Human Resources Training and Development in Colombia

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1 STI Policy Briefs No. 1 - October 2014 Lessons on the human resources training policy for research done in Colombia Training human resources with the ability to carry out research is a basic component of any science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, especially in developing countries like Colombia. Human resources are considered as input that nurtures knowledge systems. This topic has been on Colciencias agenda since its beginning and encouraging the topic has become so important that in recent years more than 50% of the institutional budget has been used to finance activities of this sort. A recurring idea over the last 45 years is that Colombia does not have enough scientists and engineers, and the country's objective is to strengthen the scientific and technological abilities in specific areas. The numbers confirm this idea. According to the report of the Network for Science and Technology Indicators- Ibero-American and Inter-American (Ricyt in Spanish), in 2011 Colombia did not even have one full-time researcher (0.37) for every thousand people of the economically active population, while Portugal had 9.10; Spain 5.64; Argentina 2.98; Uruguay 1.05 and Mexico 0.9. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2011 this same statistic was 9.96 for Japan; 8.08 for the United States; 8.81 for France; 8.39 for Canada and 8.02 for Germany. Upon reviewing how these kinds of programs have been structured, history shows that their design and execution has been supported by loans that the country has negotiated with international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) or the World Bank. The different evaluations made to the programs financed between the Colombian government and the IDB from 1995 to 2004 show the importance of training Colombian doctors abroad and in the country; an aspect that is without a doubt essential for the consolidation of the Colombian scientific community. Said community is precisely the one that has the ability to design and execute research and innovation projects, the main condition to strengthen research and development in Colombia. The impact Colciencias 1 has on the country's scientific and academic community is based on its leadership regarding training policies for human resources used in research. Between 1983 and 2003 the credit 1 Colombian Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation operations of the IDB contributed to the financing of most of the human resource training in Colombia. 73% of the 1,145 scholarship-loans mostly assigned for doctorate studies abroad were financed with these resources that mainly came from IDB operations II and III, which were executed between 1991 and Starting from that year, the Quality Access to Higher Education (Acces in Spanish) Program, backed by funds from a loan made by the World Bank, concentrated on the funding of students in national doctorate programs. Once the Acces program ended, Colciencias and other national institutions took charge of the full funding of the training policy for researchers (scholarships, international mobility and institutional strengthening of the programs), this time without resources from international loans. The impact of this policy, sustained and built through time, seems to show an increase in the total number of doctors in the country. According to calculations made by the Colombian Observatory of Science and Technology (OCyT in Spanish) and based on information provided by the ScienTI platform 2, in 2003 the country had 4,652 doctors, while in 2012 said number had risen to 10,144. This situation coincides with the increased offer of national doctorate programs. In 1990, there were 6 national doctorate programs, while in 2012 the amount had risen to 167, and it is from the beginning of 2000 that a true expansion of these studies can be seen (see Graph 1) 3. Keys for a sustained policy One of the most important lessons learned during the last 45 years is that a high-level human resource training policy is not only about distributing scholarships. There are other instruments that complement this effort and give it its true dimension. Such is the case of the support to the infrastructure of 2 ScienTI is an information platform managed by Colciencias that has the objective to contribute to the management of scientific, technological and innovation activities in the country. It is endowed with services and applications to register information on researchers, research groups and institutions. For more information visit: 3 The number of national doctorate programs reported by the OCyT, correspond to programs with current valid enrollment. This criteria makes the number of programs reported by the OCyT less than the number of programs reported by the National Higher Education Information System (SNIES in Spanish), since the latter includes all the doctorate programs that have proper registration, not differentiating if there are students currently enrolled in the program or not. 1

2 Enrolled students National doctorate programs STI Policy Briefs - No. 1 - October 2014 the national doctorate programs, especially when it comes to the financing of robust lab research equipment; the strengthening of research groups; fostering of international mobility for researchers; articulating the dispersed population/diaspora of Colombian researchers; and the creation of excellence centers, whose objective is to articulate scientific and technological skills from different institutions in different specific areas of knowledge. In 1980, the country set the needed requirements to teach postgraduate programs. During the decade of 1990, the regulation of Master's and Doctorate degrees carried on. Mobility of researchers abroad gained relevance thanks to Law 29/1990. But definitely one of the most important events took place in 2000 with the design of the Comprehensive Policy for the Support of National Doctorate Programs. Said policy contributed to improving the quality and broadening the offer of doctorate programs into new disciplines and areas of knowledge. The consolidation of groups has been a key factor in the training of human resources for research. The research group has become an indispensable unit for higher education institutions. Since 1994, research groups are mandatory to have to be able to open a doctorate or master's program. In 2001, the policy demanded not only the creation of groups, but also the need to prove their research ability through indexed publications obtained by the group's teachers during the last three years. And finally in 2003, the consolidation of the groups became part of the quality guidelines demanded by the National Accreditation Council (CNA in Spanish) 4. The international mobility of researchers abroad is inherent to scientific activity and has played an important role in the establishment of national doctorate programs. One of the graduation requirements of some of these programs is to perform an internship abroad, usually six months, at an academic or scientific institution. This has contributed to the strengthening of ties with other countries and Graph 1. Programs Vs Students enrolled in national doctorate programs ( ) Total programs Total enrolled students Source: Data from 1990 to 2002 taken from the Colombian Institute for the Assessment of Education (ICFES) report (2002). Since 2003 data taken from the National Higher Education Information System (SNIES) and included in the annual report on Science and Technology Indicators for Colombia 2013 (OCyT, 2014) Note: the amount of enrolled students corresponds to the second semester of each year Regarding the encouragement of research groups, Colciencias has also played an important role during the last 45 years. The policies used in the decade of 1990 contributed to legitimatize the work done by the scientific community of the country. The calls for measuring the quality of groups and centers began in 1991 with the purpose of getting to know more in depth the skills of the research community. Along the decade of 1990, new calls were created in order to support the consolidation and strengthening of these organizational structures. This helped to adjust the concept of a group as well as of different analysis models for their classification. Up to now, the research groups have been increasing. Nonetheless, the evaluation of the quality of their work has depended on the criteria prioritized by Colciencias in the different models implemented to measure them, creating a constant debate. the exchange of knowledge at a global scale. The universities have designed some instruments to support these activities and some governmental agencies like Icetex and Colciencias have created programs that finance the researchers' mobility. This exchange through internships is part of the researcher's training and is a way to fight against "parochialism", which in some cases has characterized higher education in Colombia. The issue of brain drain and migration marked an important step in the history of the research training policy. Likewise, the joint work of researchers domiciled abroad had an impact on the policy, especially in In the aforementioned decade, the country understood that not only with the return and 4 The National Accreditation Council (CNA) is a part of the Colombian National Accreditation System. Its purpose is to guarantee that institutions and higher education programs meet the highest quality standards. 2

3 STI Policy Briefs - No. 1 - October 2014 repatriation of human resources could the local scientific community be strengthened, but that they had to work with Colombian researchers domiciled abroad to take advantage of their contacts, and therefore facilitate the connection between the local and international scientific community. It was also understood that an economic incentive was only one of the influencing factors to the researchers' return, and that the truth of their return was linked to the existence of conditions to develop their research 5. Some challenges in reorienting the policy Despite the efforts pointed out, the fulfillment of the goals in creating a research community that is able to respond to an economy based on knowledge, is still far from the expectations and statements. Probably the most significant debt is to the goals established by the Science and Technology Mission 6 carried out in the mid-1990s. Of the goal of 8,000 doctors that the Mission set out to train over a 10-year period, only 30% was achieved, and not even one decade later could this goal be met. According to the OCyT calculations and based on the information registered in the CvLAC 7 of the ScienTI platform, between 2003 and 2012 only people obtained the title of doctor in Colombia or abroad. The country has been able to advance due to aspects such as: the existence of programs to encourage training; expansion of the higher education system, especially of postgraduate studies that later employ the staff they train and thus become quintessential labs to train more researchers; refining of the support and promotion mechanisms; and the evolution of the institutional structure to oversee the quality of the postgraduate studies. Nonetheless, there is a long pending list that derives from 45 years of experience in implementing the policy. Below we have the four biggest challenges that must be taken into consideration for the future of the research training policy in Colombia. Challenge 1. Financing and balance between national and international supply 5 It was said in 1994 that 50% of the participants of the Brain Drain Recovery Program, organized by Colciencias in 1972, carried out processes to return to the country where they had originally migrated to due to the lack of research guarantees. In 2007, an evaluation carried out by the OCyT on the human resources training programs confirmed that around 83% of the beneficiaries of the scholarship programs supported by Colciencias returned, and that 67% were able to establish a work relationship with some institution in the country. 6 The Mission gathered 10 renowned Colombian sages to reflect upon Colombia s technological development. Among them were Literature Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez and neurophysiologist and researcher Rodolfo Llinás. 7 This is the electronic Curriculum Vitae format used by Colciencias to permanently register information on the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation researchers, innovators, scholars and experts. The articulation between the training programs financed with national resources and those offered by international institutions (e.g.. DAAD, Fulbright, Mazda Foundation, Carolina Foundation, Aecid, etc.) is a pending issue. Currently, there are no longer development programs funded using joint international credit resources, like what happened in the operational credit period of the IDB. There is a tendency to carry out negotiations with international education institutions that give doctorate education to Colombians, as well as with other facilitating institutions. This is an effort that must continue, but this does not imply that the strengthening of the infrastructure of national doctorate programs that started in the decade of 2000 must be left unattended. After an important period where the training policy for doctors was based on an intensive training of researchers abroad, it is necessary to strengthen the mixed training of doctors both in Colombia and abroad, a fact that became evident after the "Bicentennial Generation" program, designed by Colciencias in There is a set of national doctorate programs in the country that can be used as a base for this proposal. According to the OCyT, in 2012 the existence of 40 national doctoral programs in basic sciences, 35 in engineering and technology, 15 in medical science and health, 11 in agricultural science, and 66 in social science and humanities were recorded. Challenge 2. Review of the national doctorate supply The last report of the OCyT (2013) shows that starting from 2000 there has been a considerable increase in the opening of national doctoral programs. According to the data presented in Graph 1, between 1990 and 2012 the average rate of annual growth of the programs increased by 19.4%; while the enrollment of students increased an annual average of 32.5%. When carefully analyzing the programs filtering them by institution and knowledge area, there are important differences regarding the enrollment. It is necessary to ask about the dynamic of these programs and their difficulties in incorporating more students, how to avoid desertion and increase the graduation percentage. For example, the lack of tutors with the skills to properly asses a doctoral thesis has been detected, and is one of the factors that affect this dynamic. Other aspects such as offer quality, lack of financing for candidates, existing competition with international offers, and the understanding of its usefulness by the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation (SNCTI in Spanish), are some factors that must be analyzed. The doctoral programs have begun to certify their quality pursuant to CNA guidelines. Since 2007, the CNA has shown 3

4 STI Policy Briefs - No. 1 - October 2014 interest in the projection of these programs by Colombian universities, in order to articulate them with the goals defined by Colciencias. According to the CNA, in September 2014, only 11 doctoral programs were certified, this is a little under 7% of all the programs that existed in Challenge 3. Institutional funding responsibility This challenge is related to the government's ability for institutional coordination. The greatest percentage of the Colciencias budget is destined to funding the training of human resource used in research, a responsibility that also belongs to other government institutions such as the Ministry of Education and Icetex, or non-government entities such as Colfuturo. It is necessary to consolidate an inter-institutional coordination scheme and discuss the responsibilities of the institutions involved in the training of human resource for research. According to Law 1286/2009, which transformed Colciencias into an Administrative Department, the institution has a pretty wide range of general objectives, which also includes the encouragement of the training human resources for STI 8. So, coordination to facilitate the establishment of national goals regarding this matter, and to define the best way of operation, is a necessary requirement. To articulate the institutions' agendas is important, but it is also important to create synergies within the SNCTI and Higher Educational System. This will for example allow to improve the quality of researcher training and favor their labor market integration. Challenge 4. Demand for doctors and absorption capacity There are few studies on the demand of doctors by SNCTI institutions. Colciencias has performed some promotional activities to stimulate the enrollment of doctors into the private sector and entities other than universities. Nonetheless, little is known about this dynamic. The information that has been systematized by the OCyT shows that the human resources with a doctorate level education working in Colombian manufacturing companies is very low when compared to those that only have a professional title. In 2012, the companies that participated in the Development and Technological Innovation Survey (EDIT in Spanish) reported a total of 329 employed doctors, against professionals. The situation becomes even more dramatic when it is seen that out of the 329 reported doctors, only 94 execute activities related to development and technological innovation. Basically, most doctorate graduates in Colombia work for universities or research centers, and their enrollment into businesses is necessary. Despite the aforementioned, the scientific and academic sector is the main market and will continue to be due to the current structure of the SNCTI. This is why the demand must be considered not only for the business sector, but also for the higher education and research sectors. Summing up, the training policy for human resource in research in Colombia has achieved significant advances since the decade of Thanks to the guaranteed continuity awarded by loans from IDB and the World Bank, and afterwards to the determined funding of Colciencias and other national institutions, some lessons and challenges to strengthen the current policy were drawn. Human resource training must go beyond the design of scholarship programs or forgivable loans for doctorate studies. Other factors such as strengthening postgraduate studies and research groups are fundamental in establishing a favorable environment. Likewise, articulating local researchers with the international community has proven to be important, may it be through mobility programs or diaspora research links. This analysis proposes four challenges that must be studied to revitalize the researcher training policy in Colombia: 1) balanced financing between the national and international supply, 2) review of the national doctorate study supply, 3) discussion on the institutional responsibility of financing these programs and 4) analysis on the demand of doctorate graduates and the absorption ability of the SNCTI. These aspects are part of the balance and learning that are inherent to the execution of researcher training programs, and are still valid in the consolidation of an STI policy in the context of a global knowledge society. 8 The eleven general objectives established by Law 1286/2009 for Colciencias, range from proposing a national science, technology and innovation plan to the strengthening of intercultural research in order to protect biodiversity, traditional knowledge and genetic resources. 4

5 Thoughts on STI Policy - No. 1 - October 2014 STI Policy Briefs "STI Policy Briefs" is an activity carried out by the Colombian Observatory of Science and Technology (OCyT in Spanish), in order to socialize and make more accessible the knowledge and the policy lessons learned within a research project context. The documents from said series may be downloaded from This policy brief has been created based on the project "Colciencias: among regulations, legitimacy and practice. History and evolution of a national science and technology institution - ONCYT". The final product of said project was the publishing of "Colciencias forty years. Among legitimacy, regulations and practice", edited by the OCyT, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Universidad del Rosario. The material compiled during the project as well as the digital version of the publication may be downloaded from: For the creation of this document, the following chapters of the publication were taken into account: Rivera, C., Pallares, C., Galvis, M., & Cárdenas-Osorio, J. (2013). Un recuento de dos décadas. El papel de Colciencias en la formación de recursos humanos de alto nivel. In M. Salazar (Ed.), Colciencias cuarenta años: entre la legitimidad, la normatividad y la práctica (pp ). Bogota: Colombian Observatory of Science and Technology Montoya, J. S., & Rivera, C. (2013). La Red Caldas. Historia de una red de diáspora científica colombiana. In M. Salazar (Ed.), Colciencias cuarenta años: entre la legitimidad, la normatividad y la práctica (pp ). Bogota: Observatorio Colombiano de Cienica y Tecnología Nupia, C. M., & Barón, V. (2013). El BID y Colciencias. Continuidades de las operaciones crediticias para ciencia, tecnología e innovación. In M. Salazar (Ed.), Colciencias cuarenta años: entre la legitimidad, la normatividad y la práctica (pp ). Bogota: Observatorio Colombiano de Cienica y Tecnología Orozco, L. A., Ruiz, C. F., Bonilla, R., & Chavarro, D. (2013). Los grupos de investigación en Colombia. Sus prácticas, su reconocimiento y su legitimidad. In M. Salazar (Ed.), Colciencias cuarenta años: entre la legitimidad, la normatividad y la práctica (pp ). Bogota: Observatorio Colombiano de Cienica y Tecnología If you have any comment or would like to get more information on any topic dealt with in this edition of STI Policy Briefs, you can write to info@ocyt.org.co 5