Society-centred indicators for public university performance

• Grant number: 22/14280-4
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Research in Public Policies
• Start date: October 01, 2023
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration - Administration of Specific Sectors
• Principal Investigator: Jacques Marcovitch
• Grantee: Jacques Marcovitch
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Economia, Administração, Contabilidade e Atuária (FEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Dulce Helena Siqueira Silva ; Elizabeth Balbachevsky ; Lia Rita Azeredo Bittencourt ; Luiz Nunes de Oliveira ; Marisa Masumi Beppu ; Nina Beatriz Stocco Ranieri
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/05473-9 - Education and Communication Coordination., BP.TT; 24/05489-2 - Society Centred Indicators for performance in public universities - contents and research coordinator, BP.TT

Abstract

The main aim of this project is to strengthen the competences and capacities of universities in the state of São Paulo in monitoring their academic performance and international comparisons through novel approaches to the deployment of interoperable indicators with granularity. It will do this by supporting the data management offices (EGIDAs) in the research driven universities of São Paulo. In recent years, universities are increasingly motivated to communicate their value, impact and role in society to external stakeholders. These external stakeholders include the general public who finance them through taxes, policymakers, non-governmental organizations, businesses and industrial organizations, local government and media, among many others. The connection between university and society has intensified in recent years because of massification and expanding access to higher education, increasing economic sophistication leading to a more central role for knowledge intensive industries. More recently, awareness increased due to environmental, political and healthcare crises that have afflicted the country. This means that Brazil finds itself at a point where there is both greater will from the university and greater demand from society, and yet there is often a substantive lack of formal and informal processes to mediate this relation in Brazilian research driven universities. Around the world, there are a number of tendencies that are becoming central to the evolution of higher education systems and their societies. A drive towards open science, more responsible evaluation, greater mapping and representation of social goods produced by university activities, digitization of processes and greater attention to graduate outcomes. A drive among students from underrepresented or marginalized groups, who are the priorities that policymakers and academic leaders are intensely focused on. Advances in these areas across the globe are important to monitor, and provide many solutions to challenges facing Brazil. However, they also require a high level of knowledge and experience to implement. They also require the participation of external voices in decision-making, deliberation and evaluation. A move towards measuring, valuing and communicating the university's activities in a way that is centered on society helps to close the gap between public discourse and university performance, helps universities to become more proactive and better able to fulfil its missions, and on an individual level, academic staff are more able to pursue their goals, and express their contribution to society in teaching, research and outreach activities. Therefore, the project sees six main lines of activity as crucial to São Paulo's universities in the coming years: *Development and use of society-centered indicators *Increasing the spread of open science *Methods and practices in responsible evaluation *A focus on new and emerging tendencies in internationalization *Improved practices in data management *Planning and mapping the environmental impact of university activities. The expected result of this public policy is to empower the research driven public universities of Brazil to be more proactive in engaging in these topics, ensuring that bonds with society are strengthened, and Brazilian public institutions' public profiles, performance and social impact are as a result increased. (AU)