Strong State and Weak Universities: the Long-Term Roots of the Spanish University System Problems

Abstract

State intervention in the academic world has been excessive and inadequate in Spain. It has crowded out industry rather than promoted a fruitful relationship among “academia, government and industry” as the support for a long-term knowledge-based advanced society. Enrollment rates from 1857 to 2000, as well as research indicators support this hypothesis. This has resulted in a university and research system too closely linked to public demands rather than to social and economic needs. Spain’s ability to produce and apply new knowledge has thus been hampered, in spite of significant public investments in higher education and science.