España como polo formativo de científicos sociales del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores en el noreste de México

The objective of this research was to analyze Spain as a doctoral training pole for social scientists of the National System of Researchers (SNI), specifically for those who live in the northeast of Mexico, and to identify more specific patterns by training and affiliation institutions, by discipline and recognition level of recognition within the system. For this purpose, a quantitative methodology was used to quantify and analyze the ratios of the members of Area V (corresponding to Social Sciences) of the SNI registry for the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. The findings show that Spain is the quantitatively most important pole of foreign training, especially for public state universities; although there are institutions that prefer other —and more traditional— training poles. A preference to study in certain Spanish universities for disciplines such as economics and sociology was also found. Moreover, it was observed that social scientists with Spanish doctorates received greater levels of recognition in SNI than their peers trained in Mexico, but below the recognition granted to graduates in other foreign countries. Thus, results show Spain as the most important training pole in the regional field of social sciences, but most researchers trained in this country reach less recognition than those trained in countries with wider scientific tradition.


Introduction
Since the 1970s, various efforts began by Mexican federal entities that sought to improve the quality of higher education and research in the country with the development of various programs and public policies, many of them inspired by the practices of developed countries ( Deaf, 2021). In this way, some programs have tried to strengthen the teaching staff in the country's higher education institutions (HEIs) by attracting foreign scientists (Didou, 2010;Didou and Durand, 2013;Morones and De León, 2010) and others have opted for grant scholarships to Mexicans to study postgraduate studies abroad. This responds to the fact that, in the early stages of this improvement process, the low enrollment of national postgraduate courses and the short development time of many of them led to the assumption that professor-researchers trained abroad would more easily align with the pattern of Vol. 12, Núm. 24 Enero -Junio 2022, e339 legitimacy scientific that tried to establish itself (Álvarez, 2004); that is, that they develop empirical research and publish their results in specialized journals. Likewise, these academics trained abroad could have broader collaboration networks and contribute to the internationalization of Mexican science. Cornu and Gerard (2015) define a training center as "any country that plays an important role in university competition and that, in this way, is characterized by having an important 'attractiveness' associated with a significant volume of diplomas awarded in a field academic or a discipline" (p. 37). The United States has historically positioned itself as the training center par excellence for Mexicans who are taking a postgraduate program abroad (Organization of the United Nations for Education, Science and Culture [Unesco], 2019).
However, in recent years, Spain has become the most important pole for Mexicans who want to study in Europe, even above France, which in the past was the most attractive (Trejo, 2020). In addition to this, some collaboration programs have specifically attracted Spanish scientists to Mexico, as is the case of the Program for the Incorporation of Spanish Doctors into Mexican Universities (Pideum). This advance of Spain as a training center is reflected in the composition of the registers of the National System of Researchers (SNI), in which, for example, in 2009, 8.9% of the sociologist members studied in this European country, even for above the United States with 8.3% (Didou y Gerard, 2010).
Although at different times Spanish migration has been relevant in the development of certain disciplines in Mexico, for example, in periods such as the Spanish exile during the Franco regime, the recent growth of Spain as a training destination for Mexican scientists is especially interesting. On the one hand, this country is not considered a scientific power nor does it have a long tradition as a training center for Mexican postgraduate students, unlike the United States or France. However, the long common history with Mexico and the shared language make it the most accessible country to study in European territory; This situation is favored by the various programs that have encouraged a greater number of trips abroad for postgraduate studies in recent decades.
It is important to consider that having studied a postgraduate degree abroad does not have the same meaning and value in the different contexts in which scientific work is carried out. In peripheral countries of the world scientific system, such as Mexico, its real and symbolic value is usually greater than in the central countries. In this sense, Rodríguez (2013a) proposes, after critically reviewing Bourdieu's notion of scientific field, that the fields located in peripheral areas (which he calls fields-in-network) are organized differently from that described in the theory Bourdian (which takes the French scientific field as a model) and that have a tendency to imitate foreign models of scientific practices due to their need to advance rapidly in their institutionalization, which is especially marked in the social sciences (Rodríguez, 2013b). This, we believe, can give rise to the consolidation of new training poles that were not historically relevant, once they begin to be seen in a different, more attractive way, by scientists in training who are located in the fields-in-net; especially due to its greater ease of access in contrast to poles with greater prestige, coupled with the greater mobility opportunities offered by a context of scientific development policies.
However, in non-central regional spaces within these countries that are peripheral to the world scientific system, the characteristics of the network-fields described by Rodríguez (2013a) can become more acute. Thus, in the states of northeastern Mexico -Nuevo León, Coahuila and Tamaulipas-1 In the 1990s, research activity in the social sciences was still very limited (Sandoval, 2008;Sordo, 2020). And although from the policies of scientific impulse and the creation of institutional spaces this activity has clearly increased, the social sciences have remained in a constant lack of consolidation and their social legitimacy is permanently under siege (Sordo, 2021). This may intensify the dependence on the arrival of foreign-trained researchers to foster the growth of local social scientific activity.
Considering this panorama, in this work it was decided to analyze the growth of Spain as a training center for social scientists from this same region, specifically for those who are members of the SNI. In addition to counting the diplomas obtained in this European country, there was a special interest in determining the presence that, within the specific social disciplines and the different local HEIs, doctoral academics have in specific Spanish regions or HEIs. This entails a more detailed analysis of the way in which the concept of training poles has generally been used within empirical studies, which has been limited to considering the countries where the degrees are obtained. It should be noted that this work is part of a broader research project in which the participation of researchers trained abroad and its impact on the development of the field of social sciences in northeastern Mexico is analyzed.
The stated objective is to analyze the growth that Spain has had as a training center for the members of the SNI in the social sciences of the northeastern region of Mexico from 1990 to 2019, especially identifying its patterns by IES and disciplinary fields of affiliation, as well as the level of recognition achieved within the system.

Method
The results presented here were obtained from the SNI register for the year 2019. 2 The approach used was quantitative, predominantly descriptive. Created in 1984, the SNI is one of the central programs of the Mexican scientific system. Although it has undergone some reforms, it basically operates with peer evaluations of the scientific trajectory and production of researchers who apply for entry or permanence, who, if accepted, are assigned to one of the hierarchical classifications, namely: Candidate, Level I , Level II, Level III and Emeritus. Each level also implies obtaining an extra-salary economic stimulus for the researcher. For various authors, the SNI has become the main source of status in Mexican science. Álvarez and González (1998) comment that the SNI has become "a mechanism for assigning status" (p. 60). Hence its importance as a reference for the study of the patterns of the places of training of national scientists.
From the 2019 SNI register, the members of Area V: Social Sciences were identified, and who were assigned to an institution located in the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Subsequently, the institutions and the years of obtaining the doctorate diplomas of each of these members were recorded. To carry out this registry, we started from partial data provided by the SNI itself, which were later complemented through a process of searching for information in various public sources available online, both institutional (websites of the affiliated institutions, national registry of graduate certificates) and personal of the researchers (registrations in academic sites such as orcid.org, researchgate.net and academia.edu, or personal websites).
From these data, the growth of Spain as a place of training was first reconstructed in a general way and contrasted with the evolution of other training sites of the members of Area V of the regional SNI. To do this, the information was organized by five-year periods, according to the date of obtaining the doctorate diploma, between 1990 and 2019.
Subsequently, the presence in the northeast of social scientists trained in Spain by : a) affiliation institutions and b) disciplines.
Additionally, a comparison was made of the levels within the SNI that doctorates have reached in Spain and those who have obtained that degree in other countries. For this comparison, only a restricted segment of the current SNI members in 2019 was considered: those who obtained their degree between 2006 and 2012. For this period, the comparison between graduates in different countries is more valid, since the groups of graduates in Mexico and abroad. Before 2006, the proportion of researchers graduated abroad is markedly higher, which, due to their seniority, gives them an advantage in accessing the highest levels in the SNI. The opposite happens after 2013, when doctorates in Mexico are much more numerous and, therefore, also their presence at the lower levels of the system.

The growth of Spain as a training center
In 2019, within the SNI registry, 368 members were registered in Area V (social sciences) assigned to institutions in the northeastern states of the country. Of this group, 45% have doctoral studies abroad. Spain stands out as the main place of training abroad, with 42% of the total members who studied abroad, above the United States, which adds up to 27%. As mentioned before, this is already remarkable if we take into account that Spain does not represent a scientific power, but its predominance as a center of training is even more striking if we consider that, before 1995, no Northeastern social scientist had obtained his doctoral diploma in that European country (see table 1).

State public universities as institutions that privilege graduates in Spain
In order to understand and characterize more precisely how this rise of Spain has been as the favorite training site outside of Mexico for the area of social sciences, it is worth paying attention to its behavior in the different institutions and types of institution to which students belong. social scientists in the Northeast. Thus, we observe that 41% of the members of Area

Level of recognition in the SNI of members with a doctorate in Spain
The SNI is one of the programs with the greatest weight in establishing the new pattern of scientific legitimacy in Mexico through scientific policies that began in the last decades of the 20th century. Within the Mexican scientific field, the SNI has been a "crucial mechanism in the restructuring, re-hierarchization and international standardization of the national scientific field" (Didou and Gerard, 2011, p. 30). The SNI has become the most important benchmark for the recognition that a researcher has and provides prestige to those who are at higher hierarchical levels within the system (Gil and Contreras, 2018). In regional contexts, seeking to adopt the pattern of scientific legitimacy modeled on the practices of developed countries, academics trained abroad have had an advantage in meeting these new criteria (Sordo, 2021). For this reason, in this section we use the level reached within the system by doctorates in Spain as an indicator of their scientific recognition.
In this way, taking the graduates in Spain in the period from 2006 to 2012, 3 It can be seen that the percentage of members with the lower level (Candidate) represents 14% of graduates in this country, above graduates abroad (10%, considering all countries) and graduates in the United States ( 9%). Even so, the proportion of researchers with Spanish diplomas who are at the Candidate level is markedly below that of Mexican graduates (21%) who are at the same initial level. On the other hand, in levels II and III (the most prestigious within the System), only 10% of the graduates in Spain are found, below the graduates abroad as a whole, which add up to 16% for these levels. , and even more distant from the graduates in the United States, of which a remarkable 27% have accessed levels II and III. Even so, once again the situation of doctorates in Spain is more favorable than that of doctorates in Mexico when considering this indicator: only 7% of the latter are those that have reached levels II and III (see table 7). This, in the first instance, indicates that those who studied in Spain have a lower chance of obtaining the highest levels within the SNI than the rest of the researchers who studied abroad, especially if we compare them with those who trained in a pole consolidated as the United States is. However, obtaining a doctoral degree in Spain clearly represents better prospects for moving up the SNI levels compared to those who studied in Mexico.

Conclusions
The results indicate an evolution on the trend of the country which the Northeastern social-scientific field chose as the main pole of training. At first, the United States was positioned as the main pole of attraction; however, in this last decade, Spain has taken a position of greater weight for the choice of country by researchers to develop their doctoral career. This suggests a change in the pattern of legitimacy, and suggests that, for the regional field in question, there is a growing preference for seeking poles with greater flexibility for access to their institutions and for obtaining the titles they grant. This may result in a high number of researchers in the academic field in the region, but a lagging level of consolidation in terms of research and prestige at the national and international level.
Spain as a hub of mobility and Spanish HEIs as hubs of knowledge have evolved positively over time, while countries and institutions with a greater scientific tradition have declined. Added to this is a growing number of researchers trained in Mexico, which, today, already greatly exceeds the number of researchers trained abroad. These dynamics can also be predictable within a field located in a peripheral region within the country, taking into account that in the early stages of social science research in the region, legitimizing agents from abroad were needed to be able to strengthen the field. scientific. As time has passed, the field obtained a certain "consolidation", for which it has been decided to hire members trained in regions with greater access flexibility in order to grow in the number of researchers.
The assessments about the limited educational quality offered by the HEIs of these latter regions cannot be generalized, since the Complutense University of Madrid, the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona have international recognition, as well as some Mexican HEIs.
However, as previously mentioned, it is possible that ceasing to demand a certain level in the pattern of academic legitimacy could cause a lag in social science research, for which the development of HEIs in the region would be suggested. through a greater catalog of mobility poles for attached researchers. This could be achieved with the creation of scholarship programs for institutions with a greater scientific tradition, agreements, doctorates in conjunction with highly renowned foreign institutions, and the help of government programs, such as Prodep, to encourage members of the scientific field of science. to choose a greater variety of training poles, but with greater scientific recognition at the international level.

Future lines of research
As these are preliminary results, those presented here obviously leave open the possibility of being, first, confirmed within the broader research project in which this work is inserted. For this, as mentioned before, the analysis will be extended to the SNI registers for the period 1999-2019 and the information on the places of training of social scientists in the northeast region that are not part of the SNI will be extended.
It is especially relevant, in the context of this broader project, to also address through other methodological strategies, on the one hand, the various support programs that have led to this growth in the presence of graduates in Spanish HEIs and, on the other, how this quantitative increase in influence is translated in theoretical, methodological or thematic terms within specific disciplines or lines of research.
Another issue that is of special interest to delve into future research efforts is that of the evidence found on the advantages for the development of academic careers that doctorates in Spain present with respect to graduates in Mexico, but the unfavorable situation presented by the first in relation to graduates in programs from other foreign countries. One possibility to delve into these results is given by a more detailed analysis of the rankings or recognitions of the HEIs and the specific training programs, or of the differentiated trajectories shown by the academics who obtained their diplomas in them. Another avenue of inquiry emerges from considering individual motivations for choosing doctoral study programs, as well as the institutional strategies of Mexican HEIs that support these choices, and the development expectations (individual and institutional) that accompany them.
Finally, it is considered that the approach presented here can be extended to other Mexican or Latin American regions and to other disciplinary areas. This would make it possible to confirm whether similar patterns of rearrangement of training poles and the prestige associated with them are observed in other spaces, or to determine whether in other scientific and geographical fields other foreign training poles dominate quantitatively, and if these they have been transformed (as has happened in the social sciences in northeastern Mexico) or have remained more stable over time.