From Evaluating Differently to Prioritizing as Usual. Bureaucratization and Institutional Inertias in the Implementation of Research Policy Aimed at Technological and Social Development
Keywords:
PDTS, assessment, direction of research, scientific policyAbstract
This paper aims at analysing the implementation of technological and social development projects (PDTS, due to its initials in Spanish), a research policy launched in Argentina in 2012. Based on interviews with involved parties and institutional documents, it maps how the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation established a relationship between assessing and guiding research and the nuances adopted in the case of PDTS. Particularly, it focuses on the difficulties that arose in the implementation phase. After an initial launch with high expectations, the instrument showed limitations to change established dynamics within the scientific and university system, amongst them the unforeseen multiplication of assessment stages, the impossibility of moving forward with an agreed-upon inter-institutional document with assessment criteria and the bureaucratization of the role of external institutions. This paper also highlights the weakness of the incentives offered to researchers to commit to this initiative and the importance of taking into account the inertias in academic institutional cultures. In turn, it identifies a shift in the iniciative that went from the original intent of modifying the assessment guidelines to prioritizing the funding of matters of technological and social relevance.Downloads
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