TopUniversities.com examines the challenges facing Latin American universities, as they attempt to strengthen their presence in the world of academic research.
We are used to the idea of Asian universities becoming more visible producers of high-quality research. Is it possible that universities in Latin America will do the same in the near future?
We know that the region’s higher education systems are not yet world-class. The top Latin American university, Universidade de São Paulo, was 169th in the 2011/12 QS World University Rankings. But intriguingly, it was 102nd in the world in terms of academic opinion.
The same applies to Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil’s second-placed institution. This suggests that academics around the world, who are familiar with research at these universities, rate it comparatively highly.
Regional research focus
As in other emerging regions such as the Middle East, the research priorities of Latin American nations are decided by local rather than world priorities.
For example, Brazil spends about US$1 billion per year on agricultural research, a massive sum by any standard, reflecting the importance of agriculture to its economy.
In addition, governments in the region retain a high degree of control over research funds. In Venezuela, legislation allows the government to allocate research money directly, despite proof from all over the world that these decisions are best taken by scientists.
Despite these issues, Latin America has its share of globally rated researchers.
Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist who works on direct brain connections to computers, is probably the region’s best-known scientist on the world stage. He divides his time between Duke University in the US and a specially-funded lab in Natal, in North-East Brazil.
Brazilian dominance
As the biggest nation in the region and the most visible internationally, it is inevitable that Brazil dominates discussion of Latin American higher education.
Sao Paulo has been our top university in both iterations of these rankings, joined in both years by Unicamp in third place. It is also notable that Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro has risen from 19th place in 2011 to number 8 this year.
Research by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) suggests that Brazil’s strong position in these rankings is due to a national effort to increase the quality and quantity of its research.
The NSF found that Brazil tripled its science output between 1993 and 2003, and it has carried on growing since. It is one of the “big five” research producers outside the OECD nations, along with Taiwan, China, India and Russia.
While Russian and Indian research output has fallen or stagnated, Brazil, China and Taiwan have expanded their efforts.
The NSF has also found growing research budgets in Mexico and Costa Rica, but not in Argentina, Chile or Venezuela. In 2008, the NSF said, Brazil spent $22 billion on research, with Mexico, Argentina and Chile spending $5.8 billion, $2.7 billion and $1.2 billion respectively.
The NSF statistics show no research spending in any other Latin American nation. With such small budgets elsewhere, it is not a surprise that Brazil, Argentina and Mexico take nine of the top ten slots in our 2012 ranking, along with Colombia’s Universidad de Los Andes.
Attracting top academics
But when we look at measures specifically related to research, it seems that Brazil is even more dominant than the overall results might suggest.
Sao Paulo and Unicamp are the top two institutions for PhDs as a percentage of academic staff, suggesting a commitment to research and also to high-level teaching. By contrast, Chile’s Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, second overall, is 35th on this measure.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico’s leading institution and fifth in this ranking, is 71st for PhD-qualified staff, but has perfect scores on both academic and employer review.
In addition, the top Brazilian institutions are regional leaders in research productivity, measured in term of papers per academic staff member.
While it is impossible for teaching-only institutions to do well in the World University Rankings, our Latin American rankings allow universities that are valuable for their teaching role to appear prominently.
An example is Mexico’s number two university, Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).
For the second year running, it has a top score for employer opinion, as well as being well-liked by other academics. These two results place ITESM in seventh place here. But it is 84th and 90th respectively when it comes to the production of academic papers and the frequency with which they are cited.
This is a poor result for a technology-based institution and suggests that its priorities lie elsewhere. However, Latin American nations are aware that they need a more significant presence in world research.
Progress on academic research
This month, the presidents of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru chose the Paranal Observatory in Chile to sign a four-nation Pacific Alliance Agreement which specifically encourages joint research.
In addition, it includes measures on the free movement of people which will be important for universities seeking top researchers.
The location of the ceremony was chosen to make the point that Latin America contains some world centers of research and knowledge creation. More importantly, the Pacific Alliance is intended to make its four member nations attractive to major Asian investment.
High-level research is bound to help attract business interest in the region from around the world. In addition, there is bound to be future pressure for smaller nations in the region to increase their research output.
Data from Scimago shows that three nations, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, produce most of the region’s research, with Chile some way behind.
But it also shows that the region’s research publications output rose from 22,000 papers in 1996 to 85,000 in 2010, and that the percentage of these papers being cited has risen steadily.
This suggests scope for the region to emerge as a significant one for globally important research.