Think tanks, policy networks and education governance: The rising of new intra-national spaces of policy in Portugal

• Main Authors: Sofia Viseu, Luís Miguel Carvalho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arizona State University 2018-09-01
• Series: Education Policy Analysis Archives
• Subjects: Think tanks; policy networks; education governance; social network analysis
• Online Access: https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/3664

This article focuses on the role of think tanks in education governance in Portugal, We are interested in contributing to a literature that discusses the emergence of new intra-national spaces of policy, and examines how the actors operating in those spaces work and influence education policy. This article is based on an empirical study conducted by EDULOG, a think tank for education that has been operating since 2015. We mapped EDULOG’s activities, the information generation activities, organizations, and actors connected to EDULOG using a network ethnography and social network analysis. This study shows that a) this organization articulated a network of actors from different sectors, including the academy, business and government agencies; and b) EDULOG acts as a space of social and cognitive intermediation, committed to developing knowledge geared towards policy decision and problem solving.