La evolución de la carrera académica en universidades con foco en investigación en Chile

Abstract

Faculty members are fundamental for the development and success of higher education organizations, and building strong academic cadres is a major challenge, especially for research universities. While there are no fully-fledged research universities in Chile (Bernasconi, 2007), a few strive to get closer to that ideal by way of the professionalization their faculty. This study follows this process guided by the question "How do academic rules and guidelines in six research-oriented universities in Chile reflect the professionalization of the academic profession from 1967 to 2016?" Findings show that universities have converged in the structure they provide for their tenured and tenuretrack faculty. The requirements to enter the "tenure track" career have become stricter over time, while adjunct faculty experience little regulation of their duties, governance rights, and benefits, even though they still constitute the highest proportion of faculty

Gender Gaps in the Chilean Young Investigator Grant and the Potential Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns in 2020

“…Institutions that perform well in accreditation procedures attract more students, and one of the central accreditation criteria is research and external funding (Berríos, 2008;Gonzalez and Jiménez, 2014). To succeed, faculty at Chilean Universities must juggle teaching, research, outreach, and administrative duties (Véliz-Calderón et al, 2018). The pressure to obtain external research funding could have increased especially during COVID-19 times because the decrease in the number of enrolled students affects Chilean universities economically.…”

Chilean and Finnish university-based teacher educators’ agentic approaches to academic career path development

“…Academics are civil servants in public universities, and traditional private universities have tenure models, with a doctorate and being research-active the minimum hiring and tenure requirements in research-oriented institutions. Regarding tenure, internationalisation and ranking demands impose increasingly stringent career progression criteria and tenure-track pathways similar to those found at US universities (Véliz-Calderón et al, 2018)…”

“…Yet, these contexts present an interesting case of convergence regarding the increasing demands and outcome orientation of university-based teacher education (i.e., publication outputs in 'top-tier' journals in Finland and accreditation for quality assurance in Chile) (Herbert & Tienari, 2018;Maaranen et al, 2018;Author, XXX;Fernández Cofré et al, 2021). Also, both cases have gradually established tenure track career systemsadapted from the US tenure modeland casual employment models, largely influenced by New Public Management's (NPM) values of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, competition and accountability (CNED, 2021;Helin et al, 2019;Herbert & Tienari, 2018, Pietilä, 2019Véliz-Calderón et al, 2018). Consequently, expanding managerialism in Chilean and Finnish HE and teacher education systems raise inevitable concerns about its impact on TEs' reflexivity and agency for career development.…”

(Un)professionalisation or (Re)professionalisation of the Academic in the Brave New World?

“…These shifts are also happening all over the world and translates into the need for internationalisation, harmonisation between countries, regions and even at the global level (Shaker, 2016). Specifically in the EHEA context, this reconfiguration of higher education has the central purpose of enabling the possibility of creditation in different HEIs and countries (through ECTS -European Credit Transfer System), the assessment of HEIs and their faculty members, a greater efficiency in their management and the focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, in a closer relationship with the social and economic community (Carlotto & Garcia, 2018;Véliz-Calderon, Theurillat, Paredes, & Pickenpack, 2018) of science as a directly productive factor (Oliveira, 2000), with local, regional, national and international specificities and variations (Dan & Fengqiao, 2015;Isabel, Luis, & Gomez-Gajardo, 2015;Lamarra & Marquina, 2013;Research Institute for Higher Education Hiroshima University, 2015;Sethy, 2018;Trif, 2014;Véliz-Calderon, et. al., 2018).…”

“…These transformations and reconfigurations that have been taking place in the higher education arena have motivated and continue to motivate the need for higher education academics and institutions to adapt to new internal and external demands which may lead to opportunities and challenges for the academic profession (Dan & Fengqiao, 2015;Santos, et al, 2016). The assessment of the academic becomes critical in the main dimensions of his/her work -teaching, research, academic management and service to the community/knowledge transfer (Santos, et al, 2016;Véliz-Calderon, et al, 2018). According to Scanlon (2018),…”