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A lecture was presented by the author at the Democratic Opinion Forum on Health Teaching and Research, organ­ized by Mexico's National Health Institutes Coordinating Office, at National Cardiology Institute "Ignacio Chavez", where he presented a critical review of the conventional classification of basic and applied science, as well as his per­sonal view on health science teaching and research. Ac­cording to the author, "well-conducted science" is that "generating reality-checked knowledge" and "mis-conduct­ed science" is that "unproductive or producing 'just lies' and 'non-fundable'. To support his views, the author re­views utilitarian and pejorative definitions of science, as well as those of committed and pure science, useful and useless science, and practical and esoterical science, as synonyms of applied and basic science. He also asserts that, in Mexico, "this classification has been used in the past to justify feder­al funding cutbacks to basic science, allegedly because it is not targeted at solving 'national problems' or because it was not relevant to priorities set in a given six-year political administration period". Regarding health education and re­search, the author asserts that the current academic pro­grams are inefficient and ineffective; his proposal to tackle these problems is to carry out a solid scientific study, con­ducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts, "to design the scientific researcher curricula from recruitment of intelligent young people to retirement or death". Perfor­mance assessment of researchers would not be restricted to publication of papers, since "the quality of scientific work and contribution to the development of science is not reflected by the number of published papers". The English version of this paper is available at: http://www.insp.mx/salud/index.html ; En el contexto de una intervención en el Foro de Consulta Democrática de la Coordinación de los Institutos Nacio­nales de Salud sobre Enseñanza e Investigación en Salud, realizado en el Instituto Nacional ...

This article analyzes the implementation process of the Ecuadorian science, technology and innovation policy (PCTI) within the framework of the beginning of the post-neoliberal period, which implied the strengthening of the State and the insertion of the paradigm of buen vivir. For this purpose, the novel elements in the definition of this policy under the framework of buen vivir are described as an introductory note. Then, the complex construction process of the explicit PCTI during these years is reviewed. Finally, the instruments implemented and their relationship with the definition of PCTI are analyzed. To this end, the concepts of explicit scientific policy and implicit scientific policy of Herrera [1] and the notion of scientific-technological paradigm of Velho [2] are used. The chosen approach is framed in the new institutionalism that understands the definition and implementation of the PCTI as the result of the strategic game of the actors involved in these processes. This case study uses investigation of historical archives, documentary analysis and in-depth interviews with relevant actors. It is found that the PCTI during these years was unstable, as there were several short-term policy documents, and that its implementation was far from the ambitious rhetoric and the major objectives, limited to two instruments: international postgraduate scholarships and financing of research and development projects.

A review essay on a book by Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Ewa Kuleza, & Annette Legutke [Eds], The State of Political Science in Central and Eastern Europe (Berlin: Sigma, 2002).

The relationship between science and economy is a trendy issue, both in the scientific field as in the entrepreneurial and political arena. The main purpose of this work is to show in a synthetic way the state of the art of this matter. To this aim, we put forward the analysis of science developed by economists, focusing in the controversies between the neoclassical and the evolutionary perspective. We also review the empirical evidence offered by different works and sum up the main arguments of the present debate about how science should be organized. Main conclusions show that science and economy are closely related and that their links are complex and dynamic, so that flexible approaches are required in the management and evaluation of the relationship. ; La relación entre ciencia y economía es un tema de gran actualidad, atrae la atención tanto en el mundo científico como en el empresarial y el político. El principal objetivo de este trabajo consiste en mostrar de forma sintética el estado del arte sobre esta cuestión. Para ello, se presenta el análisis de la ciencia realizado por los economistas, prestando especial atención a las controversias existentes entre la perspectiva neoclásica y evolucionista, se repasa la evidencia empírica existente a partir de trabajos de muy distinta naturaleza y se resumen las líneas principales del debate actual acerca el modelo de organización de la ciencia. Las principales conclusiones del estudio muestran que ciencia y economía se hallan íntimamente relacionadas y que sus vínculos son complejos y dinámicos, por lo que se requieren planteamientos flexibles en la gestión y evaluación de dicha relación.

After the Second World War, many Western countries implemented mental health care reforms that included legislative changes, measures to modernise psychiatric hospitals, and policies to deinstitutionalise mental health care, shifting its locus from residential hospitalsto community services. In Greece, psychiatric reform began in the late 1970s and was linked to the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, the general reorganisation of health care, accession to the European Economic Community and international outcry at the inhuman treatment of the Leros psychiatric hospital inmates. The 1950s, 1960s and most of the 1970s had been an ambivalent period in relation to psychiatric reform. On the one hand, a dynamic group of experts, some long established and some newly emergent, including psychiatrists, hygienists, psychologists and social workers, strove to introduce institutional and legislative changes. On the other hand, the state, while officially inviting expert opinion on mental health care more than once, did not initiate any substantial reform until the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Within this framework, we ask whether the story of psychiatric modernisation in Greece before the late 1970s could be summarised as a futile encounter between progressive scientists and indifferent state authorities. By assessing the early attempts to restructure mental health care in Greece, examining both the expert proposals and the state policies between the end of the civil war in 1949 and the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, this paper proposes a more nuanced view, which brings out the tensions between state and expert discourses as well as the discrepancies between the discourses and the implemented programmes.

These notes present a basic overview of the most relevant aspects of the role of scientific journals in open science; for the review, the definition of open science established by the European Union forum is examined. The given concept covers many areas of academic society; furthermore, open science is supported by open data, open source, open access, and open review. It has a clear, free, discovered, broad and expeditious methodology; with open sources in software and hardware that allow the entire community greater accessibility. The purpose of open science is the production of public scientific goods through the exchange of results and collaboration. The characteristics that a scientific journal and its repositories should have are carefully analyzed; as well as, the contradictions in society in the face of open science policies are also studied. The advances of open science in Venezuela are also presented. To conclude that the goal of open science is to promote communication between researchers in an area of knowledge and enable scientific knowledge to reach broader sectors of society for technological development.