Public Policy for Higher Education and Research. The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Instituto Público; the last common denominator of Science in Portugal and the home of PhDs

Abstract

Until the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of 1976 – hereinafter CRP – higher education was an area of restricted access to elites. The CRP of 1976 aimed to expand this access and from the 80s of the last century onwards we have seen the first steps taken towards the implementation of a public policy for Higher Education and Research. In the 80's numerous legislation was produced in order to create a system of Higher Education, approving legal regimes and creating new institutions adapted to the new operating dynamics. With Portugal's entry into the European Economic Community –EEC, currently the European Union; EU –the identification and implementation of nudeges for scientific competition in an increasingly globalised world was realised. The constitutional revision of 1989 not only introduces changes in the structure of public administration as a result of this entry into a broad market, but also places the theme of higher education and research within the scope of the external market and the competition promoted in it. If in the 1980s the foundations of this system were created, it was in the 1990s that it became densified, probably reaching its maximum expression in the 21st century. We will follow this path, mapping what was happening in Portugal in this area and which at some point culminated in the creation of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia IP as the main funding agency for science in Portugal.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.56238/sevened2024.009-034