Science In Portugal Research Articles

The Educational Sciences in Portugal and Brazil

RESUMO O artigo tem por objetivo relacionar e analisar o desenvolvimento das ciências da educação em Portugal e no Brasil. Para tanto, examina a trajetória histórica dessas ciências no país lusitano, que oferece o curso de graduação em ciências da educação. Uma vez que esse curso não é ofertado no Brasil, mas sim o de pedagogia, o estudo está mais direcionado para a análise da constituição do campo epistemológico dessas ciências na interface com as pesquisas desenvolvidas na área de educação. Assim, depois de examinar o desenvolvimento dessas pesquisas nesses dois países, destaca algumas aproximações e desafios, como o fato de sua produção científica ocorrer fundamentalmente nos cursos de pós-graduação e a necessidade de iniciativas interinstitucionais que agreguem e sintetizem as pesquisas produzidas na área.

Written Sources on Veterinary Medicine of Portugal of the XIV-XVIII Centuries

Introduction. Aiming to study the literature sources referring to evolvement of the veterinary medicine into a science in Portugal of the XIV–XVIII centuries, the article presents the detailed description of the historical materials (books, works, records) existing and being kept in libraries and archives.Materials and methods. The materials taken for the study were literature sources and archival materials in Portuguese and Spanish. The data obtained during the research was structured, arranged in the chronological order of events and analysed.Results. The veterinary medicine of the country almost completely depended on historical events and cultural trends. Until the XVII century, due to the popularity of falconry, only the knowledge of horses and birds of prey anatomy and diseases received the noticeable development, whereas the literature sources on other animal species anatomy and diseases appeared only at the beginning of the XVIII century.Discussion and conclusions. The study of the materials leads to the conclusion that the history of the Portuguese veterinary medicine and its documentation in the literature sources were inextricably related to the historical events that took place in the country – the political and economic factors, as well as popular trends, had influenced the evolvement of the veterinary science and the amount of publications.

Women in science: Rising numbers but an eternal glass ceiling

This paper provides an account of my perception as a woman doing science, and examines the general situation and evolution of women's participation in science in Portugal. I will start with a slightly broader perspective, emphasizing a few global trends in women's participation in science and alluding to one persistent obstacle: gender discrimination. These trends also define the Portuguese context. Despite significant progress in opening the door to women's participation in science, it remains challenging for women to pursue a viable career path in research and ascend the hierarchy. Beyond the glass ceiling, top positions are still reserved for a predominantly male old guard. Yet pioneering women have shown that changes can happen and have opened the door for us to collectively continue this important work—something that I am proud to be part of.

Drivers of extreme burnt area in Portugal: fire weather and vegetation

Abstract. Fire weather indices are used to assess the effect of weather on wildfire behaviour and to support fire management. Previous studies identified the high daily severity rating percentile (DSRp) as being strongly related to the total burnt area (BA) in Portugal, but it is still poorly understood how this knowledge can support fire management at a smaller spatial scale. The aims of this study were to (1) assess whether the 90th DSRp (DSR90p) threshold is adequate for estimating most of the BA in mainland Portugal; (2) analyse the spatial variability of the DSRp threshold that explains a large part of BA, at higher resolution; and, (3) analyse whether vegetation cover can justify the DSRp spatial variability. We used weather reanalysis data from ERA5-Land, wildfire and land use data from Portuguese land management departments for an extended summer period (15 May to 31 October) from 2001 to 2019. We computed and related DSRp to large wildfires (BA > 100 ha) and land use to clarify the effectiveness of the DSRp for estimating BA in Portugal and assess how vegetation influences it. Results revealed that the DSR90p is an adequate indicator of extreme fire weather days and BA in Portugal. In addition, the spatial pattern of the DSRp associated with most of the total BA shows variability at the municipality scale. Municipalities where large wildfires occur with more extreme weather conditions have most of the BAs in forests and are in coastal areas. By contrast, municipalities where large wildfires occur with less extreme weather conditions are predominantly covered by shrublands and are situated in eastern and inland regions. These findings are a novelty for fire science in Portugal and should be considered by fire managers and fire risk assessors.

Políticas e práticas de avaliação externa de escolas: quais os espaços para a colaboração docente?

Abstract Teaching has traditionally been a solitary profession. However, both because of the growing awareness of the complexity of teaching and the emergence of a notion of curriculum based on transversal competences, teachers’ collaborative work is currently the focus of increased attention and research. Teacher collaboration has a paradoxical status in schools, as desired by educational policies and by teachers’ and schools’ discourses, but there is little evidence of authentic teacher collaboration practices. The present article intends to identify how teacher collaboration is at stake in schools. The perspective considered here is that of the frame of reference and reports of the third cycle of External Evaluation of Schools, conducted by the General Inspectorate of Education and Science in Portugal. The study uses document analysis as a data-gathering technique and content analysis for data analysis. The results point to the transversal valuing of teacher collaborative work in order to promote the improvement of teachers’ practices related to supervision.

Sustainable Development in Basic Education Sciences in Portugal—Perspective of Official Curriculum Documents

This study aims to identify and characterize the understanding of the concept of Sustainable Development in the official scientific educational documents of basic education in Portugal. Methodologically, it is a qualitative study that fits into the interpretive paradigm; its implementation is based on an interpretative-descriptive strategy of exploratory nature. The study involved the organization of the analysis corpus and the subsequent content analysis of the selected documents. The documents included in this corpus are the official educational documents on the teaching and learning of Natural Sciences in Basic Education (1st to 9th grade—ages 6 to 15): the Essential Learning and two transversal documents (the Student Profile on Leaving Compulsory Schooling and the Environmental Education Framework for Sustainability). The obtained results show that these documents frame and guide the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development, in all its dimensions, throughout basic education. However, this does not happen in an equitable way, neither in all documents nor in all years of schooling.

Mobility, precarity and productivity: The uncertain expansion and migration of science in Portugal

This article explores various aspects of the migration of science, including the circulation of scientific knowledge and the productivity of individual scientists. The first part of the article examines concepts that have helped define scientific employment, emphasizing the idea that a scientist’s work should align with an episteme. The second part scrutinizes this situation in Portugal, shedding light on two specific developments: the recent expansion of the scientific workforce and the outputs emanating from national research institutions. This includes a brief statistical overview of the levels of expansion in financial terms and an exploration of the success of scientific publishing using data derived from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and national statistics agencies. Data reveal that while the number of works produced has increased at a time during which greater numbers of scientists were being contracted, especially the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of their work may have declined due to a lack of peer recognition, illustrated by a sharp decline in the number of citations received. This suggests that greater investment in science, specifically in recruiting fixed-term contract researchers, has not necessarily translated into measurable success. It also highlights the additional challenges posed by change in how scientific knowledge and scientists migrate.

Exploring the Relationship between Socioemotional Skills and Decision-Making Styles in Health Students

Higher education in health study programs is particularly focused on the development of technical skills, despite there being a consensus on the importance of training students regarding socioemotional and life skills. The aim of this study was to characterize and explore correlations between socioemotional skills and decision-making styles in undergraduate health students. Undergraduate students (18–25 years old) were recruited at a School of Health Sciences in Portugal. Participants were characterized in terms of sociodemographic data, socioemotional skills (Study on Social and Emotional Skills questionnaire) and decision-making styles (Melbourne Decision Making questionnaire). Descriptive statistics and correlations between questionnaires´ subscales were calculated. Students presented higher scores in tolerance (34.8±3.4), cooperation (34.7±2.4), empathy (31.1±3.2), vigilance (16.0±1.9), and procrastination (9.9±2.1). Assertiveness presented negative correlations with buck-passing (rho=-0.43, p<0.01) and procrastination (rho=-0.38, p<0.01) and positive correlation with vigilance (rho=0.22, p=0.03). Students demonstrated higher values in empathy, cooperation, and tolerance skills, meaning they tend to be kind and care for others’ well-being. Vigilance style is related to assertiveness characterizing hard working leaders able to pay attention to others’ needs. Training that involves socioemotional skills might be crucial for the style of decision-making in future health professionals.

Mapping Skies and Continents: The Production of Two Portuguese Scientific Atlases in the Era of Napoleonic Expansion (1799-1813)

To what extend the circulation of scientific knowledge was shaped by the European imperial geopolitics in the late-eighteenth century? Recruited to fulfill tasks increasingly considered essential to the very workings of imperial administrations, scientific practitioners of the time paradoxically seem to make use precisely of this encroachment in state apparatuses to secure some degree of autonomy for their nascent field. Thus, every material form of circulation of scientific information must be ultimately understood as an act of political consequences. Here we present these ideas through the analysis of two concrete scientific artifacts, which can exemplify the circulation of scientific information inside and across empires: two atlases, one terrestrial and one celestial (the latter being a version of Flamsteed’s famous atlas of 1729, by way of intermediate French editions), produced in Portugal at the turn of the nineteenth century. Discarding the simple assumption that such cartographic artifacts might have a “utilitarian” use to Portuguese imperial administration, we aim to insist on their political and communicative nature, grounded on their modes of participation in trans-imperial pathways of circulation of knowledge, people, practices, and models of scientific authority (entangling Britain, France, and the Americas in multiple time scales). We also highlight how the atlases contribute to the affirmation of new patriotic science in Portugal, and explore the markedly didactic vocation of both objects, which also stress the question of the recruitment and reproduction of a new kind of imperial elite.

Presenteeism Among Nurses in Switzerland and Portugal and Its Impact on Patient Safety and Quality of Care: Protocol for a Qualitative Study.

BackgroundNurses dispense direct care in a wide variety of settings and are considered the backbone of the health care system. They often work long hours, face emotional stress, and are at a high risk of psychosocial and somatic illnesses. Nurses sometimes fall sick but work regardless, leading to presenteeism and subsequent risks to quality of care and patient safety due to the increased likelihood of patients falling, medication errors, and staff-to-patient disease transmission.ObjectiveThis study aims to understand presenteeism among frontline nurses and nurse managers in acute, primary, and long-term health care settings and to contribute to the development of future interventional studies and recommendations.MethodsA qualitative study based on online focus group discussions will explore the perceptions of, attitudes to, and experiences with presenteeism among frontline nurses and nurse managers. Using a pilot-tested interview guide, 8 focus group discussions will involve nurses working in acute care hospitals, primary care settings, and long-term residential care facilities in Switzerland’s French-speaking region and Portugal’s Center region. The data collected will be examined using a content analysis approach via NVivo 12 QSR International software.ResultsThe University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland’s School of Health Sciences and the Polytechnic of Leiria’s School of Health Sciences in Portugal have both approved funding for the study. The research protocol has been approved by ethics committees in both countries. Study recruitment commenced in February 2021. The results of the data analysis are expected by September 2021.ConclusionsThis present study aims to gain more insight into the dilemmas facing nurses as a result of all causes of presenteeism among frontline nurses and nurse managers in different health care settings. The researchers will prepare manuscripts on the study’s findings, publish them in relevant peer-reviewed journals, exhibit them in poster presentations, and give oral presentations at appropriate academic and nonscientific conferences. Regarding further knowledge transfer, researchers will engage with stakeholders to craft messages focused on the needs of nurses and nurse managers and on disseminating our research findings to deal with the issue of nursing presenteeism.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/27963

For a Healthy (and) Higher Education: Evidences from Learning Outcomes in Health Sciences

Increased recognition of outcomes, or competency-based education, has evolved across higher education on health sciences. However, there is significant diversity in the current study of Portuguese programmes. Considering learning outcomes (LO) as indicators of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and the understanding that the student will gain as a result of an educational experience, this study aims to explore which LO are emphasised on the study programmes of health sciences in Portugal. Through a qualitative methodology, carried out through MAXQDA software, all LO of all Portuguese health sciences study programmes submitted to quality accreditation to the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) since 2009 until 2016 were analysed. Although specific knowledge was the most referenced LO, transversal skills were also emphasized, such as critical and reflexive analysis/critical thinking, research, ability to organize and plan and professional ethics. Significant differences were found between LO selection when the analysis was made by comparing the diverse study programmes. This required assortment of knowledge and skills seems to reflect not only the specificities of each health science programme but also the challenging demands on professionals in the 21st century, along with the necessary changes imposed by society, fostering intercultural understanding, tolerance, mutual respect and an ethic of global citizenship and shared responsibility, crucial enablers of educational development for all in the scope of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Maria de Sousa, (1939-2020).

Maria de Sousa, (1939-2020).

CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS, DIPLOMACIA E COLONIALISMO TARDIO: A PARTICIPAÇÃO PORTUGUESA NA COMISSÃO DE COOPERAÇÃO TÉCNICA NA ÁFRICA AO SUL DO SAARA (CCTA)

RESUMO Instituída no segundo pós-guerra, num contexto de crescente contestação ao colonialismo e como resposta das potências coloniais europeias ao interesse científico das Nações Unidas e de círculos académicos norte-americanos pela África, a Comissão de Cooperação Técnica na África ao Sul do Saara (CCTA) revelou uma atenção particular aos estudos sociais, estabelecendo uma agenda de pesquisas paralela à da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco). Com base nos arquivos diplomático e científico colonial, o artigo analisa a atividade da CCTA naquele domínio e, sobretudo, a participação portuguesa nessas dinâmicas, determinando a importância relativa do país na sua promoção e seus reflexos no campo das ciências sociais em Portugal.

Education for information in Portugal: Evolution, institutional context and some reflections

This article starts by a brief overview of the evolution of education in Information Science in Portugal. After, there is a description of the paradigm shift and the significant changes caused by the impact of social, economic, cultural and technological conditions of the information era as well as the emergence of Information Science as an academic field and a new education model in accordance to it. The current situation of IS in the academic context is analysed and some final reflections are exposed in a prospective view towards the next future.

Boundary-work that Does Not Work: Social Inequalities and the Non-performativity of Scientific Boundary-work

Although the STS literature on boundary-work recognizes that such work unfolds within a “terrain of uneven advantage” vis-à-vis gender, race, and other inequalities, reflection about that uneven advantage has been strikingly underdeveloped. This article calls for a retheorizing of boundary-work that engages more actively with feminist, critical race, and postcolonial scholarship and examines more systematically the relation between scientific boundary-work, broader structures of sociopolitical inequality, and boundary-workers’ (embodied) positionality. To demonstrate the need for this retheorization, I analyze ethnographic and interview data on scientific boundary-work in the natural and social sciences in Portugal, showing that scholars’ gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nationality affect the success of their boundary-work. I suggest, therefore, that in unequal societies where credibility is unevenly distributed, the conditions are not in place for some scholars’ boundary-work to work. I draw on Sara Ahmed (and J. L. Austin) to argue that we must conceptualize scientific boundary-work as always potentially performative, but not always successfully so, and explicitly interrogate the actual conditions of performativity. Recognizing the links between inequality, embodiment, and non-performativity in scientific boundary-work will enable STS to better understand, and hopefully transform, the relations between contingent struggles over scientificity and entrenched structures of power.

A ausência de Jesús Martín-Barbero nos estudos de Comunicação em Portugal

The objective of this work is to discuss the absence of Jesús Martín-Barbero in studies on communication sciences in Portugal. Considering that academic flows between Brazil and Portugal are intense, we would have as hypothesis the sharing of bibliography and methodologies from the introduction of Brazilian and Latin American authors in Portugal and of Portuguese authors in Brazil. However, this sharing is sporadic on both sides of the Atlantic, and it does not include Martín-Barbero systematically. Therefore, we aim to trace his presence, especially in reception and culture studies, and the determine the reasons that lead to such little presence in the context of Portuguese research.

The Jesuits in Portugal: the communion of science and religion

For several centuries, the dichotomy between science and religion widened, so much so that these were considered two opposing fields of knowledge. On one side, stood the defenders of rationality, and on the other, obscurantism. Following the anti-Jew myth, with the Enlightenment, the anti-Jesuit myth emerged. This myth started to gain momentum in Portugal with the Marquis of Pombal. Starting from this framework, we raise the following core questions: Were the Jesuits enemies or ardent supporters of science? Can it be that their concern was limited to the religious catechism, and opposed the teaching and dissemination of science? In face of what was stated above, we highlight the following goals: (i) to analyse the role played by the Jesuits in disseminating science in Portugal; (ii) to reflect on the importance given by Jesuits to the social and hygienist pedagogy. As regards methodology, we followed two dimensions of analysis: (1) science, religion, teaching-innovation and dissemination; (2) social and civic pedagogy. This study enabled us to conclude that the strategy and practice followed by the Jesuits served to launch them in the scientific field, playing a part of great relevance in scientific education, contrary to the myth that was created around them.

The ERC: from before then to anniversary celebrations.

The European Research Council (ERC) is now 10 years old. This beautiful child has grown and thrived, and its many parents should look at it with pride. I first wrote about the ERC in 2000 [1], because it was a conversation piece among European scientists. At the turn of the millennium, many scientists had given up hope that such a structure could come into being after many barren years of aligning the right arguments for it. That collective expert negative view turned out to be wrong, because of an unusual persistence by scientists and the organisations that represent them, and a change in the rhetoric of the European Commission (EC), which eventually became the ERC's surrogate mother. Ever since, the EU has nurtured and supported, often in inventive ways, the council, which it now rightfully presents as one of its major successes. Julio Celis and the late Jose Mariano Gago have written an excellent commentary on the history and the barriers that had to be overcome before the ERC's launch in 2007 [2]. Julio was Secretary General of the Federation of Biochemical Societies (FEBS) during that period and the Danish representative in the intergovernmental group that supported the activities of EMBO and EMBL. Jose Mariano was Minister of Science in Portugal for most of that period. I will not do a disservice to their article by paraphrasing it. Rather I will present some of the story behind the series of meetings before the ERC became “an idea whose time has come”, which was an often‐repeated phrase during those discussions. The idea of EU funding agency for basic research seems to have moved from the agenda of scientists to that of decision makers at a meeting of the Royal Academy in Sweden in 2001 to discuss future expenditures …

How Do Science Communication Practitioners View Scientists and Audiences in Relation to Public Engagement Activities? A Research Note Concerning the Marine Sciences in Portugal

This exploratory study is focused on the perceptions of science communication practitioners about the activities of scientists and the audiences of the marine sciences outreach in Portugal. Using the qualitative method of thematic analysis and collecting data through semistructured interviews of 14 practitioners of diverse professions, backgrounds, ages, and stages of career, it was found that the role of marine scientists in this area is traditionally viewed as reduced, but with a slight improvement in the past 5 to 10 years. Despite having a historical connection with and curiosity about the sea, audiences were considered to have a mostly utilitarian interest in the marine sciences. Most practitioners had a view of science communication connected to the knowledge deficit model, with a minority articulating a more dialogical model. Although there are signs of conflict between science communicators and scientists, the proliferation of training opportunities in science communication at the national level, the perceived increase of interest and participation of marine scientists in public communication in the past years, and the consolidation of science communicators as part of the scientific community offer positive prospects for the future of outreach of marine sciences in Portugal.

Evidences of the circulation of natural philosophical knowledge about Brazil in a 1763 manuscript by António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches.

António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches was a Portuguese physician and the author of several works about education and science in Portugal and its Empire. Many of these texts circulated and were made public through letters written by him and sent to other intellectuals. This article sheds light on an unpublished manuscript written by Sanches in 1763, in which he argued for the recognition of Brazilian natural resources and their exploitation for trade and medicine.