Political images of science in Portugal

Abstract

In the mid-1980s, as a result of pressure from the national scientific community and the influence of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's 1984 science and technology policy review, science was introduced into the Portuguese political agenda. A Framework Law and a series of institutional reforms were the most visible signs of change. Admission to the EC in 1986, however, provided an excuse for reducing the public R&D budget. While science policy remains, in the 1990s, a priority in the political discourse, there is a lack of correspondence between this discourse and policy practice. A survey of members of the Portuguese Parliament undertaken in 1995 was designed to shed some light on their perceptions and opinions concerning the value of science and the role of the Parliament in science policy, and, therefore, on the reasons for the gap between the discourse and practical behaviour of policy-makers in this field.