METRIS : country report : social sciences and humanities in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Araújo, Emília Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Martins, Moisés de Lemos
• Tipo de documento: Livro
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/29973
• topic: Social sciences; Report; Portugal; Humanities; Ciências sociais; Relatório; Portugal; Humanidades; Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Comunicação

The severe economic crisis in Portugal is hitting all sectors, including science, technology and research. The external intervention of the IMF, EU and ECB (Troika) has been marked by persistent cutting of funds for research (centres, projects and individual grants), and a downsizing in various sectors. It lead to clearing of governmental agencies, foundations and other services, reducing the number of ministries and state departments, and reducing the number of research centres. While this impacts the research system at large, it also propels societal problems. The unemployment rate is now around 18%, many families are at risk of poverty, and a growing number of people is migrating. Together with a continuing falling birth rate and a high share of older persons, these are societal challenges which are also taken up by SSH research. Recently, congresses, workshops and scientific meetings, as well as publications tend to concentrate around the subject of the crisis; its causes, experiences, and ideas how to surpass it. Thematic priorities by several SSH related programmes, as well as the last call for scientific projects by the FCT suggest that relevant societal problems are being dealt with within SSH such as employment and qualifications, poverty and the welfare state, social conflict and violence, as well as health and public services.