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ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL DE UNIVERSIDADES ESTATALES
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Although the public often only looks at their role in scienti c and technological innovation, universities
generate a wide diversity of outputs. In research, they create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape
new people. They embody and create the potential for progress through the ideas and the people that
will shape an as yet unknown future. This has been recognised by governments around the world, who
acknowledge that high quality and internationally competitive research as well as higher education are
prerequisites for long-term success in globalised knowledge economies. As a consequence of the
growing recognition of the importance of universities, many governments seek to regulate and stimulate
universities in order to turn them into instruments of social and economic policy. This is necessary, but in
order to get the best results, the public value and the important functions of universities have to be
understood; short-sighted ideas can only produce short-sighted results and are detrimental to both
universities and societies in the future.
Increasingly, discussions about universities are dominated by the desire to achieve immediate economic
results. In these debates, the following views were voiced: that there is a direct relationship between
applied research and economic prosperity (through technical innovation); that there is a high correlation
between prosperity, social contentment, and university research in science and technology; and that, as
a consequence, universities should engage in this allegedly useful activity, while research should only be
supported if it is thought to be in the immediate national interest.
Behind this thinking there seem to be some cursory connections, which do not hold up to rational
analyses: that there is a connection between technology and science, and then between science and
universities; with the result that universities are thought to be mainly about science, or rather about the
kind of science that engenders technological results. This seems to be a curiously contradictory thinking
that became prominent during the ColdWar, when both sides sought technological superiority, and tried
to demonstrate that their values produce happier societies. In a globalised world, this thinking seems to
be rather dated.
In current debates, the phrase ‘useful knowledge’ tends to imply what is immediately applicable. But
today’s preoccupations are inevitably myopic, and often ephemeral. Discoveries cannot be determined in
advance. The ideas, thoughts and technologies that tomorrowwill need are hidden from us, and foresight
exercises have had a lamentable record of success. As Drew Faust has said in her inaugural address as
President of Harvard: “A university is not about results in the next quarter [...]. It is about learning that
molds a lifetime; […] learning that shapes the future.” In order to illustrate the short-sightedness and
indeed rather comic inadequacy of trying to gear future research to the expectations of today, I’d like to
refer to a Commission set up by the former President of the U.S.A., F.D. Roosevelt, in order to give advice
on the most likely innovations of the succeeding 30 years. The result was a listing of many technologies
that were never realised, while missing nuclear energy, lasers, computers, Xerox, jet engines, radar, sonar,
antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, the genetic code and many more. Thirty years ago, scientists who studied
climate change were regarded as harmless but irrelevant; today we desperately need their expertise. The
most important objectives of research were shrouded from contemporary eyes.
Therefore universities should gear themselves not only to immediate results; they should not only
address and train for current needs; equally important is that they develop the mental and conceptual
skills and habits that equip their graduates to adapt to the change and even steer it if circumstances
permit.
DIA 2: DESAFÍOS DE LAS UNIVERSIDADES PÚBLICAS PARA EL SIGLO XXI
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CONFERENCIA: “Estado actual y proyecciones de las Universidades Públicas de los Estados Unidos”
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Jaime Chahín
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CONFERENCIA: “Responsabilidad del Estado respecto a la Sustentabilidad de la
Universidad Pública Nacional”
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Juan Manuel Zolezzi, Consejo de Rectores.
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PANEL: “Financiamiento de las universidades estatales: antecedentes y perspectivas para el siglo XXI” 161
Juan Manuel Zolezzi
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Luis Ayala
162
María Olivia Mönckeberg
172
Felipe Morandé
180
Hugo Fazio
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CONFERENCIA: “La Mercantilización de la Educación, el ejemplo de la Universidad”
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Roger Dehaybe
185
CONFERENCIA: “Enseñanza Superior, Universidades Públicas y Universidades de Clase Mundial.
Relación entre estos términos y las Políticas de Investigación y Desarrollo en Brasil”.
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Hernán Chaimovich
186
PANEL: “Futuro de las Universidades Públicas en Chile”
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Sergio Pulido
193
Jorge Las Heras
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José Antonio Viera-Gallo
202
José Joaquín Brunner
205
Ennio Vivaldi
212
Ricardo Núñez
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CONFERENCIA: Alcances y conclusiones del Encuentro
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Francisco Brugnoli
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CONFERENCIA DE CIERRE
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Mónica Jiménez, Ministra de Educación
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