Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy

Together with Miguel Abambres, Tiago Ribeiro, and Ana Sousa I’ve recently published a preprint titled “Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy”.

As we’re exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate. I’d be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents!

Here’s the abstract of the paper:

Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: (i) the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates’ assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Several pros and cons (mostly) of the Lattes platform are identified. The following improvements are proposed: (i) evaluations in public tenders based only on candidate’s CV, interview, and a sample lecture, (ii) the dismissal of Lattes CV as a mandatory format, and (iii) the use of platforms as Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar, ORCID or ResearcherID for curricular information. With these recommendations, Brazil can move towards a more meritocratic academic hiring system.