A New Phase for Co-operative Research and Higher Education Efforts between Europe and Latin America.

International cooperation; Higher education; International competition; Educational change

The purpose of this article is to discuss selected issues in international co-operation in science and higher education from the perspective of those Latin American countries usually classified as of 'middle' or 'upper-middle' income, and therefore having very tow priority within development co-operation in general (OECD, 1985 and 1990). These are the larger countries which include the bulk of the Latin American population today. Their complex and heterogeneous higher education systems demand urgent reforms if they are to play a more effective role in the future growth of their now stagnating economies. Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, in spite of many differences, all have well-established systems which have gone through a period of rapid expansion and are currently facing serious problems of management and performance. The scientific communities in these countries are relatively small but well established. R&D funding, which originates almost exclusively in the public sector and is on average only 0.5% of GNP (in contrast to 2-3% in the OECD countries), suffered severe setbacks during the 1980s. There is an increasing awareness of the need to reform education and scientific research for the improvement of the international competitiveness of industry in Latin America (CEPAL, 1992). The fiscal crisis and the burden of foreign debt severely restrict the investment needed for such reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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