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Evaluation procedures play a crucial role in science and technology systems, particularly within academic career structures. This article focuses on an approach to evaluation that has gained prominence in Latin America over the past four decades. This scheme assesses the individual performance of academics based on their academic activities and outputs and assigns them a 'researcher category', which carries prestige and, in many cases, additional monthly rewards. Initially implemented in higher education contexts with limited research focus, these systems aimed to bolster knowledge production by involving more academics in research. In this study, we define National Researcher Categorization Systems (NRCSs) and distinguish them from other evaluation systems. Subsequently, we present a comparative analysis of NRCSs in seven countries, identifying common trends. Additionally, we discuss categorization systems within the broader context of strategies employed to incentivize academic research, and we explore the potential structural effects that arise when NRCSs assume a central role in a science system. Through our research, we have identified a family of systems in five countries (Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Panama) that share a common history and structure. Furthermore, we emphasize that NRCSs may reinforce a traditional model of the academic researcher, potentially impeding the development of professional profiles aligned with research directed toward social objectives. In summary, our study sheds light on NRCSs, providing insights into their nature, comparative analysis across countries, and implications within the broader academic research landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology development and innovation are fundamentally different from scientific research. However, in many circumstances, they are evaluated jointly and by the same processes. In these cases, peer review—the most usual procedure for evaluating research—is also applied to the evaluation of technological products and innovation activities. This can lead to unfair results and end up discouraging the involvement of researchers in these fields. This paper analyzes the evaluation processes in Uruguay's National System of Researchers. In this system, all members' activities, both scientific and technological, are evaluated by peer committees. Based on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, the difficulties faced by evaluators in assessing technology products are explored. The article highlights the persistence of a linear conception of the link between science and technology and describes the obstacles to assimilate the particularities of technological activities. Refereed publications are presented as the only uncontested product. Other types of output are reviewed with suspicion. This study emphasizes the need for specific mechanisms to evaluate technological production within academic careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities represent a particularly interesting environment for interdisciplinary development; as institutions, they are simultaneously guardians of tradition and spaces for experimentation. This article focuses on initiatives for the creation of institutional spaces for interdisciplinary research in three Latin American universities: Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina, Universidad de la República in Uruguay and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The article analyzes the processes of institutionalization of interdisciplinary centers. It compares (a) the context of creation, (b) the conception of interdisciplinarity, (c) the integration into preexisting structures and (d) internal organization and planning of the centers. Our analysis shows a diversity among institutionalization processes and supports the idea that there is no single model for the institutionalization of the interdisciplinary in the region. However, certain common characteristics can be found. These include a rigid bureaucratic structure and a paramount importance of creating consensus. These traits can be related to the legacy of the Córdoba Reform and the prevalence of a traditional institutional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicine regulation worldwide has undergone a process of regulatory diversification. The evidence-based medicine (EBM) paradigm, centered on multi-phase randomized controlled trials, is increasingly contested and replaced by new models of clinical validation. To explain these changes, STS research has cited just a few factors, e.g. growing pressure form health consumers; the role of pharmaceutical companies to lobby for fast, affordable drug development; the influence of neoliberal ideas and libertarian advocacy of deregulation; and the agency of national governments to enable domestic innovation opportunities in the context of global competition and inequalities. Those factors individually cannot account for the increasing variation in medicine regulation at both national and global levels. Instead it is helpful to integrate elements of existing explanations into a framework with four pairs of conflicting regulatory choices, which play a central role in the formation of medicine regulation. We use this framework to compare regulatory changes in the USA, European Union, China, India, Argentina, and Japan. Across these jurisdictions, the case studies illustrate four dynamics of diversification. Key regulatory concepts such as evidence, risk, safety, efficacy, responsibility and accountability acquire different meanings, reshaping medicine innovation in far-reaching and often contradictory ways. The boundaries between medical research and healthcare provision, commerce and humanitarian service, as well as state control and medical self-regulation are re-defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Technological and Social Development Projects (PDTS) emerged as a response derived to the problem of academic evaluation in Argentina. Its emergence dates from the commissions convened by the then Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation in 2011 and 2012 that sought to review the evaluation parameters of the scientific task. The analysis that follows recovers over fifty interviews carried out with key actors of the process of the aforementioned scientific policy tool (officials, project managers, research teams, members of the PDTS Nacional Bank accrediting committees, members and coordinators of the special commissions of CONICET that evaluate requests for promotion and reports of researchers involved in PDTS) as well as a detailed documentary revision of forms of application, evaluation criteria documents, procceding and includes an updated bibliographical revision and analysis of scientific policies. In our analysis we highlight the awareness of officials about the importance of the evaluation criteria to address the problem of the lack of applied and technological research. The generation of instances of dialogue and articulation in a highly fragmented scientific system was another interesting effect of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is framed within a research project about the processes of transferring knowledge generated by the social sciences. More precisely, it is focused on the linking processes generated between the academic sector and government and civil society organizations. The sample consists of cases from research groups funded by the UBACYT program at the University of Buenos Aires between 2002 and 2007. Selection of these groups was made according to three problem areas: health, housing and education. This work presents the results of interviews that considered three main points: a) characteristics of the effectively established relations and the difficulties found; b) the characteristics of forming groups and their previous experience; c) the role played by the university as an academic institution in the transfer process. Finally, the study evidences the presence of tensions regarding the definition of objectives for knowledge production and transfer in the discourse of the research groups analyzed, and the repercussions that this has on the research and linkage strategies chosen by the researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present work we develop some core ideas to strengthen the inclusion of humanistic knowledge in scientific and technical education sustained in the mainstream definition of engineering provided by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). In order to achieve such a goal we developed a novel formal definition of the term 'judgment' to enlighten the conceptual links between technical rationality and critical thinking in the context of the engineering profession. The analysis intends to overcome some obstacles still present when integrating humanities in engineering training rather than including them as a mere afterthought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]