Description

Know-BEST aims to evaluate the domestic impact of European Union policies on Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I) in Portugal, while seeking to understand how Portuguese ST&I policies have been translating the European narratives, and also to measure its potential institutionalization in higher education institutions and actors. 

The project intends to analyse if institutions and academics change their beliefs and behaviours according to the new political narratives (based on a comparative study of 25 countries).

Furthermore, using a case study approach based on the Health Cluster Portugal (HCP), we will look at how institutions and actors with different institutional logics define strategies to work together in the co-production, transfer and commercialisation of knowledge.

The project is organised in 3 work packages (WP): 

  • The first WP aims to understand how the narratives on a Networked Knowledge Society (NKS) have been applied to the Portuguese context and if they have influenced academics’ beliefs and behaviours on their engagement with society; 
  • The second WP will analyse the engagement of HEIs with society, in order to understand if and how narratives on knowledge have been translated into institutional discourses and practices; 
  • Finally, the third WP contains a micro level analysis of the Health Cluster Portugal (HCP), to help clarify the challenges and tensions faced by different actors and institutions when developing partnerships to co-produce, transfer and commercialize knowledge in the health sector and to ultimately produce information to increase the effectiveness of translational research. 

In the end, KNOW-Best will contribute to a better understand the Europeanization processes in S&I in Portugal and, by measuring its level of institutionalization, to better inform both public and institutional policies in this domain, thus reinforcing the potential of HE to contribute to the socioeconomic development of the country.

© CIPES 2019