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This article analyses Spanish training policies from the mid-eighties underlying the relevance of political factors in explaining the reforms that have taken place. One of the basic arguments is that whereas institutional contexts and the economic cycle had an influence on policies, however, factors related to the models that governments have about the functioning of the labour market, the causes of unemployment and the determinants and effects of training, have greater explanatory power.

Este artículo analiza la relación entre las políticas de formación profesional y el mercado de trabajo en España y Gran Bretaña desde principios de los ochenta hasta mediados de los noventa, prestando atención a la distinta evolución de la desigualdad de ingresos y empleo por nivel educativo. En ambos países se llevaron a cabo políticas divergentes destinadas a influir sobre los niveles de cualificación de la población, y a resolver el dilema entre igualdad y empleo en épocas de crisis. Se argumenta que las diferencias entre los dos casos se explican principalmente por los objetivos distributivos de los gobiernos, y por las diferencias en la interpretación del funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo, las causas del paro, y los determinantes y efectos de los distintos tipos de formación. Esta hipótesis explicativa es contrastada con otras hipótesis rivales relacionadas con el ciclo político-económico y las instituciones del mercado de trabajo. This article analyses the relationship between vocational training policies and labour markets in Spain and Great Britain since the early eighties to the mid- nineties, paying atention to the different evolution of earnings and employment inequality by educational levels. Both countries developed divergent policies in order to influence the qualification levels of the population and to solve the trade off between equality and employment during economic crisis. It is argued that the differences among the two cases are better explained by the distributive objectives of the governments, and by the different interpretation and ideas about the functioning of the labour market, the causes of unemployment, and the determinants and effects of different types of training. This causal hypothesis is contrasted to other rival ones related to the political and economic cycle and the labour market institutions.

El sistema de investigación es altamente dependiente de los recursos que le suministra el sistemapolítico. Los investigadores tienen la expectativa de que el gasto público en I+D aumente,pero el encarecimiento de la investigación y la emergencia de problemas financieros de losgobiernos han hecho perder relevancia en la agenda política a la ejecución directa de la I+D. Esasituación se ha observado en los centros de investigación de titularidad estatal en España, quehan disminuido su peso en el conjunto de la actividad investigadora, mientras aumentaban losmecanismos de financiación competitiva como método de intervención gubernamental.La reducción de las ayudas directas es un problema que afecta a las condiciones de ejecuciónde la investigación, tanto para los investigadores como para los centros. El objetivo de este artículoes analizar cómo un conjunto de centros de investigación públicos han respondido a lareducción de recursos transferidos directamente por la Administración. Tras constatar la diversidadde respuestas para adaptarse y hacer frente al descenso de las transferencias directas del Estado,se construye una explicación de carácter institucionalista basada en el nivel y el tipo de autonomíade que disponen los centros y los investigadores.

Criteria for assessing candidates are essential elements for the functioning of evaluation practices in academia. This article addresses a relevant issue of academia: the preference for evaluation criteria for tenure and promotion, as reported by female and male academics employed at Spanish universities. We use survey data from 4,460 faculty members, testing whether there are differences in the evaluation criteria that women and men prefer and exploring the factors that account for such preferences. Our focus is on bibliometric evaluation criteria. We propose an analytical model that considers the influence of career and quality factors, values about universalism and the mission of universities, and beliefs about meritocracy in the context of the academic evaluation system. We use a binary logistic model to explain the preference for bibliometric criteria and develop the comparisons by gender using predicted probabilities and marginal effects for estimating the difference. We find that female academics do not have the same preferences as men and report lower preferences for bibliometrics. However, women at the highest research quality levels have similar probabilities than males to prefer bibliometric criteria for evaluation. ; Research supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2016-79045-C2-1-R) and the European Union (H2020 grant agreement no. 824574). ; Peer reviewed

This article analyses whether different institutional sources of scientific information have an impact on its credibility. Through a population-based survey experiment of a national representative sample of the Spanish public, we measure the credibility that citizens attribute to scientific information on the evolution of CO2 emissions disclosed by different institutional sources (business associations, government, non-government environmental organisations, international bodies and national research institutions). The findings show that an institutional credibility gap exists in science communication. We also investigate the factors accounting for the credibility of the different institutional sources by examining variables related to knowledge, interest, trust, reputation, deference, attitudes, values and personal characteristics. Exploratory regression analyses reveal that identical variables can produce different effects on the credibility of scientific information, depending on the institutional source to which it is attributed. ; Peer reviewed

This article analyses whether different institutional sources of scientific information have an impact on its credibility. Through a population-based survey experiment of a national representative sample of the Spanish public, we measure the credibility that citizens attribute to scientific information on the evolution of CO(2) emissions disclosed by different institutional sources (business associations, government, non-government environmental organisations, international bodies and national research institutions). The findings show that an institutional credibility gap exists in science communication. We also investigate the factors accounting for the credibility of the different institutional sources by examining variables related to knowledge, interest, trust, reputation, deference, attitudes, values and personal characteristics. Exploratory regression analyses reveal that identical variables can produce different effects on the credibility of scientific information, depending on the institutional source to which it is attributed.

The economic crisis of recent years provides an extremely valuable context for the study of the effective role which R&D policies have had for governments, both as a potential tool for exiting from the crisis and as an object of fiscal consolidation. The discourse of governments and international organizations often connect actions to cope with the crisis with reforms and changes in many areas, such as R&D. However, in practice overarching fiscal consolidation policies could be damaging opportunities to establish government strategies to reform and improve the efficiency of the sector. ; This paper analyses the impact of the crisis on Spanish R&D budgets and on a public research system characterised by low organizational autonomy and limited strategic capacity. We argue that the fiscal consolidation measures adopted have reduced the capacity of governments to direct the public R&D system. Budget cuts, together with regulations emphasizing administrative controls, have reduced the government's capacity to define spending priorities, limited the ability of research organizations to adapt to the new situation and increased the levels of uncertainty within the system and reduced trust among actors. ; When the policy dilemma between control and reform is resolved in favour of the former, it is likely that public research organizations will lose autonomy as a collateral effect of the crisis. We argue that the Spanish public sector research system is poorly equipped to resist the crisis and adapt to an environment of shrinking resources. In this sense, the lesson to be learned may be that organizational attributes are apparently critical in the long term and that autonomy should not be undermined. ; Peer reviewed

Over the last two decades, the Spanish higher education and research sector has undergone profound changes, but little is known about the implementation of recent reforms and how university actors responded to policy change and institutional pressures within a changing resource environment. Drawing on the insights from institutional and resource-dependence theory, we show how Spanish public universities have coped and implemented their human resources policy over the past 15 years and whether individual universities converged in their employment behaviour. The aggregate evolution of university employment trends reveals adaptation to the institutional normative pressures and financial constraints. Our results also show that some universities are more responsive to changes in the resource environment than others, and that compliance is not the only strategic response. In so doing, we aim to contribute to existing research on strategic behaviour of actors and coalitions facing policy change, and to the construction of analytical bridges between environmental changes (institutional and economic) and organisational dynamics underlying policy implementation.

Over the last two decades, the Spanish higher education and research sector has undergone profound changes, but little is known about the implementation of recent reforms and how university actors responded to policy change and institutional pressures within a changing resource environment. Drawing on the insights from institutional and resource-dependence theory, we show how Spanish public universities have coped and implemented their human resources policy over the past 15 years and whether individual universities converged in their employment behaviour. The aggregate evolution of university employment trends reveals adaptation to the institutional normative pressures and financial constraints. Our results also show that some universities are more responsive to changes in the resource environment than others, and that compliance is not the only strategic response. In so doing, we aim to contribute to existing research on strategic behaviour of actors and coalitions facing policy change, and to the construction of analytical bridges between environmental changes (institutional and economic) and organisational dynamics underlying policy implementation. ; Peer reviewed