Expansion of postgraduate studies, academic management, and evaluation of academic trajectories in Argentina: A biographical-narrative approach based on the experiences of directors of postgraduate programs

Abstract

Higher education, as an object of study, is constantly expanding in its thematic and methodological scope, considering international, regional, and local perspectives. The processes of evaluating scientific, academic, and technological career paths are no exception, nor is the expansion of postgraduate studies in Argentina and its impact on the development of the university academic profession. In this context, we share here the partial findings of an ongoing postdoctoral research project based at the National University of La Plata. This research examines some of the aforementioned processes but aims to understand the expansion of postgraduate training, the professional development of those who pursue it, and the connections established with current systems for evaluating the career paths of university professors and researchers, based on the biographical narratives of postgraduate program directors. This paper focuses its analysis on the postgraduate level and its academic management, contributing to the debate on the reconfiguration of the evaluative paradigm in Latin American universities. It does so from biographical and narrative perspectives that intersect these trajectories, giving them faces, histories, and situated temporalities.