The Research Center on the Circulation of Knowledge (CECIC) comes to consolidate a collective research program that has been in existence for over 15 years. Its main antecedent is the Research Program on Academic Dependence in Latin America (PIDAAL) which, since 2004, has been dedicated to exploring the historical-structural development of peripheral scientific fields between 1950-1980. In addition, comparative studies were conducted between Chile, Argentina and Brazil, as well as research focused on UNESCO and regional institutions such as CLACSO, FLACSO, ECLAC, ILPES, DESAL and ILADES. Scholarship programs and funding for academic mobility by U.S. foundations and agencies such as Fulbright, Rockefeller and Ford, along with the famous Project Camelot, were the subject of detailed archival work in Chile and Argentina. In a theoretical-methodological conjunction formed by a critical reading of the theory of Pierre Bourdieu’s fields and the Latin American structuralist tradition, concepts and approaches to academic dependence, scientific autonomy and structural heterogeneity were created. As a result of this socio-historical research program, three books were published: Beigel, Fernanda (dir.) (2010) Autonomy and Dependence on Social Sciences: Chile and Argentina (1957-1980); Beigel, Fernanda (ed.) (2013) The Politics of Academic Autonomy in Latin America and Beigel, Fernanda and Sabea, Hanan (coords.) (2014) Academic dependence and professionalization in the South: perspectives from the periphery.
In 2010, the second period of PIDAAL began, dedicated to the study of current scientific fields and the role peripheral centers play on the international circulation of knowledge. The focus was extended to the national dynamics of university policies; the links between research and teaching; the professionalization of public administration; evaluative cultures; the role of cultural capital and linguistic capabilities; without neglecting the impact of internationalization, publication circuits and academic mobility. These studies, monographs and theses developed over the last 10 years have made it possible to formulate the need for a conceptual shift from the traditional concept of internationalization to a multiscale concept of the circulation of knowledge. A new perspective in order to study the tensions between global standards and regional, national and local dynamics. In order to promote this approach, in 2018 institutional indicators of knowledge circulation were built, which are currently being tested in three exploratory cases from Argentine universities: Universidad Nacional de San Martin (UNSAM), Universidad Nacional de San Juan (UNSJ) and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (UNCuyo).
Between 2004 and 2019, 12 young scholarship holders from CONICET and professors from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and Universidad Nacional de San Juan received their doctorates as part of our team. Seven of them are currently researchers at CONICET and the rest are lecturer-researchers at UNCuyo and UNSJ. Several foreign visitors who carried out research internships programs, mainly from Chile, Spain, Mexico, France and Brazil, also participated at CECIC activities.