The decisive process in the public complex of higher education and research: a vision of policy analysis

Abstract

Despite its initial focus in the public research universities, the work aims to provide elements for two extensions or generalizations. The first, in the direction of the decision-making process related to Higher education and Research or to the country S&T policy. It is carried on applying the Policy Analysis approach on its central actor, the academic (and/or research) community. The second, in the direction of the Latin American countries as a whole, is supported, on the one hand, in the well-known similarities. On the other, in a situation this approach makes explicit: more than in central countries, that actor is here practically the only responsible for the Formulation moment and by the Implementation and Evaluation of the activities triggered by this moment. The analysis of these three moments of the policy process is accomplished in the initial part of the work. It is followed by an attempt of framing it in the taxonomy proposed by Policy Analysis. Arguing that the improvement of this policy demands, more than changes in its normative-institutional model, a better understanding of the policy process itself, the work offers a descriptive-explanatory model of it. Doing so, it expects to contribute, through effective actions on critical variables of the model, to the improvement of S&T policy.