Al cumplir su primer año de funcionamieto, el Programa Anillo (SOC01) sobre Políticas de Educación Superior –en el cual participan las Universidades Alberto Hurtado, de Talca, Nacional Andrés Bello y Diego Portales, donde tiene su sede principal– da cuenta al CONICYT de sus avances y producción, así como de las lecciones aprendidas durante este período.
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Executive Summary
The present document reports the first year activities of the Anillo Program (SOC01) on Higher Education Policy.
The Anillo Program is an associate and collaborative endeavor among Alberto Hurtado University, the University of Talca, Andres Bello University and Diego Portales University. The Program is located in the Center for Comparative Educational Policies (Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación, CPCE) at the Diego Portales University, Santiago with the backing of the four member universities.
This report includes those activities which have been directly undertaken as part of the Anillo Program – that is the nucleus of principal and associate researchers and participating young researchers – in research, teaching, training, international and national networking, the diffusion and transfer of knowledge as well as the sum of other joint activities in the field of higher education policy that have been indirectly supported. For the Anillo Program not only undertakes research, teaching and intervention – as described in the original proposal – but acts as a catalyst for closely associated activities by promoting spin offs, new concepts and projects, further initiatives and the opportunity to coordinate and maximize activities.
The Program researchers are José Joaquín Brunner, PhD, Director; Andrés Bernasconi, PhD, Principal Researcher; Juan Pablo Prieto, PhD, Principal Researcher; Oscar Espinoza, PhD, Associate Researcher; Enrique Fernandez, PhD, Associate Researcher; Manuel Krauskopf, PhD, Associate Researcher; Felipe Salazar, economist, Assistant Researcher and Judith Scheele, MA, Assistant Researcher.
Having completed its first year, the Anillo Program is now in full development. As a result, for the first time in Chile there is now an inter-institutional and interdisciplinary nucleus of specialized researchers working together in the field of higher education. This nucleus is composed of eight researchers (principals, associates and assistants) belonging to the four member universities. In addition, between September 2008 and September 2009 four senior researchers and around ten assistant researchers and research support staffs have become involved in various Program related activities.
The research undertaken in the first year of the project covers three areas; (i) Institutions and public regulations in mixed competitive higher education systems; (ii) Policies to stimulate and help institutional capacity building; (iii) Quality control processes and procedures in mixed and competitive higher education systems. In each of these areas there are various research-lines and projects, which are staffed by Program‟s researchers (Section IV).
During the last twelve months they have published –either as authors, coauthors or editors– three books, sixteen book chapters, twenty articles in peer reviewed journals, as well as many other more general publications for diffusion and knowledge transfer as noted below.
The Program‟s publications seek to advance specialized knowledge about the Chilean tertiary education system through a multidisciplinary and comparative focus with the purpose of disseminating and transferring knowledge to help in the formulation and design of public policies and its informed reflection and deliberation. Together, these publications cover the system‟s most important features pertinent for public policy in Chile. These are:
 Institutions, regulations and finance
 System governance and institutions
 Institutional strategies and organizational management
 Development of the academic profession and graduate studies
 Information, indicators and quality assurance.
It is worth pointing out that Program research results have been published not only in Chile but also in Germany, Brazil, Spain, the United States, the Netherlands and various international journals. In addition, during its first year, the Program has enlisted higher education researchers from other (non-member) institutions in three ways:
(i) A monthly workshop for presentations and discussions about research in progress;
(ii) A national congress for higher education researchers which will take place in October 2009;
(iii) A multi-authored book, edited by Program researchers, with articles by leaders in higher education institutions and academic experts.
The Anillo Program‟s strong collaborative environment has led to the development of various cooperative activities as part of its knowledge management undertakings (i.e. joint production, transfer, application, and evaluation of knowledge) with the main national public agencies, namely, the Higher Education Division of the Ministry of Education; the National Council of Education, and the National Accreditation Commission. As well as those activities involving the member universities, there have been different kinds of joint activities with at least 20 other higher education institutions in Chile. In brief, the Program is an active participant in national knowledge networks linked to higher education.
In terms of external cooperation, the Program has undertaken different initiatives (Section VII) with three associated centers: the Institut für Hochschulforschung Wittenberg an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany; the Centre for Higher Education Management Studies at the Polytechnic University, Valencia, Spain, and the Comparative and International Education Policy Program (CIEPP) at the State University of New York (Albany) USA. Program researchers participated also in various collaborative initiatives with the Grupo Faro, based in Quito and the Fundación Ecuador; the National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina; the National Autonomous University of Merida, Yucatan, Mexico; the Catholic University of Guayquil, Ecuador, and with the OECD, the World Bank, Global Initiative for Quality Assurance Capacity (GIQAC), the Colombus Program, Boston College, the Ministry of Education in Argentina, and the Department of Latin American Studies (TCLA) of Leiden University, the Netherlands. Through an agreement reached with this last university the Anillo Program will participate in the training of doctoral students within the field of higher education. These different international initiatives are described fully in appropriate sections of this report.
During this first year Anillo Program members have taught courses about higher education policy in various Masters programs given by participating and non-member institutions. This module was taught in MA programs at the University of La Frontera, the University of Chile (Industrial Engineering Department) and the Alberto Hurtado University for a total of 50 students.
During this same period Program researchers have guided 6 Masters theses and one doctoral thesis in different Chilean and foreign universities. Member institutions are also involved in training activities for leading personnel responsible for university management on issues such as research management and curricular innovation and reform, with the attendance of university management personnel. A training course for leading university executives was also given at the Autonomous University of Yucatan, in Merida, Mexico.
The principal outreach method for the scientific community has been, first, that of academic publications, listed in the Appendix and by the Bulletin of Higher Education Policies, which published five issues in the program’s first year. It is electronically distributed to over two thousand interested people in government agencies, parliament, university leaders, academics, non-governmental organizations, business organizations, and mass communications.
Second, four issues of the Bulletin, which synthesizes the results of international research in the higher education field, have been published.
Third, program researchers participate on a regular basis in different academic meetings.
The Anillo Program is also involved in the diffusion of information and ideas to non-specialist publics through various types of extension activities. For example, the Program’s Director has published over one hundred posts dealing with the analysis of and reflections about higher education issues in his academic blog (www.brunner.cl), while the Program‟s own site (http://www.cpce.cl/anillo/) provides timely information about its research, publications and the activities of researchers, who have in addition gave more than 50 public interviews to the press, radio and television about higher education topics.
In terms of outreach and applied knowledge, the Program has used all the different procedures and instruments originally envisaged in its proposal. The following should be briefly mentioned (for more information see Section IX):
 Synthesis of research results and recommendations. Four working documents were produced during the first year: (i) Tertiary education and the labor market – review of the international literature; (ii) Doctoral education in the sciences and engineering in developed countries – recent evolution and perspectives; (iii) Quality assurance in non university tertiary education – an analysis of evaluation mechanisms in OECD countries; (iv) Accreditation processes – information and indicators: an analysis of the international literature. These publications are addressed to public policy and decision makers; boards and leaders of higher education institutions (HEIs), and the media.
 Public Policy Bulletin of Higher Education Policies. An e-Bulletin is circulated on a bi-monthly basis to registered public leaders, boards of HEIs, national researchers‟ networks, relevant private organizations, and media. To date five numbers have been published dealing with the following issues: Contemporary debate about higher education policy; Management of the academic profession; Access, inclusion and equity in university entrance; Performance contracts and strategic planning. These are available at http://www.cpce.cl/es/publicaciones/boletin-de-politicas-publicas-en-ed-superior).
 Academic publications in specialized journals, books and book chapters. The public here is national and international (specialized) research networks and the academic community at large. These are set out in more detail in section IV in this report and the relevant Appendix provides a detailed list.
 Opinion columns in the media (print and electronic) are intended to inform and whenever possible to influence discussions about the public agenda in higher education and to participate in these discussions. Various Program members actively take part in the public sphere.
 Leadership development for higher education policy through workshops on higher education policy and management for public sector and HEI personnel in executive positions. Two workshops were organized addressing issues about research management and curricular reform.
 Support for publishing activities through the Program‟s site, so allowing external researchers to present working papers and to be published after peer review. These are to be found at the Program‟s web page; in the near future, the presentations at the first Congress of Higher Education Researchers, which is being organized by the Anillo Program, will be published.
 Communication with public leaders of select public agencies to define working issues and priorities. The program and its members have maintained close ties with the principal agencies in the sector and gained various research contracts as noted in the appropriate sections of this report.
 International networks: transfer of ideas, knowledge and policy innovations through exchanges with associated centers and participation in international events, consulting & advisory services. As noted above, the program has active agreements with many institutions in Latin America, the USA and Europe, as well as collaborative projects, academic interchanges and advisory services and consultancies.
 Platform for collaborative projects through alliances with associated centers and utilization of foreign external consultants to ensure the Program‟s sustainability and strengthen its endogenous capacities. In this area, the principal success has been to develop a platform for international collaboration and to reach agreement with the Department of Latin American Studies at Leiden University to develop a joint program for doctoral training in the field of higher education studies.