Research and the Universities’ Image

Traditionally, and from a Humboltian perspective, research was conceived as an important part of the tripartite mission of universities, with teaching and services to the community being the other two. The traditional idea of universities as cultural and social institutions is increasingly being replaced by another: the entrepreneurial, capitalist or, even, industrial university. In the new university, research also changes in line with the economic instrumentality of higher education. In this article, we shall analyse if these new ideas were institutionalised in Portuguese public universities. To do this, we analyse the way in which research is signified in communication processes by analysing the content of universities' websites. In the main webpages, the dominant implicit social meaning of research seems to be a traditional one. However, a more specific analysis reveals the presence of entrepreneurial elements. In Portuguese public universities, creating and commercialising intellectual property could be an institutional objective, but it was not used in the web communication as such. One could say that, despite the New Public Management influences on universities, the idea of research as an entrepreneurial issue was not yet completely institutionalised and, consequently, communication tools such as websites showed hybrid meanings of research.