of the research effort done at UTL was based on voluntarism and the dedication of its faculty members, or in other words, on the basis of the 'sacred-spark' of inner motivation suggested by Cole and Cole (1973) as an explanation for why faculty do research: Those that publish in international journals do it because they like to do it, because if they did not do it, it was the same thing, but it is rare that a competent researcher is satisfied that way...however, there are no incentives. (R&D unit coordinator, Engineering School)

This situation contrasts with what researchers and faculty experience in most developed scientific systems. In the US research university, progression in an academic career can occur quite swiftly if an individual demonstrates strong scholarly abilities and recognized merit. Also, individual merit is translated in differing salary conditions and other rewards (Clark, 1997). The hiring is based on potential and the promotion is based on tenure, which works as a filter of academic quality. Only the faculty members who show excellence in scholarly activities are promoted, granted tenure and rewarded (also financially), and all faculty members (if on tenure track) have to be submitted to a tenure decision that requires, among others, confidential letters of recommendation, publications in key international journals and a detailed peer review of the scholarly activities undertaken before the tenure decision (Gappa, 2002).

According to Athans (2001), this kind of promotion and evaluation system would probably undermine the widespread inbreeding practices in the Portuguese higher education system. The implementation of a similar promotion system would be particularly important in institutions where a culture of social and academic retreat still persists: The lack of mobility is one of the weaknesses of the Portuguese university system. Mobility is the rule in other countries... [the] mobility has a negative connotation in Portugal because the promotion of an individual in other university is perceived as a failure of the individual in imposing himself in the graduating university. (University manager, Veterinary Medicine School)

However, one must realize that the Portuguese and the US S&T systems are in a different stage of development (see Price, 1964, 1965). The US Research University has sufficient institutional autonomy to manage and hire human resources and there is a culture of academic mobility (Geiger, 1993), whereas UTL is a public higher education institution depending greatly on the state. Therefore, many of the changes to the university academic structure and incentives depend more on the state rather than on a single university. In this sense the need to promote an academic job market (as suggested by many R&D coordinators and university managers), foster a culture of mobility and provide universities with sufficient resources and autonomy to make academic careers attractive and flexible enough to hire and maintain high-quality human resources are at the moment mostly in the hands of the state.

One University: Same Challenges?

Although some of the obstacles that UTL faces to improve its scientific base are systemic, the Portuguese state much as other European states is moving its positioning from a direct control stance to one of steering at a distance (see Amaral and Magalhães, 2001). This provides universities greater levels of institutional autonomy (and responsibility), and also grants them greater flexibility to tackle the challenges before them (Sporn, 1999). Having identified the difficulties regarding the challenge of qualification of human resources and promotion of scientific employment at UTL, it is important to perceive which incentive mechanisms can be implemented to successfully meet the challenges. This is not a straightforward process since there is the need to take into account the reality of the university setup while constructing and implementing incentives; otherwise changes can be ineffective and even disruptive (Davis and Astin, 1987).

In this sense, before making changes, one should deepen the analysis of the university as an organization, to understand if the challenges are the same across its sub-components, such as the schools. UTL is constituted of seven schools, each focused on a specific scientific field: the Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária (FMV) on veterinary medicine; Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) on agrarian sciences; Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (ISEG) on economy and management; Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) on engineering and natural sciences; Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (ISCSP) on social sciences; Faculdade de Motricidade Humana (FMH) on health sciences (human ergonomics and sport); and Faculdade de Arquitectura (FA) on architecture.

Besides the fact that each school is dedicated to a specific scientific field, the research capability of each school in relation to the national research capability is rather different. Some UTL schools represent a substantial critical mass within the Portuguese S&T system. ISA represents 46% of national researchers holding a doctorate in agrarian sciences, while 42% of researchers holding a doctorate in the field of economics and management in Portugal are mostly concentrated at ISEG.⁹ IST also has an important critical mass of national researchers holding a Ph.D. degree in mechanical, civil and electrical engineering, with 49, 46 and 32%, respectively. Others are still starting to develop their research base. ISCSP created an R&D unit in 2004 and FA does not have any R&D unit yet.

The different stages of development are shown in Figure 2. This figure shows the relationship between the level of qualification of the academic staff at the different schools of the UTL and the number of Ph.D. candidates per faculty. This shows a mixed picture concerning the stage of research capability and development of the various university schools.

Figure 2.

Relation between UTL faculties academic staff qualifications and the exercise of research activities (quantified by Ph.D. candidates holding an FCT fellowship).
Source: adapted from UTL, 2005.
Note 1: The indicator used to quantify the exercise of research activities was university Ph.D. candidates benefiting from Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) fellowships. This measure was used because most Ph.D. candidates benefit from this fellowship, which is granted under a highly competitive process (and thus can be also perceived as a quality indicator), and because the statistics supplied by FCT are official and reliable.
Note 2: IST Faculty of Engineering; ISEG: Faculty of Economics and Management; ISCSP: Faculty of Social and Political Sciences; FA: Faculty of Architecture; FMH: Faculty of Human Mobility; FMV: Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; ISA: Faculty of Agronomy.

Full figure and legend (55K)

The school positioned in quadrant A has a qualified faculty and presents a structure that tends to be based on research. The schools in quadrant B present a poorly qualified faculty and few activities based on research. Schools in quadrant C are characterized by a qualified teaching body, but with few activities based on research. Each quadrant represents a different situation and thus different challenges.

The analysis focused only on quadrants A, B and C since there is no UTL School in the remaining quadrant. The challenges for the school located in quadrant A are associated with the need for a career re-organization that further enhances its scientific capabilities, including the creation of research-based incentives to foster research productivity and quality. This goes along with the challenge to rejuvenate its academic staff with Ph.D. holders (mainly from other institutions as suggested by the interviews), in order to further increase academic qualifications levels, improve the research output, and integrate into a wider range of national and international research networks. Nevertheless, the current qualification levels of the faculty and number of Ph.D. candidates already indicate that there is potential to promote postgraduate education internationally and insertion in international networks of education at postgraduate level (which IST already does; see Table 2).

Table 2 - Number of ongoing research projects in R&D units tied to UTL in 2000.

Full table

The schools presented in quadrant C have the same set of challenges as the school presented in quadrant A, but their low number of Ph.D. candidates indicates that there is still a need to launch postgraduate education, and thus reinforce this type of education before promoting postgraduate education at the international level. The schools positioned in quadrant B have the following major challenge: academic qualifications of their academic staff are a necessary pre-condition to evolve to quadrants A and C. ISEG is in a central position, meaning most likely that there is equilibrium between departments of this school regarding each quadrant situation. This suggests, although not analyzed, that not only the schools but also the departments within schools are in different stages of development, thus facing different challenges.

The different challenges faced by the various schools result mainly from the evolution of each school scientific areas, and how faculty members and schools management reacted to this evolution that occurred in terms of internationalization efforts, ability to attract students (the interviews at ISA confirmed the low attractiveness of agrarian sciences), emphasis on postgraduate studies and capacity to obtain resources. The differences can be substantial. For example, from the 752 UTL doctorates that were granted their degrees between 1996 and 2002, 79% were granted by two schools only (63% from IST and 16% from ISA). Table 2 indicates a similar situation for national engagement in R&D projects and the internationalization of the research base (using number of projects as a proxy).

The existence of such different scenarios within one university poses a critical challenge for university governance. The analysis seems to point out the need to take into account the situation of the sub-components such as schools, and then within schools, the departments, when delineating a research strategy for the university. The main argument resulting from this analysis is that there is not one recipe to foster the research base at university level. Implementing a unique university research policy can create strong instability in the university. A centralized university research policy can favor some schools, but disrupt and even destroy the efforts of other schools to build up their knowledge capacity.

Taking into account the very autonomous driven management of UTL schools and considering the analysis above, the implementation of a policy based on flexible guidelines may be the one best appropriate to take into account the different challenges faced by UTL schools. Emphasis should be placed on a low-powered scheme, not only to take into account the conditions of each school but also to save the multi-tasking nature of the university (see Gilliot, 2001). At UTL, the research policy could be one of integration, namely one that promoted inter-disciplinary collaboration at research and postgraduate levels between schools (which many interviews identified as very weak) fostering a spirit of organizational involvement, and also one that understood the need to combine varied skills and scientific areas to deal with an increasingly complex scientific spectrum (Gibbons et al., 1994).

However, three premises seem necessary in the implementation of this collaboration. It should (1) be based on high degrees of quality, organized by the leading researchers of the participating schools, and if possible, integrating other universities;¹⁰ (2) include a stable allocation of funding and implying a re-organization of resources and of physical space, so that this collaborative research and teaching activities could lead to effective synergies affecting both the students' learning experience and the quality of the research; and (3) be framed outside any departmental framework, since these are clearly associated with undergraduate teaching (Fulton and Holland, 2001), and at UTL to the mode 1 of knowledge production (see UTL, 2005).

Conclusion

In the context of a fast growing science, technology and higher education system, UTL faces the challenge of improving its research base and providing a greater contribution for the advancement of knowledge in the European research area. A central challenge is related to the attractiveness and maintenance of highly qualified and competent human resources. Our analysis shows that further financial resources are necessary to enhance UTL's knowledge base, but that these alone are not enough to meet the challenge. Financial resources need to be complemented with the creation of adequate infrastructural conditions, where learning synergies between teaching and research can be fostered. Finally, career practices and incentives need to be changed. The high rates of academic inbreeding need to decrease, while different career progression schemes that can reward scholarly merit need to be implemented.

Although the human resource challenge is common to the whole university, it is not equal in schools. The analysis shows that schools are in different stages of development. Understanding the university as an organization with multiple realities is essential to develop policies that are able to tackle limitations at various levels. In this sense, we argue that an all-round policy implementation based on a view of the university as a whole may be totally ineffective or even damaging to some university units. Instead, a research strategic agenda of the university should be flexible. It can be one of organizational integration, based on inter-disciplinary collaboration and projects involving research and the promotion of postgraduate education.

Finally, to meet some challenges (e.g. attracting international faculty and renewal of its faculty core), UTL requires greater levels of autonomy. A recent report by the OECD indicated that state interference in the micro-management of the Portuguese universities was still excessive and gravely hampered the flexibility and initiative power that university management requires to meet the challenges that a university like UTL faces (OECD, 2006).

Notes

¹ Data regarding the UTL were retrieved by the author during the elaboration of the 'Knowledge production and diffusion 1995/96–2002/03' report undertaken in 2004.

² For decades, these institutions have concentrated a large share of research funds for higher education in both the UK and the US (Horta et al., 2007, forthcoming). Both countries have high levels of higher education expenditure in R&D as a percentage of GDP when compared with OECD average (OECD, 2004).

³ It should be emphasized that scientific areas at UTL grew considerably in terms of the number of international publications, in comparison with the total number of national publications in each scientific area in international journals. In particular, the percentage of publications per researcher tied to UTL in exact sciences, agriculture, biology and environmental sciences, engineering and technology, and social sciences evolved from 7, 6, 21 and 0% in 1981, to 27, 28, 36 and 15% in 2002, respectively (UTL, 2005).

⁴ The higher the grade, the higher the funding received. There are five grades ranging from excellent to poor. R&D units that obtained the grade of excellent receive a fixed amount of funds associated to this grade. This amount is given according to the number of researchers holding a doctorate that the R&D unit has. Excellent: Attainable levels of international excellence in a majority of sub-areas of activity and attainable levels of national excellence in virtually all others. Very good: Attainable levels of international excellence in some (but not a majority of) sub-areas of activity and attainable levels of national excellence in virtually all others. Good: Attainable levels of national excellence in virtually all sub-areas of activity, or international excellence in some sub-areas of activity and national excellence in a majority of sub-areas. Fair: Attainable levels of national excellence in a majority of the sub-areas of activity and attainable levels of international excellence in virtually none of sub-areas. Poor: Attainable levels of national excellence in a minority of sub-areas of activity (for a detailed analysis see FCT, 2002).

⁵ R&D units can complement this funding to support research activities by applying for R&D projects and fellowships (doctoral and post-doctoral) that are attributed by FCT on a competitive basis, after being evaluated by an independent committee.

⁶ In 2002, 49% of post-doctoral fellowships and 47% of doctoral fellowships of the total awarded that year by FCT were awarded to UTL researchers and students. This represented an increase from previous years, such as 1998, where UTL researchers were granted 25% of the post-doctoral fellowships and UTL students 31% of the doctoral fellowships of the total awarded that year.

⁷ As a reference, 38% of all academic staff in Norway had a doctorate degree in 1985 (see Bleiklie and Hostaker, 2004).

⁸ Faculty inbreeding phenomenon is reported as widespread in universities of countries developing their science base such as Spain (Navarro and Rivero, 2001). In most countries with a developed science system Ph.D. students do not expect to stay at their Ph.D. granting university (Kaulisch and Enders, 2005).

⁹ Except for the researchers based at the Centre for Studies in Management of the IST-CEGIST, whose host institution is the IST.

¹⁰ The current research and postgraduate programs created between the Portuguese government (as funding source), US researcher universities and Portuguese universities also reflect the need to further internationalize the Portuguese university (see, for example, http://www.mitportugal.org/About.aspx; http://www.cmuportugal.org/about.aspx.

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