Study on the system of state public universities and the development of educational research

Abstract

Some of the results of the research “Study on the State public university system and the development of educational research”, carried out from 2020 to 2023, within the framework of the Doctorate in Educational Sciences program, are presented. The objective was to analyze the development of educational research in the Mexican public university system, in order to understand its dynamics and relationships. To achieve this, a multidimensional analytical model was structured based on the epistemology of complexity and constructivist epistemology, consisting of two phases: the first one is a diagnosis of the system through descriptive statistical analysis; the second one is the application of qualitative techniques such as life histories, aimed at subjects dedicated to educational research. The two phases were then integrated under the principle of complementarity. The results allowed to identify that the public university system is open, with defined boundaries, and constantly evolving variations that shape and transform it. These characteristics provide the conditions for the development of educational research by professional educational researcher as an institutionalized function in universities. It is demonstrated that those institutions that manage to strengthen their research subsystem with a robust internal legal framework achieve better results. The main conclusions demonstrate that the development of research is driven by the characteristics of the state public university system, therefore, its study must be based on methodologies that recognize its complexity, dynamics and interactions.