Conditions and performances of the Research in Communication: the vision of the academics

Abstract

The MapCom Project (www.mapcom.es) launched a survey in 2017 aimed at researchers in the field of communication who were under contract as Doctors at Spanish universities with graduate or postgraduate Degrees in Communication, or research associations and doctorate programmes. It asked respondents to fill in an online form based on their research experience. In this article we present the data concerning the conditions and performance of the research activity and their status as researchers, obtained from that survey. Interviewees were asked how they rated the working conditions both in terms of material (funding, grants, contracts, red-tape, facilities), organisation (requirements of the call, teaching methodology, scientific networks, human capital) and institutions (compatibility with lecturing, relations between the unversity and the business world. Assessment Agencies, Congresses and Journals). The conclusion was that there was a tendency to have a negative evaluation of materials whereas, in terms of the organisation and institution, the evaluation was a mixture of positive and negative depending on the item considered. The evaluation of performance related to academic corporativism tended to be more positive than those related to scientific competencies.