Bringing S&T human resources back in: the Spanish Ramón y Cajal programme

Abstract

This article analyses a government policy initiative that aimed to increase the number of researchers in the public research sector working in conditions equivalent to the tenure track, and to cope with the problems of employability, stabilisation and working conditions of PhDs. The paper describes the situation of science and technology (S&T) human resources in the context of Spanish research policy and explains the mechanisms by which policy-makers link problems and solutions in the context of a policy sequence, by analysing a case that deals with Spain’s main problems in S&T human resources in the public sector.