Barros: “Poor working conditions in academia hinder the integration of research and policy”

Why does cooperation between researchers and policymakers remain at a standstill in Portugal? “Because of the lack of recognition and improvement in the working conditions of scientists,” replies Rosanna Barros of the University of Algarve. What solutions does Barros propose?

“When I look around in academia, particularly in Portugal, I see an increase of stress and burnout. I think this is one of the obstacles preventing greater collaboration between scholars and policymakers,” says Rosanna Barros, Associate Professor at the University of Algarve in Portugal, who holds a habilitation qualification.

“Overworked scientists and decision makers’ reluctance to involve critical insights from academia in their policymaking hinder cooperation,” says Rosanna Barros, Associate Professor at the University of Algarve in Portugal.

“In Portugal, scholars do not have enough quality time to engage in fieldwork regularly because they are often overwhelmed with tasks including coordination and administrative work, day and night classes, indexed publications and knowledge transfer activities.”

Moreover, the precarious status of full-time researchers “hampers their ability to connect on a stable basis with the underlying needs of adult education and to get involved with the practitioners’ demands,” she continues.

“Around 90% of researchers and a significant number of scholars have precarious contracts. For many of them, this situation has been going on for decades. It has been a long struggle for the sector’s unions.”

I’m increasingly concerned about the overworking conditions in academia.

Similarly, adult education practitioners are pressured to focus on results, as many of their job places in Portugal, “beyond the current Qualify Centres, are part of the third sector, whose financing is connected with programmes and depend on meeting specific metrics and requirements, leaving little room for developing collaboration with scientists”.

According to Barros, all this hinders the integration of research with policy and practice in adult education and lifelong learning, which many researchers believe is essential for developing effective educational programmes.

“There is no adequate education policy or practice without educational theory. And the research that produces theory cannot work without allocated time for deep involvement and knowledge of the field and communities,” Barros observes, explaining the benefits of cooperation between policy actors, scholars, researchers and practitioners.

Sustainable vision for adult education

At the same time, collaboration between scholars, researchers and policymakers would also be particularly beneficial if communities also participated in the decision-making process.

Considering the results of policy studies in adult education, critical scholars and researchers would allow national and European decision-makers to draft a more socially sustainable and long-term vision for adult education, “which could address the comprehensive needs of adult learners and their communities and not just respond to the current pressures on European and national political agendas”.

Barros thinks that European institutions have placed too much focus on helping adult learners develop skills to improve their employability.

“While work placement is essential, providing market-valued skills should not be the sole focus of adult education. This policy rationale instrumentalises adult education, which is about much more, including building critical thinking and reflective abilities for local community development, investing in non-material issues like social bonding and socio-anthropological knowledge. All of these promote lasting respect for ecological, intercultural and intergenerational cooperation,” she adds.

Participatory policy creation

One of the main barriers to better cooperation between academia and policymakers, according to Barros, may arise if “decision-makers choose to rely on external consultants to implement their policies, as shown by policy documents and working group deliverables. Scientific work by scholars and researchers is often too dense and critical, with a long-term oriented scope. Therefore, some policymakers prefer listening to consultants who provide appealing data that better supports their short-term agenda. The problem is that education requires a vision beyond the short-time policy cycle”.

Barros explains that this trend can be seen, for example, in the mandate allocated to the Mutual Learning Programme under the European Employment Strategy, “which lays down the conditions for European working groups of experts under the regulatory frame of the Open Method of Coordination”.

To support her point against current trends, Barros mentions the case of participatory and long-term process of policy creation for Recognition of Prior Learning (RVCC) and corresponding practices implementation process in Portugal, from the late 1990s. This was a policymaking case that involved researchers, scholars, policymakers and various stakeholders, such as educational associations and civic activists.

“The collaboration ensured all voices were heard, particularly the scientific and community-based ones, focusing on adult learners and the knowledge they already had,” she explains. “Many viewed these learners only as low-qualified, but the academic research-based policy rationale for RVCC focused on their experiential learning. Research shows that treating someone as a low-qualified worker only reinforces the deficit identification and prevents participation, but focusing on experiential learning ensures a fair perspective that increases adults’ motivation and allows partnership for educational success.”

Improving educational justice

The first practical step that Barros suggests to boost educational justice through collaboration is to ensure scientists and practitioners receive recognition for their work and have more stable, supportive working conditions.

She also advocates for greater involvement of scholars, researchers and practitioners from the early stages of policy development.

“This means that policy decisions and implementation should always be accompanied by socio-educational analysis and critical reflection to uncover the root causes of educational and social exclusions.”

Such vision for policymaking “implies pilot projects involving participatory action-research guided by scientific and educational expertise”.

The aim is to provide long-term coherent planning and impactful practices of adult lifelong learning, with concrete educational achievements for the population “to increase holistic knowledge that can contribute to more autonomy. Among other things, this awareness would allow learners to become less susceptible to manipulation and the current effects of disinformation,” she points out.

The social value of educational research

A European non-governmental organisation that originated precisely to support the advancement of high-quality research on adult education and whose mission includes promoting cooperation among researchers, scholars and European scientific organisations is the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA).

As a member of the ESREA Board and Convenor of the Research Network on Policy Studies in Adult Education, Barros highlights the organisation’s efforts to enhance communication through educational sciences and promote collaboration and dialogue between researchers, scholars, practitioners, communities and policymakers.

“We work to maintain scientific-based relationships with practice-oriented entities, different sorts of stakeholders and decision-makers,” she explains.

For instance, ESREA supports awards and bursaries for early-career researchers and young scholars to connect them with fieldwork and adult education venues.

“Our ultimate goal is to highlight the social value of research. We are making a public statement through our research work on adult education that educational science is an important field for political responsiveness and that educational policy needs to be embedded in the scientific interaction of theory and practice, to intervene in the public space and make a difference,” concludes Barros.

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