The importance of scientific productivity in the institutional accreditation of chilean universities

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of scientific productivity on the institutional accreditation of universities that belongs to the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities. These council is formed by 16 state universities and 9 private universities with state contribution. Scientific productivity is measured considering the faculty members that hold a PhD degree, the number of papers published in scientific journals indexed in the Web of Science, and the amount of Fondecyt projects (with state support) awarded to these institutions, factors that notoriously influence teaching quality. The methodology is of the mixed-type method through techniques of documentary research, and reports from ministries and consortiums. On the other hand, statistical criteria are defined to quantify the importance of the factors that affect institutional accreditation of these institutions. It is concluded that there is a positive linear relationship between the years of institutional accreditation and the number of faculty members holding PhD degree, the number of publications and the number of projects.