The scientific community, government and university research agenda

Author(s)

Rogerio Bezerra da Silva

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências
• Defense date: 2013-08-21

Examining board members

Renato Peixoto Dagnino; Marcos Barbosa de Oliveira; Erasmo Jose Gomes; Henrique Tahan Novaes; Rafael de Brito Dias

• Advisor: Renato Peixoto Dagnino

Abstract

This thesis deals with the relationship between the government and the scientific community in Brazil focuses on the constraints of the research agenda of the university. Its hypothesis is that the government, to increase the spending to university research, may be limiting the autonomies - management, financial and research - of the university. To highlight the political behavior of the scientific community and the government into the decision-making process related to the higher education and the S&T policies, the work adopts, on the methodological level, the Policy Analysis. In addition, on the analytical and conceptual level it follows the S&T Studies approach; which allows classifying that behavior according to two logics. The first logic is named "policy for science", where the "for" indicates that the purpose of government would be to promote research without interfering with the definition of what should be researched. The second, "policy of science" in where the "of the" means S&T Policy should be focused by government, as many other policies, depending on its contribution to fulfill cognitive demands. Which means that government should restrict its support to the research that would produce results that could leverage other public policies. The objective of this work is to understand how the university research agenda, conditioned by the values and interests of these two actors, is been formulated. The thesis comprises five chapters. The first, presents the theoretical and methodological frameworks used to analyze the relationship between the two actors. The second, is centered on the notions of autonomy found in the literature on higher education in Latin America. Using a line of inquiry pertaining to the S&T Studies, the next chapter focuses on one of these autonomies, the autonomy of research. Chapter IV indicates, through secondary information, how the relationship between the government and the scientific community conditions this autonomy is conditioned. Then, with the same purpose, it analyzes primary data concerning the State University of Campinas that is especially suitable to reinforce the results shown in the previous chapter. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the scientific community is not including into its research agenda the government and enterprises cognitive demands introduced into S&T Policy. On the contrary, it seems to be declaring their adherence to these demands just in order to maintain the social legitimacy that authorize it to access government funds. Secondly, and contrary to what is usually supported the work stress that research autonomy is not favoring the arrival of population concerns and demands to university research agenda (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 08/10478-7 - THE AGENDA FOR RESEARCH OF THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN BRAZIL AND PUBLIC SECTOR: a retrospective analysis
• Grantee: Rogério Bezerra da Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate