Impulsivity or patience? What does the Argentinean scientific system stimulate, and select

Abstract

Some of the present criteria applied to evaluate the academic performance of individuals in the scientific system in Argentina (particularly, in the CONICET) confront the researchers with the dilemma of being patient to obtain larger academic benefits in the future, or rather being impulsive to get quick short-term rewards. A successful balance between these academic behaviors will determine the access, permanence and promotion of individuals in the scientific career. In this essay, we propose that although the Argentinean scientific system argues stimulating patience, it often rewards impulsivity. On one hand, the completion of doctoral theses is stimulated, but recently post-graduated students are also demanded to publish several papers in indexed journals to enter into the scientific researcher career. On other hand, the academic evaluation of young researchers gives priority to the publication of a high number of papers rather than to the supervision of students. However, then the number of supervised doctoral theses will be a limiting factor to promote to the highest academic positions. We discuss the difficulty to do these activities simultaneously, in a responsible way, and we propose some recommendations to increase the coherence of the evaluation criteria by making more coincident the academic activities that, in theory, are stimulated with those that are finally rewarded.