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The Role of the State in the Internationalization of Universities in Catching-up Countries: An Analysis of the Portuguese Higher Education System

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Abstract

In this article the role of the state in the internationalization of national prominent universities in a catching-up country is analysed. Taking into account the changes in higher education in the last 60 years, including the changing relationship between the state and the universities, the article takes a longitudinal analytical approach on the importance of state-led science and higher education internationalization initiatives in the integration of Portuguese universities in the global higher education arena. It is found that the state played (and still plays) a critical role in the internationalization process of universities by supporting the build-up of institutional knowledge capacity and by rewarding internationally oriented scholarly activities. Although these public policies did not lead to the emergence of national prominent universities able to compete with global research universities, they allowed for the internationalization and integration of the Portuguese universities in the global higher education.

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Notes

  1. NAFSA: http://www.nafsa.org/ [accessed 3 August 2008].

  2. Altbach argues that very few universities can achieve competitive and reputation levels that allow them to be considered as top-tier research universities in the world: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/News33/text003.htm [accessed 5 August 2008].

  3. The Portuguese government is implementing a loan system that aims to financially support tertiary education students in Portugal and enlarging existing student support schemes in order to increase tertiary education participation and the qualifications of the labour force: http://www.mctes.pt/archive/doc/MCTES_emprestimos_1.1.pdf [accessed 26 May 2009].

  4. Another very important event in terms of internationalization of Portuguese universities, which is closely associated to the adhesion of Portugal to the European Union is the participation of Portugal in the Erasmus programme. However, this international mobility programme focuses mainly on the cultural awareness and international life experience of students and not so much on the international knowledge capacity-building of universities. The introduction of the SOCRATES programme in 1995 had a much stronger impact on the internationalization and consolidation of international linkages of academic staff (Bracht et al., 2006).

  5. Portugal is known for its intermediate function in the global system, namely, by bridging the relationship between the European Union core countries and former Portuguese colonies (see Santos, 1993), which represent the group of Portuguese language-spoken countries (e.g. Brazil, Angola and Mozambique among others). Although the Portuguese higher education system is still used as a privileged higher education system by the upper and middle classes in lusophone countries to attain tertiary education (Horta, 2009), the international relationship in terms of research collaboration is rather weak. For example, Brazil is only eighth in a list of 70 countries with which Portuguese scholars collaborate and publish on an international level. Mozambique is 46th and Angola 47th (GPEARI, 2007).

  6. Source: FCT website: http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt/apoios/bolsas/estatisticas/index.phtml.pt [accessed 18 November 2008].

  7. For example, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from 1956 to 1996 awarded 2,140 fellowships to be spent abroad, while the Portuguese state, through its science funding agency, attributed 831 scholarships to be spent abroad between 1990 and 1993, 700 of which were Ph.D. scholarships.

  8. Academic ranking of World Universities 2007, http://www.arwu.org/rank/2007/ARWU2007FullListByRank.pdf [accessed 6 August 2008].

  9. The contracts with the US universities have an initial duration of 5 years and an estimated budget of €141 million (see Resolução do Conselho de Ministros n.° 132/2006. Diário da República, 1a Série, n° 198, 13 October 2006).

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  1. Center for the Advancement in Higher Education, University of Tohoku, Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8576, Japan

    Hugo Horta

  2. Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa-ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal

    Hugo Horta

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Horta, H. The Role of the State in the Internationalization of Universities in Catching-up Countries: An Analysis of the Portuguese Higher Education System. High Educ Policy 23, 63–81 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2009.20

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