). Quality and Excellence in the Portuguese Higher Education

Abstract

Examining a set of data published and debated in the last decades about the Portuguese higher education system, the present chapter presents a brief framework of the main changes in university governance, evaluation of quality and accreditation of courses and research, system financing, internationalization, ranks and competition and attraction of foreign students, professors and researchers. At present new paradigms emerge in public policies in the field of research and higher education inspired by the Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations clearly breaking the traditional boundaries and bringing new challenges to universities. Portugal has a distinctive history and structure to its higher education system, compared with other Europeans countries. The higher education system in Portugal is binary, comprising university institutions and polytechnic institutions, which can be public or private. The number of higher education institutions expanded rapidly in the eighties and early nineties as a response to an increase in student enrollment. Quality assurance of higher education in Portugal known as “the contractual system” was approved by the Parliament in November 1994. In 2006, after a review of the higher education (HE) system by the OECD a new legal framework came into force. Significant changes were introduced in the internal system of governance of Higher Education Institutions (HEI), as well as in their external societal relations (including, internationalization, research partnerships, and business links, as well as external evaluation and accountability).