Higher Education in Portugal - Research at Institutions of Higher Learning

Research At Institutions of Higher Learning

Academic research in 2003 represented about 50% of total expenditure in R&D (including expenditure by higher education and related non-profit institutions). Total expenditure (public and private) in R&D was 0.78% of the GDP, which had reached 0.85% in 2001, when the European average was 1.98% for the then-15 EU member-states. Overall, higher education and related non-profit institutions represented in 2003 about 74% of Portuguese researchers, with a total value of 24.726 researchers (i.e., head counts), representing 13.008 FTE researchers. In December 2004, higher education institutions included 11.316 teaching-staff members holding a PhD degree.

In 2001 Portugal was, for the first time in history, one of the countries of excellence that contributed to the top 1% of the world's highly cited publications. Spain was responsible for 2.08%, while Ireland and Greece accounted for 0.36% and 0.3%, respectively.

Within the higher education system, only university institutions carry out fundamental research.

  • Research centers belonging to higher learning institutions accredited by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, 2004
Type of institution Number of research centers Number of institutions
Public universities 384 14
Public polytechnics 8 15
Catholic University 14 1
Private universities 7 N/A
Other private institutions 20 N/A
Total 433 N/A

Source: FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

Read more about this topic:  Higher Education In Portugal

Famous quotes containing the words research, institutions, higher and/or learning:

    I did my research and decided I just had to live it.
    Karina O’Malley, U.S. sociologist and educator. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A5 (September 16, 1992)

    Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of man, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    Le Corbusier was the sort of relentlessly rational intellectual that only France loves wholeheartedly, the logician who flies higher and higher in ever-decreasing circles until, with one last, utterly inevitable induction, he disappears up his own fundamental aperture and emerges in the fourth dimension as a needle-thin umber bird.
    Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)

    Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
    Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)