Search

In recent weeks, there has been controversy surrounding multiple affiliation due to several scandals that have arisen in the Spanish scientific sphere. In Spain, this practice is not regulated and is incompatible with the exclusivity required by public administration for its full-time contracts. This article analyzes the positive and negative aspects that this practice has for the institutions and the academics who apply it. Likewise, a series of recommendations are made on how institutions could generate agreements in which all actors benefit from multiple affiliation while at the same time avoiding fraud. The authors of the paper conclude that this practice, developed in an honest and agreed upon manner with the institutions involved, promotes outstanding advantages. In the Spanish case, it is necessary to regulate these practices in public universities within the framework of individual agreements and conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral dissertations enable the transfer of research skills and capacities to future generations and the consolidation of lines of research in a given area of knowledge. The field of Library and Information Science in public universities in Spain is characterized by the supervision of doctoral theses by academics in the area. We identified active professors during the 2019-2020 academic year, their date of appointment as civil servants within the public university system, the dissertations that they supervised, and their participation in papers published in scientific journals. The analysis included 644 theses. About a quarter (23%) of university faculty have never supervised a doctoral thesis, and most faculty members and tenured professors (60%) show a lower than average rate of adviserships per year since their academic appointment. There is a high concentration of PhD advisers in just a few institutions and academics (8% of university professors have supervised 42% of the dissertations), with an important gender imbalance: women supervised an average of 1.8 dissertations, compared with 2.6 for men. Information units and services, study metrics and scientific publications, and information sources are the topics of 47% of the dissertations. Many of the professors with 10 or more adviserships (n/N = 12/18) lack a subject area specialization, and their role in PhD supervision was not related to their participation in research activities oriented toward publishing in scientific journals. Our results suggest that considering supervision of doctoral theses as an important academic merit could contribute to a further concentration of power and social capital among a small group of advisers. This phenomenon could reduce the plurality of topics addressed and favor suboptimal adviserships. The imbalances described emerge as another threat, exacerbating the epistemological crisis in the discipline and in the university studies in this area of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article intends to continue previous studies on the state of the communication research in Spain. An in-depth study of the Spanish Communication researchers in Scopus international database is developed to monitor their productivity and visibility. Results show a limited presence and a low scientific production. In addition it is fragmented in multiple lines of research, it is little collaborative, more national than international, in Spanish and little visible. There is a polarization between two situations: visible full professors and untenured professors, emerging producers but invisible. Attending to gender differences, male researchers produce more papers and they are more visible than women. The creation of interuniversity networks that improve international publication is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]